J І сумський державний І j університет б іблютека

World translation in general and European translation in par­ticular has a long and praiseworthy tradition. Even the scarcity of documents available at the disposal of historians points to its inces­sant millenniums-long employment in international relations both in ancient China, India, in the Middle East (Assyria, Babylon) and Egypt. The earliest mention of translation used in viva voce goes back to approximately the year 3000 BC in ancient Egypt where the interpret­ers and later also reqular translators were employed to help in carrying on trade with the neighbouring country of Nubia. The dragomans had been employed to accompany the trade caravans and help in negotiating, selling and buying the necessary goods for Egypt. Also in those ancient times (2400 BC), the Assyrian emperor Sargon of the city of Akkada (Mesopotamia), is known to have circulated his order of the day translated into some languages of the subject coun­tries. The emperor boasted of his victories in an effort to intimidate his neighbours. In 2100 BC, Babylon translations are known to have been performed into some naighboring languages including, first of all, Egyptian. The city of Babylon in those times was a regular centre of polyglots where translations were accomplished in several languages. As far back as 1900 BC, in Babylon, there existed the first known bilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian) and multilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian-Hurritian-Ugaritian) dictionaries. In 1800 BC, in Assyria there was already something of a board of translators headed by the chief translator/interpreter, a certain Giki. The first trade agreement is known to have been signed in two languages between Egypt and its southern neighbour Nubia in 1200 BC.

Interpreters and translators of the Persian and Indian languages are known to have been employed in Europe in the fourth century BC by Alexander the Great (356-323), the emperor of Macedonia, during his military campaign against Persia and India. Romans in their numerous wars also employed interpreters/translators (especially during the Punic Wars with Carthage in the second and third centuries BC). Unfortunately, little or nothing is practically known about the employment of translation in state affairs in other European countries of those times, though translators/interpreters must certainly have been employed on the same occasions and with the same purposes

as in the Middle East. The inevitable employment of translation/inter­pretation was predetermined by the need to maintain intercommunal and international relations which always exist between different ethnic groups as well as between separate nations and their individual repre­sentatives.

The history of European translation, however, is known to have started as far back as 280 BC with the translation of some excerpts of The Holy Scriptures¹. The real history of translation into European languages, however, is supposed to have begun in 250 BC in the Egyptian city of Alexandria which belonged to the great Greek em­pire. The local leaders of the Jewish community there decided to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew, which had once been their native tongue, but which was no longer understood, into ancient Greek, which became their spoken language. Tradition states that 72 learned Jews, each working separately, prepared during their translation in 70 days the Greek variant of the Hebrew original. When the translators met, according to that same tradition, their translations were found to be identical to each other in every word. In reality, however, the Septuagint (Latin for «seventy»), as this translation has been called since then, took in fact several hundreds of years to complete. Ac­cording to reliable historical sources², various translators worked on the Septuagint after that, each having made his individual contribution to this fundamental document of Christianity in his national language. The bulk of the Septuagint is known today to have been a slavishly literal (word-for-word) translation of the original Jewish Scripture. Much later around 130 AD another Jewish translator, Aguila of Sinope, made one more slavishly literal translation of the Old Testament to replace the Septuagint.

There were also other Greek translations of the Old Testament, which are unfortunately lost to us today. Consequently, only the Septuagint can be subjected to a thorough analysis from the point of view of the principles, the method and the level of its literary transla­tion.

One of several available graphic examples of slavish literalism, i.e., of strict word-for-word translation both at the lexical/semantic and structural level, may be seen in the Old Slavonic translations of the Bible from the Kyivan Rus' period as well as during the succeed-

~ See: Josh McDowell and Stewart. The Bible. Here's Life Publishers, INC.San Bernardino, California 92402, 1983, p.49. ¹ Op. cit., p. 75.

35

English translators of the Bible have already for some centuries resorted to faithful sense-to-sense conveying of this and many other expressions. So they have managed to avoid these and several other literalisms of many Ukrainian (and Russian) Bible translators. Cf. Cush was the father (був батьком) of Nimrod... Mizraim was the father of the Ludities, Anamites Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Casluhites ... Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn and of the Hittites... Similarly in Matthew's Gospel: Abraham was the fa­ther of Isaac, Isaak the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. (Matthew, 1 )³.

Much was translated in ancient times also from Greek into Egyptian and vice versa, and partly from Hebrew into Greek. The next best known translation of the Old Testament into Greek, but performed this time meaning-to-meaning/sense-to-sense, was accomplished by Simmachus in the second century BC.Later on, with the political, economic and military strengthening of the Roman Empire, more and more translations were performed from Greek into Latin. Moreover, much of the rich literature of all genres from ancient Rome has developed exclusively on the basis of translations from old Greek. This was started by the Roman-Greek scholar Livius Andronicus who made a very successful translation of Homer's poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey in 240 BC, and thus laid the beginning and the foundation for a rich Latin belles-lettres tradition. That first successful translation was followed by no less successful translations of Greek dramas made by two Roman men of letters who were also translators, namely, Naevius (270 - 201 BC) and Annius (239 -169 BC).

¹ See: Біблія або Книги Святого Письма... Видання Місійного товариства «Нове
життя». Україна, Київ, 1992, р.9.

² See: Новий Завіт (Проект). - Київ, Біблійні Товариства, 1997, р.7.

³ See: The Holy Bible. New International Version. Zondervan Publishing House -
Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA), 1984, p.521.

A significant contribution to Roman literature in general and to the theory of translation in particular was made by the outstanding statesman, orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), who brought into Latin the speeches of the most eloquent Greek orators Demosthenes (385? - 322 BC) and Aeschines (389-314 BC). Cicero became famous in the history of translation not only for his literary translations but also for his principles of the so-called «sense-to-sense» translation, which he theoretically grounded for translations of secular works. These principles appeared to have been in opposition to the principle of strict word-for-word translation employed by the translators of the Septuagint. Cicero held the view, and not without grounds, that the main aim of translators was to convey first of all the sense and the style of the source language work and not the meaning of separate words and their placement in the source language work/ passage. Cicero's principles of «sense-for-sense translation» were first accepted and employed by the outstanding Roman poet Horace (65-8 BC), who translated works from Greek into Latin. Horace, however, had understood and used Cicero's principles in his own, often unpredictable way: he would change the composition and content of the source language works that he translated. Moreover, he would introduce some ideas of his own, thus making the translated works unlike the originals. This way of free interpretation from the source language works in translation was accepted and further «developed» in the second century AD by Horace's adherent Apuleius (124 - ?), who would still more deliberately rearrange the ancient Greek originals altering them sometimes beyond recognition. This, perhaps, was the result of an attitude of benign neglect by the Romans towards the culture of the Greeks, which began to be absorbed by the stronger empire. The Roman translators following the practice of Horace, and still more of Apuleius, began systematically to omit all «insignificant» (in their judgement) passages, and incorporate some ideas and even whole stories of their own. The translators began introducing references to some noted figures. Such a kind of translation made the reader doubt whether the translated works belonged to a foreign author or were in fact an original work. This practice of Roman translators, that found its expression in a free treatment of secular source language works on the part of the most prominent Roman men of letters, little by little fostered an unrestricted freedom in translation, which began to dominate in all European literatures throughout the forthcoming centuries and during the Middle Ages. There were only a few examples

37

Often practised alongside written translation before Christian era and during the first centuries, was also the viva voce translation. Some theoretical principles of interpretation were already worked out by the then most famous men of letters. Among them was the mentioned above poet Horace who in his Ars Poetica (Poetic Art) pointed out the difference between the written translation and typical oral interpretation. He emphasized that the interpreter rendered the content of the source matter «as a speaker», i.e., without holding too closely to the style and artistic means of expression of the orator. Interpreters were, for a considerable time, employed before the Chris­tian era and afterwards in Palestinian synagogues where they sponta­neously (on sight) interpreted the Torah from Hebrew into Aramaic, which the Palestinians now freely understood.

The Middle Ages (ca. 500 AD -1450 AD) are characterized by a general lack of progress and a constant stagnation in many spheres of mental activity including translation and interpretation, which continued to be practised, however, in the domains of ecclesiastic science and the church. Thus, interpreting from Greek into Latin is known to have been regularly employed in the 6^lh century AD by the Roman church. One of the best interpreters then was the Scythian monk Dionisius Exiguus. The last historically confirmed official inter­pretation under the auspices of the church, this time from Latin into Greek, took place during the pontificate of Pope Martin I during the Lateran Council in 649. Interpreting outside the church premises was and is widely carried on up to the present day by Christian and other

religious missionaries who continue to work in various languages and in different countries of the world. Written translation as well as oral interpretation naturally continued to be extensively employed during the Middle Ages in interstate relations, in foreign trade and in military affairs (especially in wartimes). The primary motivation (рушійною силою) for linguistic endeavours in those times remained, quite naturally, the translation of ecclesiastic literature from the «holy languages» (Hebrew, Greek and Latin). Due to the continual work of an army of qualified researching translators, practically all essential Christian literature was translated during the Middle Ages in most European countries. Moreover, in some countries translations greatly helped to initiate their national literary languages and literatures. A graphic example of this, apart from the already mentioned name of Livius Andronicus, may be found in English history when King Alfred the Great (849-901) took an active part in translating manuals, chronicles and other works from ancient languages and thus helped in the spiritual and cultural elevation of his people. His noble work was continued by the abbot and author Aelf ric (955? -1020?) who would paraphrase some parts of the work while translating and often adding bona fide stories of his own. Yet, Aelfric would consider this technique of rendering as a sense-to-sense translation. Abbot Aelfric himself admitted, that in his translation of the Latin work Cura Pastoralis under the English title The Shepherd's (i.e. Pastor's) Book, he performed it «sometimes word-by-word» and «sometimes according to the sense», i.e. in free translation.

These same two approaches to translation were also charac­teristic of other European countries of the Middle Ages. Thus, word-for-word translation was widely practised in the famous Toledo school in Central Spain (the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) where the out­standing translator of that country Gerhard of Cremonas worked. The adherence to word-for-word translation was predetermined by the subject-matter which was turned there from Arabic into Spanish. Among the works translated there were scientific or considered to be scientific (as alchemy), mathematical works (on arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics, astronomy), philosophy, dialectics, medicine, etc. However, in Northern Spain, another school of translation functioned where the «sense-to-sense» approach was predominant and transla­tions there were mostly performed from Greek into Hebrew (usually through Arabic). These same two principles, according to Solomon

No less intensively practised alongside of the free sense-to-sense rendering in Europe during the Middle Ages was the strict word-for-word translation. Its domain of employment was naturally restricted to ecclesiastic and philosophic works. By this method the first ever translation of the Bible from Latin into English was accomplished in 1377-1380 by the noted religious scientist and reformer John Wycliffe/ Wycklif (1320? - 1384) who worked at the translation together with his helpers N.Hereford and J.Purvey.

Strict word-for-word translation continued to be constantly em­ployed during the Middle Ages, and even much later in most Euro­pean countries to perform translation of scientific, philosophic and juridical matter. An illustrative example of this is found in Germany of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus, the prominent translator and literary critic Nicolas von Wyle (1410-1478) openly and officially demanded that translators of Latin juridical documents alter the German target language syntactically and stylistically as much as possible to mirror some particular peculiarities of classical Latin source language, which enjoyed the position of a world language in those times.

TRANSLATION DURING THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD

The Renaissance period which began in the 14^th century in Italy was marked by great discoveries and inventions, the most significant of which for cultural development was the invention of the moving printing press by the German J.Gutenberg in the middle of the 15^th century (1435). Its consequence was the appearance of cheaper printed books and a quick growth of the number of readers in West European countries. This demand of books for reading in its turn called forth an increase in translation activity due to which there was soon noticed an ever increasing number of fiction translations. Alongside of this, the birth and strengthening of national European states raised the status of national languages and reduced the role of Latin. Hence, translations began to be performed not only from classic languages but also from and into new European languages. These real changes resulted in a wider use of faithful as well as free translations which started almost at one and the same time in France, Germany and England. During this period Albrecht von Eyb (translator of T.PIautus' works), Heinrich Steinhowel (translator of Aesop's and Boccaccio's works), were active in Germany. The new free/unrestricted freedom of translation in France was also practised by the noted poet and translator of Ovid's poems Joachim du Bellay, who in his book Defence et Illustration de la Langue Frangaise (1549) also included some theoretical chapters on translation. Another outstanding translator, publisher and scientist in France was Etienne Dolet. He was put to the stake, however, in 1546 for his free sense-to-sense (and not word-for-word) translation of Socrates' utterances in one of the dialogues with the philosopher Plato. E.Dolet was also the author of the treatise «De la maniere de bien traduire d'une lange en I'altre», 1540 (On How to Translate Well from One Language into the Other). Among other French translators who would widely practise the unrestricted free­dom of translation were also Etienne de Laigle, Claude Fontaine, Amyot, and others.

Certainly the greatest achievement of the Renaissance period in the realistic approach to conveying the source language works was the translation of the Bible into several West European national languages. The first to appear was the German Bible in Martin Luther's translation (1522-1534). This translation of the Book of Books was performed by Martin Luther contrary to the general tradition of the


40

д

41

Middle Ages, i.e. not strictly word-for-word, but faithfully sense-to-sense. What was still more extraordinary for those times, was that Martin Luther resorted to an extensive employment in his translation of the Bible of spoken German. Moreover, the principles of translating the Bible in this way were officially defended by Luther himself in his published work (1540) On the Art of Translation (Von derKunst des Dolmetschen). That faithful German translation of the Bible was followed in 1534 by the English highly realistic translation of the Holy Book performed by the theologian William Tyndale (1492? -1536). A year later (in 1535) the French Calvinist Bible came off the press. William Tyndale's version of the Bible was the first ever scientifically grounded and faithful English translation of the Holy Book. That trans­lation served as a basis for the new Authorized Version of the Bible published in 1611. Unfortunately, Tyndale's really faithful sense-to-sense English translation of the Bible met with stiff opposition and a hostile reception on the part of the country's high clergy. William Tyndale's true supporters tried to justify the use of the common Eng­lish speech by the translator (this constituted one of the main points of «deadly» accusations) by referring to Aristotle's counsel which was «to speak and use words as the common people useth». W.Tyndale himself tried to defend his accurate and really faithful translation, but all in vain. In 1536 he was tied to the stake, strangled and burnt in Flanders as a heretic for the same «sin» as his French colleague Etienne Dolet would be ten years later. Hence, the faithful approach to translating (this time of ecclesiastic and philosophic works) introduced by W.Tyndale and E.Dolet and supported by their adherents in England and France was officially condemned and persecuted in late Renaissance period.