TRANSLATING SERVICE BOOKS
© 2000 by Orchid Land Publications 

[20001014]

[In response--not TO points raised by . . . , but occasioned BY his remarks on an online Forum; for various remarks about liturgical translation, CLICK HERE and see additional links on that page.]

      While I am for English translations of the service books, how few are even readable!

     Some have "O" before names (not in the Greek; not in good English, either in the 1611 Bible generally or in modern English); e.g.  "O God."  But what are most monotonous and off-putting are the constant "thou didst" verb usages--which you won't find in the early seventeenth-century English Bibles--and which falsely convey emphasis.  Conversely, "thou went(e)st" for "you went" is not inviting.  And the subjunctive forms and uses are totally misunderstood in some renderings.  (Of course, modern English substitutes other devices in place of the subjunctive now lost; thus, we can drop "should" in "It was imperative that she (should) be on time."  We also use the tenseless (exochronous) verb form in object (nominal) purpose clauses; e.g. "Make sure that they ARE on time." Etc., etc.  Many writers simply fail to understand the structure of English--I suppose because they maintain the fallacy that English is a lineal descendent of Germanic Anglo-Saxon--representing a silly failure to look at the system of English rather than at the words used to calque the functor words used in the new grammar of Middle English--a structure neither resembling nor related to that of Anglo-Saxon.  See  Essays on time-based linguistic analysis (Oxford University Press, 1996; Chh. 4,5, 10.)

     Some modern-English versions that one has seen make one wonder if the person is a native-speaker--stylistic mixtures, even slang and made-up compound words that sound quite alien, plus snippets of archaic English mixed in with what evidently puports to be current English..  Whoever thought up "cherubimic" must have been out to lunch.

     I'm for modern English, but let the amateurs who have issued the bound prayer books on my shelves leave off--please.  And let's avoid the non-meaningful (in English) "unto the ages of ages." whose last word is in parts of North America often mispronounced: ajuuuhz.  Why not:  "now and ever and throughout the ages. Ameen"?  It has a pronounceable lilt and almost scans.  Has any translator heard of the cursus (rhythm of the cadence at the end of the prayers of Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer)?  (The cadence  just suggested accords with the English variant of the planus form of the cursus--there are two other forms--tardus and velox forms--in the Latin, from which English rhetoric originally borrowed the cursus.)  Ms. Hapgood (I think) knew of these. 

     Of course mistranslations of the energy words (in the Bible and Greek fathers), of LOGOS, théosis ("Divinization," not "Deification," which is apothéosis, partaking of the divine Essence--a heresy in Orthodox eyes), etc. not only distort the Orthodox Faith but in most instances are demonstrably heretical.  How silly to call the Reason (LOGOS) and holy Wisdom (AYÍA SOPHÍA) of God a "Word"!!!!--or "Saint Sophie"!!!!!!  Look at Philp. 2:13 in Greek ("For it is God energizing in you all both to will and to energize for the sake of His being pleased") and cf. it with your English translation.  Ditto Gal. 5:6 and dozens of other passages like Eph. 1:19-20. 

     In other words, more professionalism would be an asset.