Skip to main content

Global conflict, the Pope and erstaunlich

I have found the Pope's original speech (in the original german)
here
and the Vatican's translation
here

Translation is an inexact science. It is clear comparing the German to the English that the translation is not that good. (The greek gets completely lost)

I have also read the BBC's report
here
which appears to be based upon the english translation

What the original german quotation refers to is the concept of forcing religion upon people through violence as being "evil and inhuman" and that is the object for which the Pope uses the quotation.

It is clear that the translator has changed some of the key nuances which add to the difficulties. However, where he says in german that the statement by the Kaiser was "astonishing" it is translated as "startlingly brusque". Similarly the nuances are lost in reference to jihad - where the english refers to holy war and the german to "jihad, holy war so as to speak".

Much that a large number of problems arise from the misunderstanding of what jihad actually means, the failure to translate the German well into English does not help.

In a sense this dispute shows the tensions in the world. The Vatican has since 1965 seen itself as holding Muslims "in esteem". Some relatively subtle errors of presentation in German, mistranslated into English and then further misrepresented by the media have built up quite a storm.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NHS reorganisation No 3,493,233

Followers of my blog will have seen the NHS question about how many reorganisations have we had. We've yet another. The number of PCTs (Primary Care Trusts) nationally is to halve. This means merging East and North. (and then probably HoB and south). It would be nice if people would stick with one structure. There is a quotation ( Which sadly does not appear to be a true quotation ) We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. But has to have been originated by someone. The web link shown goes through the derivation which appears to be more linked to an anonymous British Soldier WW2 than any Roman or Greek General called by a name perming 2 out of (Gaius, Galus, Petronius and Arbiter). From the...