The Compassionate Daoist vs. the Compassionate buddhist

[Stosh]

Either you can or cannot pass-on the message .

 

If you just put words together in the way that makes sense only to you ,

you haven't translated a darn thing, and you arent a successful translator.

You have an audience and you havent communicated unless they understand.

 

Chinese dudes , who supposedly "get the meanings" and speak english too

translate for folks who dont speak chinese . So the Westerner would have both

the english words ,and the tutledge on the meaning.

[Marblehead]

I was going to argue with you because I'm not feeling very compassionate right now but you gave me no reason. Hehehe.

[Stosh]

Fact - is universal ,it doesnt depend on the subjective opions of some guy 2500 years ago ,

so no one can be said to be inherently blind to it.. Pretending all-most chinese speakers have some special understanding of the subject is boulderdash... and conclusively so ,unless you can show that all-most Chinese agree on the translations they do not. One can google up one hundred translations of Chapter one alone in under a minute all made by both chinese speakers and english speakers ,,, all different.
False.
You cannot rely on all-most Chinese speakers to reach your conclusion. Nowadays, there is a general consensus among the knowledgeable native scholars with a very precisive philosophical, not religious, interpretation of Chapter One.

That doesnt disprove what you are claiming it does Cd.

That there is an elite group that has come to concensus , doesnt mean their chineseness allows that concensus nor does it mean they are correct , nor does it mean that westerners cant come to the same conclusion nor does it mean that I am incorrect in what I said .

Heck I personally came to that conclusion twenty years ago! ,, that doesnt make me have a 'Chinese mind'.

There is no such thing as a perfect translation because the audience always hears through a filter of what they have already accumulated .
False.
It was not the fault of the translation but the fault of the readers with a false fiter in their ears.

Again your declaration of why I could be seen as wrong doesnt discount what I said

Your point suggests rightly that you can translate unsuccessfully to an idiot ,

but then you would have to conclude all westerners cannot understand the material.

 

This (above ) fact doesnt mean your translation can be perfect , ( I said it cant be)

it just means you havent gotten through to your target audience.. its just shifting blame for a bad act of communication.

If you translated to me in Italian , I might get a little of it , but you used the wrong words to communicate the ideas.

You were speaking, the burden is on you to use the correct lingo if I am judging your translation to english.

It would be like selling a swahili english dictionary and it employs russian verbiage!

If you speak both languages ,and cant get the point across, you either dont understand it ,

or you arent succeeding in your translation for other reasons.

but you always have to work in concert with an audience.

[ChiDragon]

Yes, you are explicitly eloquent. I must concede that there was no perfect translation for a perfect audience.

[mjjbecker]

A while back on his Longmen blog, 'Ken' put up a post about understanding the meanings of ancient works. In it it was observed that the scholars-that is modern Chinese scolars-really didn't understand what they were reading. They didn't have the insight needed that only comes from experience and the wisdom that generates.

 

'The wise are not erudite,

The erudite are not wise'

 

Name that translation .

[Marblehead]

Name that translation .

Is that a new version of the old TV program "Name that song."?

 

That quote is one I always have trouble with because I want it to read differently. The statements are generalizations and I generally have problems with generalizations.

[steve]

You are trying to define "interpretation" too narrowly. Even the Chinese interpretate their written characters into mental concepts.

 

If it is not a literal translation it is an interpretation. This doesn't mean that after the literal translation has been done one cannot go through the translation and make it grammatically correct in the language it has been translated into.

 

To add to or subtract from the original that the translation is coming from is called an interpretation. You leave out what you don't like and add what you feel is missing.

 

There are members on this board who do a better job of translating the TTC than some of the published works I have seen.

My point is that there is no such thing as a literal translation of Hanzi.

As a rule, characters have multiple potential translations that vary with context and perspective.

Chinese translation into Western language is necessarily interpretation (of course there are some relative exceptions).

[Marblehead]

I accept your point as valid in the most part.