when the subtitle does not match the same language translated voice line
So, probably not quite what you meant but I find annoying nonetheless… Bible translation
It’s almost impossible to find an English translation that doesn’t allow tradition to seriously skew how ideas are presented. And I say this as a secular scholar (and someone who recognises that the oldest greek text we have is very very very old). Messing with the translation just leaves it open to criticism unnecessarily.
Here are some examples…
An “angel” in the new testament is not a distinct thing. The word simply means “messenger” and was the mundane, every day, word for messenger. It was the word used if someone came from the next town over to tell you something in person. Without any of our cultural baggage added on top the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary is - on face value - Mary being surprised to encounter a man who told her things. Same for Zechariah (both in Luke 1). It’s only when you get to the shepherds the field that the messenger is accompanied by a heavenly glow. But this idea that they’re perfect beings clad in white with wings is completely absent from the text and, imho, promulgated by the persistent use of the word “angel” when it should simply say “messenger”. (The NT itself goes on to say people have had such messengers as guests in their homes without realising, implication being they often look and sound like regular people. Hebrews 13:2)
Same for “baptism”. This is also a traditional translation of the completely mundane word “immersion”. It’s translated that way to retain the idea of baptism as a distinct church idea. But the text literally says “John the Immerser” not John the Baptist. And he stood in the river Jordan immersing people. Which gives a very plain mundane view of what was happening - he was dunking people in the water as a purification rite - something that already existed in Judaism. The traditional translation is used so that churches can wedge in their own view of what baptism is - say, a delicate sprinkling of water from a font or some such.
Even the word “church” itself. The church in the new testament is never a building. It means “assembly” (of people). So the “church” can meet anywhere, and in fact met in houses or sitting on the ground in the temple courts. Allowing a special Christianised word like “church” to be used instead of the mundane translation “assembly” let’s people think whatever they want to picture church as instead of what the text is directly saying.
While we’re on that, Jesus’ name is actually Joshua (if we want to be consistent) and his mum is Miriam. Names that are far too obviously Jewish and connected to the old testament, so we get a traditional rendering of “Jesus” and “Mary” and so on which makes them all sound a lot more white Anglo Saxon.
In a similar vein “testament” is just a weird translation of “covenant” which itself is just a religious way of rendering the word “pact” or “agreement”. The old testament is a pact between God and the Jewish people made through Moses. When the plain meaning is made clearer then other meanings shine through more clearly, namely, the behaviour standards of the old testament “pact” were exactly that, requirements of a pact between God and the Jews. They were never universal requirements that the Jews were supposed to go out and make the rest of the world follow. This translation choice is used by the modern church to obscure the fact that the old testament moral codes were a distinctly Jewish thing - because the modern church would like to piggy back on Leviticus when it suits its narrative.
Finally, the word “Bible” itself doesn’t appear in the bible. Bible means “library” or collection of writings. It doesn’t appear in the any of the writings because none of the Bible writings are self-aware that they’re going to be compiled into such a collection. The word “scripture” is used (literally “writing”) when Peter’s talking about things Paul’s written but that’s about it. When translated straightforwardly it takes the “holy” shine off things and it’s clearer to see these are people making “writings” to communicate with each other or remember things that have happened. A far cry from the “inerrant word of god” that the church traditionally turned the new testament into.
I could go on, but rant over…
(Edit: to be fair the Greek new testament writes Jesus’ name as “ee-soo-ss” which sounds closer to Jesus than Joshua but at any rate they’re the same name and if old testament Joshua had been around he’d have been called “ee-soo-ss” too. No doubt about Mary though, in the Greek it’s written “Mariam”, that is, “Miriam”, like Moses’ sister)
Edit: Part 2 - https://lemmy.world/comment/12751501
Biblically accurate angel:
Okay as a Muslim many things about Christianity now make a lot more sense.
This is far too interesting to let you starve us like this ! Please continue your writing !
Since you asked nicely :)
A few more where “churchy” words are invented rather than the bog standard everyday term that was used…
Repent - this just straight up means “change your mind” (perhaps “change your heart / ways”). It doesn’t connote anything to do with church confession or being on your knees or talking to a church leader. It sort of means “sort yourself out”. I find it slightly more endearing (and less preachy) to imagine first century Jewish men walking around Judea saying “change your ways! The rule of God is about to happen!”. That almost sounds exciting. Artificially translating it as a word that we nearly never use outside of a church context makes “repent!” sounds far more judgemental and confrontational than it actually is.
Apostle - this means being “sent out” and there are far more suitable everyday words that mean exactly what a first century hearer would have heard. “Emissary” is one. But also the sense of “ambassador”. So Jesus appoints 12 ambassadors to go out and spread the message, makes sense. It ties far more nicely with the fact that Jesus conceived of a “government of God” that was heavenly rather than earthly. So since we already have a well working concept of an ambassador for that, there’s no need to keep the Greek and invent a church word like “apostle”. (I also think “ambassador” trends to spell out the special role that these original people had being sent directly by Jesus, whereas there are all sorts of Christian sects today using the title “apostle” in a somewhat casual way that I think, in part, is because no-one knows what an “apostle” is - it’s a church word - and that means the meaning can be bent at will)
Deacon - this just straight up means “helper”. In Acts 6 the “ambassadors” find that haven’t enough time to distribute food, so 7 helpers (deaconos) are recruited. Less high faluting, and far more down to earth. Every assembly of believers has a helper or two. Makes sense.
Presbyter - this is a church leader in some branches of church. It means “elder”. Through the new testament, the believer communities have multiple “elders” the same way any village would have its own gathering of elders. It was just a role that connoted maturity and wisdom. Timothy, a young leader appointed by Paul, gets told not to worry that he’s young for this reason. When Paul finally goes up to Jerusalem to meet Peter and the other original believers after many years he’s not even interested in “job titles”. He just seeks out “those reputed to be pillars of the community” (Galatians 2:9). Leadership in the new testament was far more relational and communal that the profession it turned into. Keeping the original mundane descriptive terms (which were not job titles) would help with this.
Pastor - means shepherd. I’ll let this one pass because “Pastor Barney” sounds infinitely less weird than having “Shepherd Jim” and “Shepherd Tom”. Though I believe these are some corners of Christianity where this is done. Even so, no-one has the title “pastor” in the new testament. And Jesus positively discourages the disciples from using titles in multiple places.
Bishop - again this is from a Greek word that’s ended creating its own word instead of being translated. It originates from the Greek word “overseer”. Or, perhaps even more mundanely, “manager”. In the new testament it’s somewhat interchangeable with “elder”.
Priest - this is a complicated one. In the old testament, the people doing the sacrifices at the temple were kohen. We translate that now as “priest” in English but - badly. As we saw above in the new testament the new Christian communities had elders (or managers) with a handful of helpers. The word for elder - the Greek presbyteros - is what eventually morphed into the English “priest”. But this simply meant an elder in a community and had nothing to do with offering sacrifices in a temple. So why in English translations is it the old testament temple workers who are called “priests” whereas the new testament leaders are now called “elders”? Well. In the first century, having communities of believers looked after by elders had a distinctly communal feel and was a far cry from the old Jewish temple system, lead by “sacred men” who did the sacrifices. However, Christian thought slowly evolved to understand that even though Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross had done away with the need for the Jewish temple system, the “elders” in church were sort of invoking Jesus’ sacrifice when they organised the communion meal (eucharist). So eventually what started as a mundane word for village elder came to absorb the idea of being a holy man making sacrifices, a “priest” by our modern understanding of the word. So then both new testament leaders and Jewish temple leaders got called “priests” even though the words used for their respective roles in the bible are totally different. But this suited the then Catholic church just fine, as it had evolved to see a similarity of sorts between the old temple priests and the new church priests. Then the reformation happened (16th century). And a bunch of Bible scholars said “wait a minute… these aren’t the same thing at all” and on their way out of the Catholic church as Protestants they decided the new testament leaders are very much not making sacrifices and and if the old testament is going to have “priests” then the new testament translation should revert to “elder” to keep things nice and clear. And that’s what we’ve got now in most English translations like the NASB, NIV and so on. Meanwhile, Catholic translations of the Bible tend to keep both the old testament and new testament leaders both called “priests”.
End of part 2
This is fascinating stuff. Is there anywhere where more of this kind of thing is written down?
This is what I’ve picked up through several decades as an evangelical, ex-evangelical and a student. I’ve not come across a specific book that lays it out like this. I’m sure there are though. If not and I write one I’ll let you know!
Edit: I’d recommend anything by Bart Ehrman for an accessible scholarly approach to this kind of stuff (he has a blog and plenty of lectures on YouTube)
Great, I’ll look in to that, thank you - and I hope you do write such a book one day :)
When books, especially scholarly books, don’t give the original language version, at least somewhere, of names that they Latinize.
Using the wrong register for the material or topic. For example, using very literary language in a technical manual… No, “peculiarities” is not an appropriate synonym for “features” or “specs”.
“Peculiarities” has a much different connotation. I’ve used software which has had features that might have been better described as peculiarities.
Me when I have to code something in JavaScript
On subtitles - when the person on screen literally says a word in english but the subtitles replace it with another word.
Or when the character is bilingual but the subtitle just says: [speaking a foreign language]
I think people are unreasonable when they want media too be literally translated word by word.
Japanese for instance, like English, is filled with word play, sayings etc that doesn’t make sense when translated.
I love FFXIV, yes the dialogue is localized, not translated, but this allows for so much word play and humour in the English version. Japanese is not a very humerous language I’m told.
Just, don’t mistake translation and localization.
Afaik they don’t know any sarcasm and swearing (swearing in comparison to english)? I believe to have read somewhere on Lemmy how a english/japanese bi-lingual mentioned to their japanese friends how much nuances and jokes were left out to make Deadpool 3 work for the audience.
Japanese uses sarcasm (“needling” through words) and irony (a statement conveying its opposite) heavily, perhaps even more than English does. The problem is that how you convey sarcasm and irony changes from language to language, and Japanese relies heavily on context to do so.
I’ll give you an example: in English you can show deference towards a person using Mr., Ms., or similar. If I were to do this here, and wrote something like “Mr. Appoxo”, it would sound weird (as there’s no reason to show deference), but not insulting.
In Japanese however this would be interpreted as ironic and belittling towards you. Specially if I used a “stronger” honorific like -様 / -sama.
In that situation you mean “Mr. Appoxo” as in my given name?
Yeah, pretend that I used your name instead of your username.
For Manga and Anime in particular:
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Removal of honorifics which convey a person’s status which can ba explained in a translators notes page or a quick look at Wikipedia
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Giving people with different dialects from standard Tokyo dialect different English accents like southern americanese or Scottish. They’re Japanese, not Scottish or american
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Using american English
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Using american slang which no one outside of america understands
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Even though I don’t watch dubs anymore and prefer subs every dub I’ve seen poorly attempts to imitate the way Japanese people speak
Using american English
I don’t even use American English, but come on. This is a silly hill to die on, and one full of linguistic prejudice.
american English is improper English
Here’s that video with Jeremy Clarkson that’s shows some of the issues with american English
american English is improper English
“Improper” on which grounds?
You do realise that language variation is normal and expected, and it doesn’t make any of the underlying varieties intrinsically “better” or “worse” than the others, right?
Here’s that video with Jeremy Clarkson that’s shows some of the issues with american English
>My source is a 1min comedy video taking the piss out of vocab differences
You are being a bloody muppet. And given that it is not the first time, I won’t waste my time further with you, go lick a cactus.
The United States had an official estimated resident population of 335,893,238 on Jan 1, 2024,
The population of the United Kingdom was estimated at 67,596,281 in 2022.
Sauce: Wikipedia
Have you ever seen the movie “Idiocracy”
america does have a higher population of idiots who think trump is jesus and that democrats have space lazers and weather altering technology
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