Language and Mass

[Cirdan_XII]

Basically, he says that while translation are supposed to be prepared from the Latin text of the missal in reality it doesn’t always work like this and tbh Rome isn’t too fussed. In fact the document on translation, Liturgicum Authenticum , provides that translations in languages other than English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish sent to Rome for approval are to be prepared in one of these languages, with the meaning of each individual word of the vernacular language provided, and that the President and Secretary of local Bishops Conference are to testify to the authenticity of the translation. So, in other words, Rome is happy to trust the local Bishops when it comes to these translations.

In my view the proximity of languages is also a factor that should not be overlooked.

So Itaian, Spanish, Portugese etc are closely related to Latin, not only in terms of vocabulary but also in terms of thinking. It is thus fairly simple to translate from Latin to Spanish for example. German may be a little more challenging because a lot of basic stuff and logic is different. On the other hand, if they wanted to translate something into Alsatian or Bavarian for example, it might make sense to work from an approved German translation rather than the Latin original as again the proximity makes it easier and that re-thinking is alraedy done.

So maybe if you wanted to make a translation into some regional variant of English, I can see that using standard English as an intermediate language makes absolute sense.

But if you’re looking at some Native American language, I don’t think that is really a given.

 

[TomH1]

Just anecdotal sorry but, it makes sense if you think about it because there simply aren’t the people qualified to translate from Latin to every single language the mass is said in.

I am not sure that necessarily follows. You do not need someone fluent in Latin and also fluent in the relevant vernacular. You could have a team of Latinists explaining the Latin text and experts in the vernacular working out the liturgy in that language. That’s just crudely thought out now but I think it demonstrates Latin to English to the other vernacular does not have to be the only possible route.

My understanding, and I am more than happy to stand corrected, was that the Vatican didn’t think the English translation by ICEL was sufficiently faithful to the original Latin. I never understood in the huge furore and many thousands of words written on the topic that the English had to be of a certain quality in order to use it as the basis for translations in to other languages.

I also do not think that would work linguistically. One of the issues with translating from Latin to English is that they are very different languages. English would not necessarily be a good starting point for translating into other languages because the problem of the way languages vary means English is no better starting point. English is a Germanic language. English to Dutch would be relatively straightforward. But, even English to German would run into problems.

Perhaps a solution that will only reap benefits in the future is that more people throughout the Church learn Latin and that it is once again thoroughly taught in seminary.

 

[whatistrue]

You do not need someone fluent in Latin and also fluent in the relevant vernacular. You could have a team of Latinists explaining the Latin text and experts in the vernacular working out the liturgy in that language.

Which means you need some language that both the Latin experts and the particular vernacular experts have in common, with sufficient fluency to capture all the nuances necessary for a faithful translation, as an intermediary language. Which takes us back to using an established and approved translation from Latin into something else, like English or French, as the source.

 

[TomH1]

Yes, of course, the translators would need a lingua franca to be able to work together. However, I suggest working from another translation from Latin would make the task more complex than it needs to be. For example, Latin to Samoan is never going to produce a liturgy that is in perfect Samoan. Latin and Samoan are too very different languages. Latin to English does not work well because of the differences in the languages. Latin and English are both very different from Samoan. Thus to go from Latin to English to Samoan can only, I believe, make it worse.

 

[whatistrue]

English is not and should not be the only option for an intermediary. And whether you work from an existing translation or translate on the fly (as in your scenario) the effective path is the same: Latin (official Liturgy/Scripture) → intermediate (whether an existing translation or a common language of the translation team) → target (e.g. Samoan). And I am not well enough versed in languages in general to say whether there are any major languages that are sufficiently similar to Samoan or not. I suspect there are, but I don’t know.

 

[TomH1]

English is not and should not be the only option for an intermediary.

Of course not and I never said that it should be. Indeed, it need not necessarily be a European language.

And whether you work from an existing translation or translate on the fly (as in your scenario) the effective path is the same

I do not think the path is the same. If you translate from Latin to language A that first translation comes with the problems it will have translating from Latin to it. If you then use the translation in language A to do a translation in language B you can exacerbate the problem. If, say, language A is Portuguese and language B is Catalan there would not be a major problem. Portuguese and Catalan are from the same language family and work in a similar way. However, translating from German (which will not translate from Latin as well as Portuguese) to say Mandarin you are, I think, adding more problems.

 

[whatistrue]

I do not think the path is the same.

How is it not? Whether you are dealing with an existing translation or not, as long as the path is not directly from Latin to the end language (which is only possible if the person or team doing the translation is fully fluent in both Latin and the target language), you have to use some intermediate language (i.e. not Latin) to get to the target language.

 

[BartholomewB]

The difficulty that arises, in practice, when any group of translators sets to work on the liturgy, is not that they don’t know enough Latin, nor that they don’t know enough of the language they’re translating it into, nor even that they don’t know enough of any third language that they happen to be using as a working language. The problem is that different translators have different ideas of what the liturgy ought to be. Only a few years ago English-speaking Catholics were the embarrassed spectators at a seemingly endless quarrel between Cardinal Francis Arinze, then the prefect of the CDW, and Bishop Donald Trautman, then the head of the liturgy department at the USCCB. There was never any doubt about the professional skills and qualifications of either of the two. They simply couldn’t agree on what the job was that they were supposed to be doing. Each of the two had his own idea of what the English-language liturgy ought to be, neither of them found it possible to make any concessions to the other, and they never found a way to get past that roadblock.

 

[InThePew]

My understanding, and I am more than happy to stand corrected, was that the Vatican didn’t think the English translation by ICEL was sufficiently faithful to the original Latin. I never understood in the huge furore and many thousands of words written on the topic that the English had to be of a certain quality in order to use it as the basis for translations in to other languages.

Although all translations are supposed to be prepared from the Latin, Rome was of course aware that many are in fact prepared from the English translation - hence their level of attention to the English translation. At the same time, Rome also required “formal correspondence” to the original Latin text, as opposed to “dynamic equivalence” which endeavours to best convey the original meaning of a passage rather than adhering strictly to the original wording and which was used for the first English translation. While this second issue was the main one, the other issue was definitely in the background.

I am not sure that necessarily follows. You do not need someone fluent in Latin and also fluent in the relevant vernacular. You could have a team of Latinists explaining the Latin text and experts in the vernacular working out the liturgy in that language.

The problem though still remains finding suitably qualified people in the remoter regions of the world or just logistically being able to get the right people together for a sufficient period of time. In some places, it’s not a matter of finding suitably qualified priests as finding available priests when there aren’t that many to start with!

I also do not think that would work linguistically. One of the issues with translating from Latin to English is that they are very different languages. English would not necessarily be a good starting point for translating into other languages because the problem of the way languages vary means English is no better starting point. English is a Germanic language. English to Dutch would be relatively straightforward. But, even English to German would run into problems.

Think more like English to Samoan or Pidgin or Indonesian! English is used because it’s well enough known and also because it’s what they have. Far easy to find English speakers than Latin scholars. In fairness to those outside of the Anglophone world, I’m sure that there are places where French or Spanish or Portuguese is used in the same way based on the prevalence of those languages in the local area.

 

[dochawk]

in fact the only reason I know any Irish,

I know the toast and one phrase–and that phrase is far from appropriate for here . . .