Tracing semantic change in various translations of The Bible.

This thesis is a critical account of a qualitative, evaluative study into the translation processes and practices in use within the BSL Bible Translation Project, undertaken as a collaborative doctoral studentship funded by the AHRC/ESRC1. It has proceeded collaboratively, valuing the stories, knowledge and experiences of the participants. The data‐set presented herein was generated by means of participant observation and interviews with Project Team members. It was analysed in its digital, visual form using an inductive, thematic approach, and is presented with minimal commentary (Chapters 4 and 5). Following this presentation, the data‐set is further reflected upon in order to shed light upon existing understandings of sign language text composition strategies, team translation praxis, intermediality and sacrament (Chapters 6, 7 and 8). The evidence presented in this thesis represents a new source of data and offers valuable insights into translation and exegetical practice in its own right and, I will argue, as a means of human flourishing. This thesis problematizes previous descriptions of Signed Languages as ‘picture‐languages’, identifying two ways in which such descriptions have been unhelpful, even inaccurate. Firstly, that this nomenclature, with its association with picture‐books and pre‐linguistic skills, has contributed to the persistence of perceptions of d/Deaf people as being linguistically less‐able than their non‐Deaf peers and secondly, that such descriptions are deficient because they fail to fully capture the complex nature of Signed Languages. This thesis argues for a re engagement with the inherently cinematographic nature of Signed Languages and explores ways in which this would yield benefits in the fields of Deaf education, the teaching of Signed Languages to second‐language learners, and the training of interpreters and translators. This thesis will also argue that the translation practices of the BSL Bible Translation Project constitute a clear example of Deaf people engaging in metalinguistic reflection on their own language‐use. That is, that the data provide clear evidence of literate thought, specifically of Signed Language literacy in action, and is further evidence in support of the growing confidence and agency within the Deaf Community with regards to the status and the rich linguistic and material properties of BSL, including its suitability as a mediator of the sacred. This thesis will go on to offer reflections on what the data have to tell us about the nature of Biblical texts; both through how they are produced, and the nature of those texts as artefacts and bearers of religious meanings. Engaging with existing understandings of sacrament and incarnation, including the possibility that the act of Bible reading and translation can be said to constitute a sacramental activity, it argues that this is particularly so when such reading and ‘speaking’ of the text occurs through Signed Language.

A análise das traduções para o nheengatu realizadas pela New Tribes Mission fornece dados históricos sobre um dos textos mais presentes na escrita das línguas indígenas, as escrituras bíblicas. Como o Novo Testamento em Nyengatu (1973) pode ser compreendido numa história da tradução bíblica para as línguas indígenas? Quais os possíveis impactos sociais da tradução de um livro bíblico para uma língua indígena em vias de construir uma tradição escrita? Quais foram os agentes das traduções analisadas? Quais métodos se destacam neste percurso tradutório da NTM? Foram levantados os diferentes agentes envolvidos na rede de textos a que o Novo Testamento em Nyengatu e o Livro de Cânticos (s/d) estão articulados. As propostas metodológicas de Pym (1998 e 2005) e Milton (2009) foram base para a descrição destas fontes primárias e para a explicação sobre as mesmas, por meio das fontes secundárias, constituídas pelas biografias e demais textos de missionários. As questões levantadas serão desenvolvidas com vistas à compreensão das relações entre os debates racionalistas do século XVII e alguns métodos de tradução protestantes. Além disso, haja vista a complexa história social da língua geral amazônica, foram destacados aspectos de ruptura e continuidade destas traduções da NTM em comparação à documentação histórica do nheengatu, sobretudo nos séculos XIX e XX, contida na chamada Filologia Tupi, com vistas a contribuir para uma melhor compreensão sobre a transição de uma língua supra-étnica a uma língua materna. / The analysis of translations to the nheengatu made by New Tribes Mission provides historical data on the most present texts written in indigenous languages, namely the biblical scriptures. How the Novo Testamento em Nyengatu (1973) can be understood in the Bible translation history for indigenous languages? What are the social impacts of the translation of a biblical book to an indigenous language in the process of being built a writing tradition? What were the agents of translations analyzed? What methods are highlighted in this translational path of NTM? The different agents, involved in the network of texts to the Novo Testamento em Nyengatu (1973) and the Livro de Cânticos (s/d), are articulated will be quoted. The methodology employed Pym (1998 and 2005) and Milton (2009) were the basis for the description of these primary sources and then for explanation on them by means of secondary sources, formed by missionary biographies and other texts. The issues raised will be developed with a view to understanding the relationship between the rationalists discusses of the seventeenth century and some Protestant translation methods. Moreover, given the complex social history of the Amazon general language, will be highlighted aspects of rupture and continuity of these translations of NTM compared to historical documentation nheengatu, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, contained in the so called Tupi Philology, with the aim to contribute to explain the changes from a general language to a ethnic language.

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A análise das traduções para o nheengatu realizadas pela New Tribes Mission fornece dados históricos sobre um dos textos mais presentes na escrita das línguas indígenas, as escrituras bíblicas. Como o Novo Testamento em Nyengatu (1973) pode ser compreendido numa história da tradução bíblica para as línguas indígenas? Quais os possíveis impactos sociais da tradução de um livro bíblico para uma língua indígena em vias de construir uma tradição escrita? Quais foram os agentes das traduções analisadas? Quais métodos se destacam neste percurso tradutório da NTM? Foram levantados os diferentes agentes envolvidos na rede de textos a que o Novo Testamento em Nyengatu e o Livro de Cânticos (s/d) estão articulados. As propostas metodológicas de Pym (1998 e 2005) e Milton (2009) foram base para a descrição destas fontes primárias e para a explicação sobre as mesmas, por meio das fontes secundárias, constituídas pelas biografias e demais textos de missionários. As questões levantadas serão desenvolvidas com vistas à compreensão das relações entre os debates racionalistas do século XVII e alguns métodos de tradução protestantes. Além disso, haja vista a complexa história social da língua geral amazônica, foram destacados aspectos de ruptura e continuidade destas traduções da NTM em comparação à documentação histórica do nheengatu, sobretudo nos séculos XIX e XX, contida na chamada Filologia Tupi, com vistas a contribuir para uma melhor compreensão sobre a transição de uma língua supra-étnica a uma língua materna. / The analysis of translations to the nheengatu made by New Tribes Mission provides historical data on the most present texts written in indigenous languages, namely the biblical scriptures. How the Novo Testamento em Nyengatu (1973) can be understood in the Bible translation history for indigenous languages? What are the social impacts of the translation of a biblical book to an indigenous language in the process of being built a writing tradition? What were the agents of translations analyzed? What methods are highlighted in this translational path of NTM? The different agents, involved in the network of texts to the Novo Testamento em Nyengatu (1973) and the Livro de Cânticos (s/d), are articulated will be quoted. The methodology employed Pym (1998 and 2005) and Milton (2009) were the basis for the description of these primary sources and then for explanation on them by means of secondary sources, formed by missionary biographies and other texts. The issues raised will be developed with a view to understanding the relationship between the rationalists discusses of the seventeenth century and some Protestant translation methods. Moreover, given the complex social history of the Amazon general language, will be highlighted aspects of rupture and continuity of these translations of NTM compared to historical documentation nheengatu, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, contained in the so called Tupi Philology, with the aim to contribute to explain the changes from a general language to a ethnic language.

In the present paper the focus is put on the strategies of rendering the names of the Supreme God of Israel in Biblia Hebraica in Bantu languages. The data from 3 Swahili versions and a Zulu version of the Bible is examined, with some additions from the Dabida version. Different names of the Supreme God are used in the canonical text. The two principal names are YHWH and ’elohim. Since the period of the Second Temple it has been forbidden to pronounce YHWH, the proper name of the God of Israel. The Hebrew tradition (known as qere-ketiv) preserved the writing of the four letters of this name YHWH, but it was to be read as ’adonay (‘Lord’ in Hebrew), or as ’elohim (‘God’ in Hebrew) in certain cases. In biblical and religious texts in different languages (but not in Hebrew) the Tetragrammaton YHWH is sometimes rendered as Yahveh or Yehovah (with some orthographic variants). This situation is examined in our paper, as well as the ways of rendering the Hebrew lexeme tseva’ot. Special attention is paid to the usage of the name Allah as the name of the Only Supreme God corresponding to the Hebrew name ’elohim. The crucial issue of correlation between the binary masculine/feminine gender system in Biblical Hebrew, on the one hand, and the noun class system in Bantu languages, on the other, is discussed in the final part of the paper.

This thesis aims to study Western missionaries’ theological debate over the choice of the name of God, known as the Term Question, in the Korean Bible, a controversy which implied a certain theological position in terms of the degree of continuity or discontinuity between existing Korean theistic belief and faith in the God of Bible. This thesis seeks three goals. First, it attempts to analyse the Chinese roots of the Term Question in Korea. In China, the Term Question first arose among Roman Catholic missions from 1637 to 1742 between an indigenous Confucian term, Shangti 上帝 (Sovereign on High), favoured by the Jesuits, notably Matteo Ricci, and a neologism, T’ienzhu 天主 (the Lord of Heaven), used by the Dominicans and the Franciscans. A second phase of the Chinese Term Question involved nineteenth-century Protestant missions, and confronted missions with a choice between Shangti, most notably advocated by James Legge of the London Missionary Society, and Shen 神 (a generic term for god), supported by a majority of American missionaries. These three Chinese theistic terms were imported into the Korea mission field. John Ross of the United Presbyterian Church in Manchuria, in his first Korean New Testament (1877-1887), translated the name of God as Hananim, the Supreme Lord of Korean indigenous religion, on the basis of the Shangti edition of the Delegates’ Version. The first Korean Roman Catholics and later the Anglican missions in Korea adopted Ch’onzhu (Chinese T’ienzhu), following Catholic practice in China. A Korean diplomat in Japan, Su-Jung Lee, adopted Shin (Chinese Shen) from the Shen edition of the Chinese Bible, in his Korean Bible translations (1883-1885). The need to choose between the these three Korean theistic terms, derived theologically from the three corresponding Chinese theistic terms, consequently triggered the Term Question in Korea from 1882 to 1911. Second, the thesis argues that there was a significant theological continuity between the Chinese and Korean Term Questions. The Term Question in both China and Korea proceeded on a similar pattern; it was a terminological controversy between an indigenous theistic term (Shangti and Hananim) on the one hand and a neologism (T’ienzhu and Korean Ch’onzhu) or a generic term (Shen and Korean Shin) on the other hand. Central to both Term Questions was the theological issue of whether a primitive monotheism, congruent with Christian belief, had existed among the Chinese and Koreans. It will suggest that whilst those who adhered to a degeneration theory of the history of religions used either Shangti or Hananim as the name of the God of the Bible, those who rejected the existence of primitive monotheism preferred to use the neologism or the generic term. Third, this thesis suggests that there was, nevertheless, a significant divergence between the Term Question in China and that in Korea. Whereas the Term Question in China became polarised for over three centuries between two equal and opposite parties – between the Jesuits (Shangti) and the Dominicans-Franciscans (T’ienzhu), and later between the Shangti party and the Shen party in Protestant missions, that in iv Korea was a short-term argument for three decades between a vast majority (of the Hananim party) and a small minority (the opponents of Hananim). It is argued that the disproportion in Korea in favour of Hananim was due to the much closer analogy between Hananim and the Christian trinity, as seen in the Dan-Gun myth, than was the case with Shangti in Chinese religion. For this reason, the thesis concludes by suggesting that the adoption of the indigenous monotheistic term, Hananim, in a Christian form contributed to the higher rate of growth of the Korean church compared to that of the church in China.

The topic of this diploma thesis was an analysis and comparison of the Bibles of Melantrichian tradition. In the first part of the thesis, we briefly described the history of the Bible translations in Europe and in Czech lands and then we outlined the importance of Melantrichian Bibles in Czech history and literature. At the end of this part of the thesis, we summarized the conclusions of previous analyses of this topic. In the main part of the thesis, we analyzed differences between all Melantrichian Bi- bles divided into five sections - graphics and orthography, phonology, morphology, syntax and textual changes. We used textual probes into the Old Testament and the New Testament as the method for our analysis. Subsequently, we compared our results with the previous analyses of the topic.

Thesis (M.A. (Translation and Linguistics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2008 / Refer to the document

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