01-18-2005, 01:28 AM
Shlama Akhi Otto,
2,000 years from now people may be debating the original language of the Declaration of Independence.
Imagine that only English and Chinese copies had survived up until that time - and because of their sheer numbers, the Chinese fragments vastly outnumber the English (but don't match the English in regard to uniformity, readability and quality of transmission.)
The English version will have preserved "We hold these truths to be self-evident", whereas the Chinese versions add a gloss - "We hold (that is, we believe) these truths to be self-evident" (Perhaps Chinese does not have a similiar idiom to the English "hold". I dunno.)
Nevertheless, 2000 years from now the Chinese camp might be arguing that in the English version the gloss was superfluous and was discarded. They could conceivably "hold" to the doctrine that, although the framers of the document admittedly spoke (and even preached their doctrine in) English - the oldest (and more numerous) copies we have are in Chinese and that's what we must go by. And O, by the way, the fact that there are several families of Chinese texts that don't agree with even each other is actually a strength.
The English camp would be right in insisting that no matter how many, and how ancient, the fragments that exist in Chinese are - one could not escape from the fact that the framers of the documents in question SPOKE ENGLISH. <!-- s
--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->
2,000 years from now people may be debating the original language of the Declaration of Independence.
Imagine that only English and Chinese copies had survived up until that time - and because of their sheer numbers, the Chinese fragments vastly outnumber the English (but don't match the English in regard to uniformity, readability and quality of transmission.)
The English version will have preserved "We hold these truths to be self-evident", whereas the Chinese versions add a gloss - "We hold (that is, we believe) these truths to be self-evident" (Perhaps Chinese does not have a similiar idiom to the English "hold". I dunno.)
Nevertheless, 2000 years from now the Chinese camp might be arguing that in the English version the gloss was superfluous and was discarded. They could conceivably "hold" to the doctrine that, although the framers of the document admittedly spoke (and even preached their doctrine in) English - the oldest (and more numerous) copies we have are in Chinese and that's what we must go by. And O, by the way, the fact that there are several families of Chinese texts that don't agree with even each other is actually a strength.
The English camp would be right in insisting that no matter how many, and how ancient, the fragments that exist in Chinese are - one could not escape from the fact that the framers of the documents in question SPOKE ENGLISH. <!-- s
--><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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