While it is yet Today

Languages change. This has already been established. For this reason, translations need to change along with them. At what rate this needs to be done has not yet been established, but in the case of The United States of America, the answer to that question is obviously somewhat in excess of two and a quarter centuries, but somewhere not far short of four centuries.

This is seen in that no attempt has ever been made to officially translate the founding documents of the country, composed at the end of the 18th century. The orthography is often updated, and certainly the punctuation, but never the language. But going back another 175 years to the founding documents of the American nation, composed in the early 17th century, we find that not only must the orthography and punctuation be changed, but the spelling of most words is so archaic as to require revision in virtually all modern quotations of the same.

But is this a change to language? I maintain that it is. For changes of language are first reflected in in the written record by changes of spelling. In the last century the government of Mongolia, lately free of its Russian overlords but not of the domination of their culture over the previous century, threw out the ancient Mongolian writing system and replaced it with an alphabet based on the Russian one. Why was this done? Because the Mongolian alphabet reflected a language of some six centuries past, and learning to read in it essentially required the mastery of a different language altogether. Now, the alphabet itself was fully adaptable to Modern Mongolian, but its cultural associations were wholly with the pre-communist world of the Mongol Empire, which was sucessfully extinguished by a lifetime of communist rule. During that time the ancient Mongolian alphabet, along with the current Mongolian language, had been academically supressed in favor of Russian.

So when the new governing elite of Mongolia, trained as they had been in the Russian academic system, set out to reform the Mongolian orthography, they decided instead to jettison it altogether in favor of a strict phonetic system using as its base the Cyrillic letters of the Russian alphabet. Since by that time only about five per cent of the population could read Old Mongolian, the change was easy to implement. Old Mongolian is at last extinct, both as a spoken and now finally as a written language.

So we can see here the mechanism by which any written language eventually becomes extinct:

1) The spoken language of an ethnic group is reduced to writing and literature in that language (which at this moment is the same, both spoken and written) becomes widespread. That is to say, not everyone who speaks the language can necessarily read it, but everyone does have access to someone who can. During this time the spoken language is itself standardized by the presence of the written language.

2) The spoken language continues to change, as all languages do, but its rate of change is held in check by the presence of the writen language. That rate in turn is dependent upon the level and extent of education in the written language. Along with this development is the spread of the language itself, along with its writing system, to the trading partners of the original ethnic group.

3) The spoken language changes to the extent that the written language (which can never keep pace with changes in the spoken language) grows farther and farther behind it in development. At this stage other ethnic groups may change the written language slightly to adapt it to their own needs. But without an internal upheaval in the original ethnic group, a language can continue on in this stage for centuries--even millennia. A single paradigm shift, however, can move a language from this stage to the next in the course of a single lifetime--to the point that elderly people are unable to communicate directly with their own great-grandchildren.

4) Prepatory to the paradigm shift, a new language begins to impinge on usage of the old one. This ocurrs through the political, cultural, and economic hegemony of a more powerful nation. Trade and education is more and more being conducted in the new language, although the old language continues to be spoken by the masses. This is an unstable situation that craves resolution, which when it comes, comes swiftly.

5) As more and more education is conducted in the new language, it becomes more difficult for users of the spoken language to master their own archaic written language. This is especially so if the new language has a writing system that is much more in sync with its own vernacular. Suddenly, something happens to bring about the paradigm shift, and the old written language, which has long ceased to be spoken, is replaced with the writing system of the new language. Not in every case is it replaced with the new language itself--but the old orthography is completely abandoned, never to be revived. Traces of it will probably remain in the new system, but at the time it is formed, the new system will represent the current status of the spoken language better than the old system ever could. Interestingly enough, the old language will continue to endure indefinitely as a second language of the educated clergy if its status as a liturgical language is allowed to remain.

I could spend the next month writing about how this process has worked out in history, but instead I will just briefly list some outstanding examples.

1) Etruscan gave its writing system to the languages of central Italy, one of which prevailed over all the others, even to the extinction of Etruscan itself. The Latin alphabet and language so thoroughly replaced those of Etruscan that there is hardly a trace now to show that the language ever existed.

2) Paleo-Hebrew endured for centuries until being snuffed out by the Assyrian and Babalonian Captivity of Israel and Judah. Hebrew remained as a liturgical language, but its orthography was replaced by the square letters of the Assyrians. Now "Hebrew" has been revived as the national language of Israel, but 90% of its vocabulary is either constructed or borrowed from other languages.

3) Latin itself, many centuries after replacing Etruscan (the language of the Latin's erstwhile conquerors), was itself replaced as a spoken language after the Barbarian conquest. First, the pure Latin of Rome was adulterated into the Vulgar Latin of the Barbarian troops sent to occupy the far corners of the Empire. Then, as the empire crumbled and multiple tribes rushed in to occupy its fringes, the various Vulgar dialects developed into languages of their own--dozens in all, which are in turn gradually being swallowed up by the national languages of their respective countries. Latin remained well into the 20th century as the language of Catholic and classical education, with a revival of sorts now underway on the Internet.

And now I'll give an example of a language that has never undergone such a paradigm shift, and briefly explain why.

Greek was the language of the City-States of the first millennium BCE; the language of the Greek Empire under Alexander and his disparate successors; and the trade language of the whole Mediterranean Basin during the days of the Roman Empire. It continued on as the official language of Byzantium after the fall of the West, but seemed doomed by the Islamic conquest which nibbled at the corners of the Empire for eight hundred years before the fall of Constantinople in 1453 brought all of the Greek-speaking world under the domination of a culture whose written language was Arabic.

Why, then, when Greece finally emerged from Islamic occupation 380 years later, was Greek still the national language, as it is to this day? The answer lies in the fact that while Arabic was the liturgical language of Greece's conquerors, Turkish was their spoken language. In addition, spoken Arabic itself had already splintered by that time into dozens of spoken languages. Thus it was unable to compete with the spoken Greek even as a trade language. Furthermore, as the Greeks resisted Islamification they continued to use Greek as their liturgical language, as to this day. Yes, there developed a dichotomy between the spoken and written Greek, as there must, but no other language qualified to take advantage of this weakness, and Greek endures to this day as a language that is spoken one way and written another.

Now, I could write another whole article on what this all means to us as speakers and writers of English, and how that relates to the Today's New International Version.

But not Today.

"Themselves" in the KJV and TNIV

TNIV, Numbers 6
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the LORD as a Nazirite, 3 they must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. . .'"

Oh boy, here we go again. Gender-specific language has been replaced with gender-neutral language, right?

Wrong.

The KJV pre-empted by nearly four centuries the TNIV's use of 'themselves' as a generic singular (italics in the original):

"When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the LORD: Hee shall separate himselfe from wine, and strong drinke, and shal drinke no vinenger of wine, or vineger of strong drinke . . ."

The TNIV is a bit more blatant than the KJV, and even more so than the Hebrew, but clearly the use of some sort of generic 'themselves' goes back a long way.

But the TNIV is woefully behind the times in another point of translation. It's been clear for some time now that the other beverage in question here is much more specific than 'other fermented drink'. It's beer.

Now that's something that today's generation should be able to relate to.

Youth and Maidens

Something else that happened this week reminded me how languages change. I came across an article written in December 1886 by the mother of some public schooled children in Northern Michigan who had attended the school Christmas program. It was held, by the way, in the Schoolhouse, which doubled as the local church-house on Sundays, there being no Township Hall.

She expressed herself in the style of the King James Version, writing such things as:

"And they compassed the stage about with curtains, on the north side and on the south side covered they it."

One expression in particular caught my eye: a reference to "youth and maidens." Now, I knew at once that this was no expression culled from the King James Version, so I did a search on the phrase, and found classically themed poetry of the mid-19th century replete with it. Thus it was that a word used only generically in the KJV had gained gender specificity in 19th century poetic expression. Now, of course, it is back to being generic; so much so, that I earlier suggested it for use in the next revision of the NIV!

Languages change, and meanings of words within a language change, depending on how they are used. To the author of the 1886 article, "youth and maidens" just seemed more fitting a phrase than "young men and maidens," which would have actually been the appropriate Jacobian usage. This shows that although bibline language flowed easily from her pen, it reveals not so much that she was well-versed in Scripture, but that bibline language formed a large and integral part of the literary culture at large with which she was so familiar. So naturally did she do this that without any background information, I could have dated her composition to the late Victorian era from the language alone.

That day is no more, and trying to fit an edition of the Scriptures to the literary language of the day will never bring it back.

Aren't we there yet? OR You've got a long way to go, baby.

Jumping in on July 12th to add one more thing on the TNIV:

I was just visiting the TNIV website and noticed a long illustrated list of testimonials from pastors, scholars, and at least one rock musician. There are nearly 100 names on the list; guess how many of them are women.

If you said 50%, you guessed about 50 times too many.

Now, back to the original post:

A couple of things happened to me in the past week which bear on the issue discussed over the past dozen or so blogs. I'll probably save the most recent for later, and begin with my visit to a Gender Sensitive Church--I'll call it the Shoetown Union Church.

This church is perhaps not quite so Gender Sensitive as it could be, but it's pretty close: while both the assistant pastors and almost all the other staff members are female, the Senior Pastor is decidely of the Male persuasion. This particular Sunday, however, he had no visible part in the program.

The sermon, which lasted all of 19 minutes, included about an 8-minute video clip from a Hollywood production of which I'd never heard before, which directly related somehow to that Sunday's Gospel Lesson. The rest of the sermon was read by the first women I've ever seen wearing a clerical collar; it appeared to have been sewn into the neckline of her dress.

Yes, she was wearing a dress. I don't know if that is standard feminine attire for the pulpit at Shoetown Union or not, but none of the other pastorettes were thusly attired; one was in jeans. Strike one against Full Gender Equality!

All Bible reading was from the same version as was represented in the Pew Bibles in front of me: the Gender-Sensitive NRSV. But a peculiar thing happened at one point in the service: we all joined in together in a recitation of The Lord's Prayer, and it sure sounded just as I had learned it nearly 4 decades back. I grabbed a Pew Bible as soon as the prayer was over and checked; nope, not only do the relevant passages in Luke and Matthew (which, I might add, relegates the closing clause of the prayer to a footnote) shun the archaic language of "Art" and "Thy," the introduction specifically states that such language is no longer an appropriate way to refer to Deity. Strike two against Modern Language Versions!

I was struck by what a small portion of the building the Sanctuary occupied; perhaps due to the 3 services that are held each Sunday morning, no more space is presently needed. But a building program is in the works, I discovered; led, it turns out, by a Male. Strike three against the elimination of Gender-related Roles!

Yes, despite all the efforts over the past 40 years to eliminate all distinctions between the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve, they stubbornly remain--even in the most progressive of denominations.

So shouldn't they remain in their Bibles too?

The TNIV and the Men of Nineveh

Matthew 12:41
"The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one [or something; also in verse 42] greater than Jonah is here. "

Luke 11:32 [v. 31 note: or something; also in verse 32] . . .
"The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now one greater than Jonah is here. "

To begin with, note that the wording of the two verses is identical in the TNIV, as in its Greek text. The footnotes are also identical, just located differently because Luke 11:31-32 inverts the order of Matthew 12:41-42. So nothing notable about the translation so far. Now, had the CBT stuck with the wording of the KJV, neither footnote would have even been necessary; but that is beside the point.

The point is that in this verse (for we can treat both as one), the CBT made one crucial change from the NIV: andres has been changed from 'men' to 'people'. This is striking becuase the primary meaning of andres is 'men'; indeed, before gender-inclusive translations came along, it has never been translated as 'people'. Yet is is exemplary of the changes made in the TNIV, so we will examine it here.

What exactly is being changed? The CBT and their supporters would have us believe that the change is from an inaccurate translation to an accurate one. Since it was the people of Ninevah who repented at the preaching of Jonah (3:5-8), so goes the theory, it will be the people of Nineveh who will judge those who did not repent at the preaching of Jesus. And indeed, this is the only possible interpretation of the verses as they stand in the TNIV.

So what's wrong with 'the people of Ninevah'? Well, interestingly enough, the CBT didn't like that phrase when the KJV used it to translate anshay Niynveh
in Jonah 3:5, and deleted the translation of a word the KJV itself had as 'people'! So if 'the people of Nineveh' in KJV Jonah could become 'Ninevites' in the NIV & TNIV, how is it that the KJV's 'men of Nineveh' in Matt/Luke, which the CBT assures us are really 'people of Nineveh', couldn't just be 'Ninevites' too? In fact, my interlinear Greek NT translates andres as men, italicizing it as superfluous, and translates the following word as 'Ninevites'. But apparently the CBT could not resist the opportunity to give andres a generic meaning here, despite the lack of cover their previous translation had left them back in Jonah chapter 3.

Upon further examination, it turns out that the two versions of this passage are not completely identical. In about half of all Greek manuscripts, including most of the latest ones, the reading of Luke differs in the spelling of the word, so that 'men of Nineveh' is the literal rendering--a distinction from the Matthean passage that comes through in the Darby Version of the English Bible. In the textual base followed by the CBT, however, 'men, Ninevites' is the literal reading of both passages. The CBT has already demonstrated the repeated ability to leave andres untranslated, so one must suspect they had specific motives for including it, contrary to the literal reading of their chosen textual base in both passages. Had they followed their own example here, the TNIV would have read simply, 'Ninevites'.

So who will rise up at the judgment and condemn--all those who repented at Nineveh (if so, why not include all the cattle?), or just (some of) the men? At least the KJV and NIV left that question open to further interpretation. If the CBT had just resisted the urge to cater to the feminists and translated both passages as 'the Ninevites', they could have done the same.

I don't want to push the issue here any further than Jesus himself did; in Luke 11:31, he spoke of the andrwn of this generation,' but no such distinction is recorded in Matthew. So the CBT is perhaps justified in thinking that 'people' are being referred to here. But in doing so, they are interpreting Scripture, not translating it. This was a problem in the NIV which has actually been corrected in a few places (the note at 1 Cor. 11:4-7 being a good example thereof), but the translation of andr- as 'people' has reversed this trend, substituting interpretation for translation every place it was done.


And with that, I am done (for now) with my evaluation of the common defenses offered up for gender-sensitive language in the TNIV.