> The greek used by Greek philosophers is a 'dead' language. It's
> as close to modern greek as, say, latin is to italian.
I agree, of course, the sentence should have read "any other 'dead' language".
> The main reason for using the original language is to not lose
> what those philosophers wrote. E.g., there are some half-dozen
> classical greek words that are all translated as 'being'. That's
> why Heidegger can spend days lecturing on a single sentence from
> Parmenides or Aristotle, trying to grasp what they meant. That's
> also why so many translations into english read like nonsense.
Yes. Well, this is sort of the point I wanted to make. So if
the translation into english must be nuanced and we thereby gain
knowledge of "what those philosophers wrote", why wouldn't an
iterative translation into other languages reveal other aspects
of the texts? To return to greek would be a gesture of the form:
"a in greek can also be translated into b in X", where the X is what
interests me. Should the hermenuetic process here confine
X to mean the reader's own language? Or is there a special living
language that is superior to all others in the understanding of
greek texts? German or norweigan? The "trying to grasp" always, it seems,
involves a language in which the grasping takes place. Which language
should this be, and why? My suggestion was, somewhat jokingly, that
a translation into as many other languages as possible would be
the ultimate way to grasp "what they meant".
Maybe this is not so. But the grasping still requires a language
in which to take place, and it seems possible to claim that some languages
would be better suited as X than others. Did Heidegger ever claim that
german had this quality? I think he did, but I can't seem to remember where,
so I would be grateful for a passage to quote :)
Howdy.
Nick
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