4 ms·

I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s. This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even

I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s. This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical. I connect a lot better with: > "Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on—the same logos" (from Gregory Hayes translation, if I'm not mistaken) https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/0812968255 https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Au...

waynesonfire 5y ago
What a terrible translation. it's not true at all. Same resoucres in the futute? Unlikely. Nothing provides such guarantee. The original quote with thou and thees that you're curious about instead speaks to the intrinsic motivations being available when the future arrives not resources. So there is your answer? Meaning is lost in translation so best to stay as true to the original message as possible.
- unsupp0rted 5y ago
  How would you translate the original quote into modern English? Surely any major human language can accurately capture a translation from any other major human language, even if it requires more words than the original to convey the meaning.
  - dTal 5y ago
    The translation I've always heard is: "Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."
Netcob 5y ago
I agree - I think a case could be made for translating older versions of a language into the latest one, but especially if it's already a translation from a completely different language. What's news to me is that people in the present are translating old non-English texts into some older form of English - is that true?
- TimTheTinker 5y ago
  No, I don't think that's true, unless perhaps there's a tense or other grammatical structure in the source that was present in early modern English but not in present-day English, and they chose to use it for grammatical accuracy. More likely, it's an old translation from the Latin. Many of the translations we have now originate from 150+ years ago.
jimbokun 5y ago
Aren't these just old translations, written when that kind of language was commonly spoken?
- unsupp0rted 5y ago
  A lot of these translations were from the 20th century, with "thous" and "let thy"s found only in translated biblical verses and er, these translations of ancient works.
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    If I'm guessing, they're likely trying to convey the formality or informality of the pronoun used in the original, what's called the T - V distinction (from Latin, the informal tu vs the formal vos) In English, thou was the informal, you the formal, as the subject in a sentence, with thee and ye the object form. Hence "God rest ye merry gentlemen" is better translated these days as "God rest you, merry gentlemen". The T-V distinction is also why the Quakers maintained the thou form for some time, to indicate equality among all men (in the gender-neutral sense of the world), as you implied a difference in status. The question of why the Bible used thous and thees is another interesting rabbit hole. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/pronouns-quakers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/pronouns-q...
dwohnitmok 5y ago
> I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s. > This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical. If the original text used what was already considered an archaic or rarefied register at its time of composition (as is often true of various classical works, indeed this is often basically what a "classical language" means), then a translator, in the process of trying to convey the original author's tone and intent, might choose to do the same in the target language.

waynesonfire 5y ago

What a terrible translation. it's not true at all. Same resoucres in the futute? Unlikely. Nothing provides such guarantee. The original quote with thou and thees that you're curious about instead speaks to the intrinsic motivations being available when the future arrives not resources. So there is your answer? Meaning is lost in translation so best to stay as true to the original message as possible.

unsupp0rted 5y ago
How would you translate the original quote into modern English? Surely any major human language can accurately capture a translation from any other major human language, even if it requires more words than the original to convey the meaning.
- dTal 5y ago
  The translation I've always heard is: "Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

Netcob 5y ago

I agree - I think a case could be made for translating older versions of a language into the latest one, but especially if it's already a translation from a completely different language. What's news to me is that people in the present are translating old non-English texts into some older form of English - is that true?

TimTheTinker 5y ago
No, I don't think that's true, unless perhaps there's a tense or other grammatical structure in the source that was present in early modern English but not in present-day English, and they chose to use it for grammatical accuracy. More likely, it's an old translation from the Latin. Many of the translations we have now originate from 150+ years ago.

jimbokun 5y ago

Aren't these just old translations, written when that kind of language was commonly spoken?

unsupp0rted 5y ago
A lot of these translations were from the 20th century, with "thous" and "let thy"s found only in translated biblical verses and er, these translations of ancient works.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  If I'm guessing, they're likely trying to convey the formality or informality of the pronoun used in the original, what's called the T - V distinction (from Latin, the informal tu vs the formal vos) In English, thou was the informal, you the formal, as the subject in a sentence, with thee and ye the object form. Hence "God rest ye merry gentlemen" is better translated these days as "God rest you, merry gentlemen". The T-V distinction is also why the Quakers maintained the thou form for some time, to indicate equality among all men (in the gender-neutral sense of the world), as you implied a difference in status. The question of why the Bible used thous and thees is another interesting rabbit hole. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/pronouns-quakers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/pronouns-q...

dwohnitmok 5y ago

> I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s. > This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical. If the original text used what was already considered an archaic or rarefied register at its time of composition (as is often true of various classical works, indeed this is often basically what a "classical language" means), then a translator, in the process of trying to convey the original author's tone and intent, might choose to do the same in the target language.