If Latin is so stable and unifying how can there be incorrect translations?

[Eilish_Maura]

Seems there is some efforts to check and recheck things - how can these errors get through at all?

 

[CatholicCid]

Do you mean the translation FROM Latin?

Then this would be the language it is being translated into, not the Latin itself.

Such as if I type something in perfect spanish, then run it through a translator, it does not mean it will reflect what I had originally wrote. One language cannot always fully express another language.

An understanding of Latin itself would be what is stable, as it is a dead language and the language itself would not change.

As the saying goes, the translator is a traitor.

 

[Eilish_Maura]

Do you mean the translation FROM Latin?

Then this would be the language it is being translated into, not the Latin itself.

Such as if I type something in perfect spanish, then run it through a translator, it does not mean it will reflect what I had originally wrote. One language cannot always fully express another language.

An understanding of Latin itself would be what is stable, as it is a dead language and the language itself would not change.

As the saying goes, the translator is a traitor.

So…

Pointing to the Latin translation - which may or may not be the original language for the document - is not necessarily the best thing to get at what was actually meant?

 

[Fuerza]

Do you mean the translation FROM Latin?

Then this would be the language it is being translated into, not the Latin itself.

Such as if I type something in perfect spanish, then run it through a translator, it does not mean it will reflect what I had originally wrote. One language cannot always fully express another language.

An understanding of Latin itself would be what is stable, as it is a dead language and the language itself would not change.

As the saying goes, the translator is a traitor.

This actually reminds me of what I used to do back when I was a grad student teaching undergrad Spanish. I would have the students type an English phrase into the program and then translate it into Spanish (the longer the phrase, the more inaccurate the translation). Then I would have them translate the Spanish phrase back into English. It was never the same as the phrase that they had initially typed. That’s just one of the reasons that we used to forbid them from using the online programs.

 

[Phemie]

So…

Pointing to the Latin translation - which may or may not be the original language for the document - is not necessarily the best thing to get at what was actually meant?

Any document coming from Rome is originally in Latin. It’s the translation to the vernacular that is often faulty, particularly when it’s not translated to another romance language. That’s usually due to the translator’s decision not to translate what it says but what the translator feels it should say. When ICEL translated “Et cum spiritu tuo” as “and also with you” it wasn’t the Latin’s fault. The French translated it as ‘and with your spirit’ but ICEL decided that they didn’t like that and opted to not so much translate as paraphrase - badly.

 

[MusicMan]

Does anyone actually have a fluent command of Latin?

 

[Phemie]

Those whose job it is to translate the documents. And a few people I’ve run across on boards like this who’ve studied it in high school and university.

 

[SMHW]

Seems there is some efforts to check and recheck things - how can these errors get through at all?

I think the biggest problems have to do with literal versus ‘modern’ translations. Latin has idioms, just like English has expressions like, “raining cats and dogs.”

Here’s an example. Those of us who have been around long enough remember that we used to respond in English, “And with your spirit,” instead of “And also with you.” And that’s just one example. The former would be a fairly literal translation. The concern back in the 1960s was that people were hung up on the word “spirit” and were thus so busy visualizing haunted houses that they missed that fact that, “The Lord be with you,” followed by, “And with your spirit,” was really just part of a Christian exchange of “Hello” between living, breathing people.

As with so many other matters, this was a valid concern for a portion of the Catholic population but certainly was not an issue for all. Now that many English speakers have had little exposure to Latin, there is a hunger for the deeper spiritual roots of our liturgical language.

I think the business of “errors” comes in when the literal meaning of a Latin phrase is slightly different than the common understanding of that phrase. An example in English would be, “I’m going straight to the top floor.” In this case “straight” is unlikely to imply that the person will be moving in a linear fashion. It might imply the shortest path possible or it may even be referring to time rather than distance. Any any case, if I were to translate my English phrase into another language, the literal translation of “straight” may not quite make sense. I know one of the big translation issues is the problematic idiom, “pro multis”, (for many), which doesn’t literally mean, “for all,” but is intended to be more inclusive than the English would imply.

The problem is that no translation from Latin into English can convey all the little subtleties and layers of meaning. (For that matter, English expressions used in the 1960s conveyed different ideas than the same expressions do today.) Each time an “error” is caught and “fixed”, the possibility exists that an new error of meaning is introduced.

 

[EasterJoy]

Any document coming from Rome is originally in Latin. It’s the translation to the vernacular that is often faulty, particularly when it’s not translated to another romance language.

Three points:
a) Currently, that is true, but prior to about 600, educated Christians used Greek. (This is why Paul wrote his Letter to the Romans in Greek.)
b) Even translations to another romance language can be tricky, since cognates like “spiritu” and “spirit” are *not *interchangeable. Moreover, the shades of meaning in particular words and even the primary sense of a word naturally changes over the years, even within a single language.
c) Latin is a powerful language, but it is not immune from the ravages of people who write badly, carelessly, or who can’t foresee the multitude of ways in which a piece of prose might be misconstrued. This is particularly true when writing rules. It would take miraculous intervention to spare Rome from this effect.

 

[japhy]

Seems there is some efforts to check and recheck things - how can these errors get through at all?

What type of errors are you talking about? Some of the problem is that the “translations” aren’t really translations, but paraphrasings, some of which often omit phrases or rewrite texts entirely. Take the current English translation of the Roman Canon, Eucharistic Prayer I. It differs considerably (not in a good way) from the translations you’d find in 1962 daily missals. Or the English translation of et cum spiritu tuo which is rendered “and also with you”. French, Italian, and Spanish (for example) translate it far better: they retain the word “spirit” (in their respective languages).

However, Latin can also be translated poorly by someone who doesn’t know the language well enough to distinguish between various noun declensions and verb conjugations. That’s another issue, certainly.

 

[japhy]

Any document coming from Rome is originally in Latin.

Almost. There are a fair number of recent-ish documents whose “official” versions, if I understand correctly, are not in Latin. Examples are Pope Pius XI’s Mit Brennender Sorge to the Church in Germany, Pope Pius X’s Tra le sollecitudini, and Pope Leo XIII’s Vi è Ben Noto.

And of course, as someone already pointed out, much earlier in the Church’s history, Greek was the language of choice.

 

[Eilish_Maura]

Any document coming from Rome is originally in Latin. It’s the translation to the vernacular that is often faulty, particularly when it’s not translated to another romance language. That’s usually due to the translator’s decision not to translate what it says but what the translator feels it should say. When ICEL translated “Et cum spiritu tuo” as “and also with you” it wasn’t the Latin’s fault. The French translated it as ‘and with your spirit’ but ICEL decided that they didn’t like that and opted to not so much translate as paraphrase - badly.

All documents are composed in Latin?

 

[Digitonomy]

Almost. There are a fair number of recent-ish documents whose “official” versions, if I understand correctly, are not in Latin. Examples are Pope Pius XI’s Mit Brennender Sorge to the Church in Germany, Pope Pius X’s Tra le sollecitudini, and Pope Leo XIII’s Vi è Ben Noto.

The first official version of the Catechism was published in French. This has since been supplanted by the authoritative Latin text, and probably some tweaks were made to later French editions to align it more closely with the Latin.

 

[Phemie]

All documents are composed in Latin?

It’s been pointed out in a prior post that some were written in other languages but those that were named were written in the language of the people to whom they were addressed.

But recent documents such as the Roman Missal and its General Instruction; Redemptionis Sacramentum; Paschale Solemnitatis; and the Vatican II documents were written in Latin and have to be translated to the language of whatever country will be using them. Thus Canada needs them translated to French and English, the US to English, Spain to Spanish, etc.

 

[japhy]

All documents are composed in Latin?

They are NOT necessary composed in Latin to begin with, but the official versions, the final version from which all translations are to be made, is (usually) in Latin.

 

[CatholicCid]

So…

Pointing to the Latin translation - which may or may not be the original language for the document - is not necessarily the best thing to get at what was actually meant?

Pointing to the source document would probably be best.
My comment, while specifying Latin as that was the subject of your question, I believe would be true for other languages.

Which particular document are you pondering about?

 

[VociMike]

Seems there is some efforts to check and recheck things - how can these errors get through at all?

Translating committees with agendas.

 

[Titus]

The ICEL’s translations are shocking and an embarrasment often to the word translation. They are just paraphrasals of the texts- such as the ordination rite of priests which in English invents the phrase ‘co-workers with the order of bishops’ not seen in the original Latin. Take ICEL away from NYC to Rome, put a faithful bishop at its head and remove its social agenda- please, B16!

 

[Eilish_Maura]

What guarantee is there that those committees of translators who take a document composed in another language into Latin don’t have an agenda or make errors?

 

[japhy]

What guarantee is there that those committees of translators who take a document composed in another language into Latin don’t have an agenda or make errors?

There is no “guarantee”, which is why translations need to be approved. Now, if the people in charge of approval don’t do their job correctly, that’s another place for error to sneak in.

Take, for example, the English translation of the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. It’s late in coming, because the first efforts at translation were not at all pleasing. Take this quote from the letter explaining some of the proposed translations flaws:After the Orate, fratres, the people’s response … has been distorted, apparently for purposes of “inclusive language”: “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of God’s name, for our good, and the good of all the Church.” The insertion of the possessive God’s gives the impression that the Lord who accepts the sacrifice is different from God whose name is glorified by it. The Church is no longer his Church, and is no longer called holy,* a flaw in the previous translation that one might have hoped would be corrected.
Cardinal Estevez (the author of the letter) admits that the previous translation – the one we have now – has a flaw. The people’s response, in Latin, is: Suscípiat Dóminus sacrifícium de mánibus tuis ad laudem et glóriam nóminis sui, ad utilitátem quoque nostram totiúsque Ecclésiae suae sanctae. This is currently translated as “May the Lord accept this sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our good, and for the good of all His Church.” The word sanctae (holy) is not translated at all, it is omitted entirely. The proposed translation didn’t correct this error.

Why was the error permitted in the first place? Maybe laziness, maybe oversight, I don’t know. But it will not be permitted to continue.