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NEWS & VIEWS: LANGUAGE |
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AN ENGLISH TOURIST visiting Italy learned that
the Italian for butter is burro. The next year he learned that there are
some similarities between Italian and Spanish. When he asked for burro
in a Spanish restaurant he was greeted with derisive laughter. In
Spanish, burro means donkey.
A computer was asked to translate the English saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’ into Russian. When the result was re-translated from Russian to English the phrase came back as ‘blind idiot’. The words had been translated but the meaning had not. An Englishman who was keen on cricket tried to explain the game to a Frenchman. He translated ‘bat’ as ‘chauvre-souris’ - literally ‘flying mouse’. The literal translation conveyed completely the wrong idea. Children in Brittany in north-west France 100 years ago were forced to speak French rather than their mother tongue of Breton. This led to a lot of resentment between natives of Brittany and other French people. Native Breton speakers sometimes like to speak their own language to prevent eavesdropping by French people. Similarly Welsh speakers sometimes speak their own language to stop English people understanding them. Confusion between speakers of different languages is a fruitful source of misunderstanding, even friction and discord. Even between people speaking the same language there is nothing like misunderstanding over words and ideas to promote strife and disagreement. America and Britain were famously described as ‘two nations divided by a common language’. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY LANGUAGES? It is estimated that there are 6,000 - 7,000 languages spoken in the world (some authorities say 10,000). In India alone for example there are 18 official languages and a multitude of non-official ones. In China there are about 200 languages. The Bible explains the reason for the existence of so many languages in the world. In Genesis we read:
The name ‘Babel’ means ‘confusion’ in Hebrew. It is from this incident that we get the English word babble. The great number of languages in the world today is therefore the result of a real historical event, probably around 2300 BC. Local tradition identifies the ruined temple at Borsippa on the River Euphrates as the site of the Tower of Babel.
The founder of the city of Babel was Nimrod as we learn from Genesis chapter 10. ‘And Cush begat Nimrod…He was a mighty hunter before the LORD…And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel…’ [Genesis 10.8-10]. It is likely that it was Nimrod who masterminded the attempt to unite people to build this city of Babel with its temple or Ziggurat in praise of man’s achievements. This characteristic was later seen in a great king who ruled an empire in the same region of Mesopotamia. The prophet Daniel tells us what Nebuchadnezzar said about his achievements at Babylon. ‘Is not this great Babylon, that I have built …by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty’ [Daniel 4.30]. The city of Babylon like the tower of Babel was built for the honour and glory of man – God was left out of account and so it has been ever since that time and will continue until the time comes when God will intervene once more. ATTEMPTS TO OVERCOME THE LANGUAGE BARRIER In the 19th century attempts were made to devise languages that would be universally understood. Probably the best-known example of such an artificial language is Esperanto, which was constructed in 1887 by a Pole named Zamenhof. He published his ideas under the pseudonym ‘Dr Esperanto’ meaning ‘one who hopes’, hence the name of the language. It is supposed to be relatively simple for Europeans to learn, but how many readers of this article can tell what this passage means (it is a verse from the Bible):
It is claimed that there are two million speakers of Esperanto. There are other artificial languages designed to promote communication between people who might not be able to communicate otherwise. Many of these artificial languages have been designed by Europeans and are loosely based on real European languages, but because of this they are difficult for non-Europeans to use and speakers of non-European languages often find them distasteful. In other words artificial languages can sometimes produce the very discord they are supposed to overcome. Japanese linguists have invented a language called Noxilo, which is supposed to be a Far Eastern equivalent of Esperanto. FAMILIAR WORDS OBSCURED BY DIFFERENT LANGUAGES Nigerian readers of this article may be more comfortable reading the above Bible verse in Yoruba:-
In Telugu (an Indian language) the same verse is:
In one form of Japanese it appears as:-
Or in Italian it reads:
English readers may be able to guess at some of the words now. The verse is John chapter 3 verse 16. But notice how effectively the different languages and scripts prevent us from understanding these very well known words which are so important to the followers of Christ. PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION Language is indeed a problem. The scope for misunderstanding at international level is immense, with all that that entails, even the possibility of war. Translation is full of perils for the unwary. For instance, the English phrase ‘he misses you,’ if translated word-for-word into French, would mean ‘you miss him.’ Some French words closely resemble English words in the spelling but it does not follow that the meaning is the same. The English word eventually means ‘finally’ or ‘in the end’. The French word éventuellement means ‘possibly’, or ‘may be’. So if we say, ‘Christ will eventually reign over the whole world’, that is true, because Christ definitely will reign, but if in a French translation we say ‘Christ will éventuellement reign’, that is not true, because it means that Christ may or may not reign. When God confused the languages of men at the tower of Babel, he ensured that not only would vocabulary be different but that grammar too would vary widely from language to language. As people live in different environments and cultures, special ways of describing things develop within each language group. These are what we call idioms, and they can be very colourful. For example, where American English-speakers might describe a proud person as having a ‘big head’, in Holland it would be said that he ‘walks in front of his shoes’. Translators speak of a tension that exists between maintaining the form of the source language and conveying the meaning in the translation. It would be possible to translate the phrase he ‘has a big head’ word for word into Dutch, but the Dutch reader might then think the man needs a large size hat. The form of the English would have been maintained perfectly, but the meaning would be lost. Similarly a Frenchman had no idea what was meant by the English idiom ‘we must keep our fingers crossed’ (which has nothing to do with fingers). In the same way, to ‘talk the hind leg off a donkey’ has nothing to do with donkeys. The European Union has 20 official languages and about a third of the EU’s annual budget is spent on translating documents and providing interpreters at meetings. The attempt to overcome these language barriers is officially known as ‘The Babel Project’. The 20 official languages are by no means the only languages in Europe. In France for instance there are also Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican and Occitan. In parts of northern Spain there are several variants of Basque or Euskadi. It is the refusal of the Spanish government to recognise the speakers of Euskadi as a nation in their own right, that is a cause of violence and bloodshed in that country. Linguistic boundaries do not follow national boundaries and this is often a cause of strife.
In the Middle East the Kurds occupy a territory spanning the borders of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. The refusal of the respective governments of those countries to recognise Kurdish-speakers as a nation in their own right is one cause of political instability in the region. In 1998 the European Union produced a poster proclaiming ‘Europe: many tongues, one voice’. The poster is illustrated by a reproduction of a painting by the 16th century Dutch painter Pieter Breugel the Elder, showing his impression of the tower of Babel (see cover picture). Interestingly the advocates of a ‘United Europe’ appear to think that they will succeed where the builders of the original tower of Babel failed, by constructing a city in defiance of God and in ignorance of the Bible. Nevertheless they recognise that success depends on overcoming the many language barriers that exist even in Europe. THE PROBLEM WILL BE SOLVED The Bible foretells a time when war will cease: ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’ (Isaiah 2:4. Another prophet, Zephaniah, foretells the introduction of a pure (or single) language: ‘For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent’ (Zephaniah 3:9. Bible students have speculated that this pure language may be Hebrew, or it may be a language as yet unknown to mankind. Whatever the exact nature of this language, it will be ordained by God and will coincide with the end of wars, diplomatic rows and personal frictions occasioned by the inability to understand other peoples’ language. This momentous event will also coincide with the establishment of the kingdom of God with Jesus Christ as the Divinely appointed ruler - a time when the temple in Jerusalem, not Babel or any other human edifice, will be the focal point of the universal worship of God.
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