Opportunity for paid translation of a classical Arabic Manuscript

[LEAVENWORTH Jim]

An opportunity exists for a person proficient in classical Arabic and koine Greek to assist in a paid task of translation. The task involves translating into modern English a short section from a classical Arabic manuscript that had been originally composed in koine Greek. If selected, the translator will also be required to comment on places where the Arabic version might differ from the underlying original Greek. This could ultimately result in a joint publication with the Arabic text providing further evidence to help resolve numerous textual variants in the original early-Christian Greek text. If qualified and interested, please respond with your qualifications and for further details regarding the specific manuscript and payment details (james.le...@ed.ac.uk). 

Thanks,

James Leavenworth

PhD Candidate, University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

[Nikolaj Serikoff]

Dear colleague, I am interested to know what kind of text it could be. This is just my professional interest. I might be able to help you if it is not that much time consuming.

Yours

Nikolaj Serikoff

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[LEAVENWORTH Jim]

Hi Nikolaj,

The text is a second century early-Christian text that had been translated into several other languages. I've already gotten one other reply so I am trying to narrow it down and select who seems to be best qualified. Can you either send a CV or tell me about your qualifications with regard to Koine Greek and classical Arabic? The particular text has been dated to the 13th century and appears to have been a translation from a Syriac version of the original Greek.

Cheers,

Jim

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From: nas...@googlegroups.com <nas...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Nikolaj Serikoff <nikolaj...@gmail.com>
Sent: 05 February 2021 19:58
To: nas...@googlegroups.com <nas...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [nascas] Opportunity for paid translation of a classical Arabic Manuscript

 

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[Nikolaj Serikoff]

Hi Jim, you can find my name online. I am retired librarian (Wellcome Library) and a specialist in Greek and Arabic. I have authored a dictionary of Greek words in Arabic. This is enough.

My only concern are my children. They are very young and require some more attention than usual.

Feel free to discuss the text with me

Yours

NS 

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[William Hume]

Dear Mr. LEAVENWORTH and Dr. SERIKOFF,

There are two reactions I have to this, without knowing the identity of this work:

1.  Dr. ALESSANDRO BAUSI at Univ. Hamburg and his disciples are able to quickly determine the language of the intermediary or vorlage of an Arabic translation, by looking at "markers" in the Arabic, such as the spelling of proper names, syntactic particles, and the like.  Is this the kind of evidence from which it "appears to have been a translation from a Syriac version of the original Greek"?  Or was that a determination that was made 100 years ago?

2.  With the advent of the TLG over the last 40 years, a growing portion of Late Hellenistic scholars have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as "Koine Greek".  (Pace, Father GIGNAC.)  I have a hadith from LUDWIG KOENEN, dating from the late 1990s, that he had learned to never say that some Greek word was "koine", or even was peculiar to early Christian literature, if he had not first checked the TLG.

3.  Mr. LEAVENWORTH:  "Classical Arabic", among Arabists, is generally deemed to be Ummayyid & Abbassid Arabic, and one of my professors thought that it stopped with the Ummayyid period.  Thereafter, it is "Medieval Arabic".  I wonder how many people on this NASCAS thread believe that they have seen a "Classical Arabic" translation of any Christian work.  I realize that perhaps you meant "classical" in contradistinction to "Modern Standard", but I thought that I ought to at least alert you to the terminology which Arabists use.  With that being said, the Lion's Share of Oriental Christian scholars on this "list serve" are well-grounded in the topic of medieval Arabic renderings of Greek Christian works.  

Best wishes,  WSH

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[LEAVENWORTH Jim]

William,

Thanks for your comments. The determination that the manuscript was translated from a Syriac vorlage was made by Basile in 1968. Thanks for the update on the term "classical Arabic". Arabic is definitely not my field of expertise. The manuscript has been dated to the 13th century. A UoE scholar I talked to, who knows Arabic very well, believes that whoever translated it was not very skilled in Arabic. From what I understand it is a very poor translation. Regarding the use of 'Koine', not all believe the term is useless. Obviously Greek at that time was quite different from previous eras when the language had more nuance (prepositions more distinct in use/meaning, optative more prevalent, etc). If you helps clarify, I'll just refer to the manuscript a second-century Greek manuscript (specifically from Ignatius of Antioch). 

Best wishes to you as well,

Jim

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From: 'William Hume' via North American Society for Christian Arabic Studies <nas...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: 05 February 2021 23:37

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[LEAVENWORTH Jim]

Thanks to all who have responded and who provided helpful comments. The translation has been taken and is now off the table. Keep up the great scholarship!

Cheers,

Jim

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From: nas...@googlegroups.com <nas...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of LEAVENWORTH Jim <James.Le...@ed.ac.uk>
Sent: 06 February 2021 14:45

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[William Hume]

Dear Mr. LEAVENWORTH, please indulge another comment:

     Medieval sectarian translations into "bad" Arabic -- such as the ones of Ignatius of Antioch in question -- are often precious evidence of the emergence of modern non-standard Arabic languages.  Somewhat analogous to the "mercantile Latin" which flourished before the Renaissance. 

     To the audience of that "bad Arabic" translation, the text was perfectly comprehensible.  It was DICK FRANK at Catholic University of America who taught me that back in 1991... because SIDNEY GRIFFITH was teaching a class in Arabic Christian texts, and I was puzzled by some of the really odd morphology in the texts which were assigned. 

    To a native speaker of the Arabic language into which the language of translation later evolved, it would be barely understandable.  Analogous to Chaucerian English.

Best wishes, WSH

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