Aramaic to modern English.

I find that often times the way we "learn" something is not always the way it originally read or was taught. When things are translated they can loose something in the translation. Also, since we currently do hold the same precedence to certain ideals and ways of life, some of the meaning is also lost.

Example: The Lords Prayer translated with our current understanding of the Aramaic language.





Our Father who is throughout the universe,
Let your name be set apart.
Let your Kingdom come.
Let your desire be,
as in the universe,
also on the Earth.
Give us bread for our necessities this day.
And free us from our offenses,
as we have also freed our offenders.
And do not let us enter our temptation,
but set us free from error.
Because your are the Kingdom, Power,
and Glory from ages through ages.
Sealed in trust, faith, and truth.
Amen.

Lamsa's English Translation...

Wjen teaching TKD, and talking constantly with a 75 year old Korean, the laguage differences become apparent...

He used to tell me my "mask" was that of a teacher... My person, appearance, my attitutde, the "jestor-ness"....

When Campbell spoke of masks, and another author, Melvin Powers, also spoke of masks, a light clicked...

He also says to students when they catch a move, "you change your mind?" Meaning many things, but mostly "got it now?"

Let alone two English speaking folks...

My co-worker tells me the other day, "I think thrre is a difference between 'being worried' and 'being concerned', andcwe launched into a conversation...

Words are fun, never assume you understand exactly what someone is saying, you can, most often, only get the jist....

Having learned french in school, some spanish on construction sites, and some japanese from martial arts, anime, and manga it is easy to spot similarities in multiple seemingly unrelated languages, as well as differences between languages of a common root....

simply changing sentence structures can change the meaning of the words within it...

even changing the pronunciation of a single word can alter it's meaning...

no matter what languages are used, there is always something lost in translation, something of cultural importance that can only be retained with knowledge , understanding, and experience of both cultures...I can only imagine how much has been lost to time

Funny how I learned / saw the same things you did, and the language list is similar. learned Spanish in HS (3 years), French self-taught years ago, and I learned Japanese from anime JPOP CDs (which I put to the test in Japan twice, both successfully). I've even translated 3 languages simultaneously on a train in Hiroshima (Spanish [honeymooners], English [American business man], & Japanese [local businessman]), which was a whopper of a mind-skills test, lemme-tell-you! Only The Force could have gotten me through that sequence without any verbal errors ....

I'm being serious about that story.

My mother and I have observed this. She is bolivian with spanish as her first language. I am american, with english as my first language. Her best friend sra lopez is french. So when sra comes to visit, she speaks french to my mother, who replies to her and me in spanish, which I usually reply to in english.

Oh, the fun we have with the translation errors.

I can only imagine :laugh:

I've found from experience that often the best form of communication is action....

Never forget the things we have gained from cultural exchange. We may loose things through translations but we also gain things in getting to know other cultures.
Especially here at TOTJO where so many different cultures come together and teach each other their customs and world views. I find it every time amazing in chat when I talk with others about those things or read it in the forum.

Quite right...I don't think I could get by with no anime/manga :woohoo: