Table 4.1 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Poetic) Translation
Table 4.2 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Poetic) Translation
Table 4.3 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Poetic) Translation
Table 4.4 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Poetic) Translation
Table 4.5 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Prose) Translation
Table 4.6 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Prose) Translation
Table 4.7 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Prose) Translation
Table 4.8 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence (Prose) Translation
Table 4.9 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Dynamic Equivalence (Explanatory) Translation
Table 4.10 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Dynamic Equivalence (Explanatory) Translation
Table 4.11 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Dynamic Equivalence (Explanatory) Translation
Table 4.12 Example of Loss in Form/Meaning in Dynamic Equivalence (Explanatory) Translation
Chart 4.1 Frequency of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence Translation of the Qur’an (Poetic)
Chart 4.2 Frequency of Loss in Form/Meaning in Formal Correspondence Translation of the Qur’an (Prose)
Chart 4.3 Frequency of Loss in Form/Meaning in Dynamic Equivalence Translation of the Qur’an (Explanatory)
Chart 4.4 Frequency of Loss in Form in FC (Poetic/Prose) and DE (Explanatory) Translations
Chart 4.4 Frequency of Loss in Meaning in FC (Poetic/Prose) and DE (Explanatory) Translations
Chapter One
Introduction
۱٫۱ Introduction
The Qur’an, the Word of God, is the most elevated and sublime book. The need for translation of this book has come to be recognized from the starting point of its revelation. Many translators have tried to translate it in the best possible way. The Holy Qur’an is revealed in Arabic and has its special eloquence, beauty, and intricacies. The richness in meaning and compactness of form in the Qur’an has made the task of translation very difficult and in some parts almost impossible. No translation of the Qur’an is the Qur’an, but rather an approximate reflection of its grandeur. Some translators have opted for prose translation with archaic words, some in a poetic rendering trying to reflect its phonetic and prosodic features, assonance, consonants, rhyme and rhythm, and others have tried to preserve the meaning as much as possible using exegesis and commentary. Every one of these translations subjects the Holy Qur’an to certain losses. In every one of these translation types, i.e. poetic, prose, and explanatory, there are losses and gains. The researcher will try to identify what kind of losses and gains occur in these three translation types of the Holy Qur’an.
۱٫۲ Statement of the Problem
The unique characteristics of the Holy Qur’an and the intricate and translation- resistant qualities of it make the rendering of this Great Book very difficult. Therefore, achieving an effective and all-embracing equivalent might well seem to be something quite fanciful as Abdul-Raof (2001:7) states that “a translator who aspires to achieve total lexical and/or textual equivalence is chasing a mirage: total equivalence at any level of language is impossible, relative equivalence at any level is possible.” What really compounds the problem is that linguistic expressions are deeply rooted in the culture. The Qur’an, revealed in Arabic, exerts its own linguistic expressions. Semantic features, syntactic features, phonetic and prosodic features, rhetorical features, structural features, and ethical features which are all characteristics of the Qur’an pose serious problems for the translator.
Among these features of the Holy Qur’an semantic feature seems to be more flexible in a way that it can be tackled by within-the-text exegeses or in footnotes. But other features mentioned above still seem to remain problematic.
Every one of these translations, that is to say poetic, prose and explanatory, has tried to render the most significant features of this Divine Book and obviously some features are gained while others are lost in the process of translation. Thus, in this sense the present study is an attempt to discover what is lost and gained in each one of these translations of the Holy Qur’an. However, it must be said that the present research cannot claim in any way to be a comprehensive study of loss and gain in the translations of the Surah Ya Sean, and consequently is a most humble effort to reflect, however faintly, that the form and meaning of the Qur’an are subject to losses in the renderings, therefore tries to shed light upon this fact. Moreover, it’s beyond the ability of the present study to dig into the depth of the Qur’anic formal and semantic beauties.
۱٫۳ Significance of the Study
Many Muslim scholars have argued that the Holy Qur’an should not be translated because it is a word of God and the inability of humans to render it causes misunderstandings among readers, this is while many other scholars believe that this Divine Book is not merely for Arab people or Muslims but rather the whole world, so this necessitates its translation into other languages.
Throughout history many translators have tried to transfer the Qur’an into English and some have earned credit for their jobs because their jobs have been considered successful. On the other hand, the new translations show that the translations of the Qur’an are still at loss and there is a need for a better translation. This study will investigate the three types of translations of the Qur’an which have their own specific features. Some translators have felt the need to reproduce the aesthetic and prosodic features of the Qur’an while paying enough attention to the meaning, some have tried to keep the balance in reproducing the meaning and the form, and others have given considerable attention to the meaning providing the reader with rich footnotes and commentaries. This study has tried to investigate the most important features of the Qur’an in three translation types and in this perspective, the present study is significant in representing the features lost and gained in these three translation types. Further, the present study has tried to come up with a comparison of the sort to show which translation method and translation type has been the most successful one in case of preserving the form or meaning of the Sublime Qur’an.
۱٫۴ Background of the Problem
From the very moment that the Holy Qur’an was revealed to Mohammad (S.A.), it was considered as a work of miracle and immortality, and beyond human ability to produce any such thing:
وَ إِنْ کُنْتُمْ فِی رَیْبٍ مِمَّا نَزَّلْنا عَلى عَبْدِنا فَأْتُوا بِسُورَهٍ مِنْ مِثْلِه وَ ادْعُوا شُهَداءَکُمْ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ إِنْ کُنْتُمْ صادِقِین (۲:۲۳)
(And if you are in doubt as to what We have revealed to Our obedient worshipper , then produce a Surah similar and call your witnesses apart from Allah, , if you are telling the truth; Q2:23) (Saffarzadeh 2009).
When the best of Arab poets were unable to produce a Surah like it, one begins to wonder how a bilingual translator can do such a thing. Apart from the inability of the human being to produce an English Qur’an, there are linguistic, cultural, and social limitations all of which add to the enormity of the task of the translator.
Quran translations are generally charecterised by what Nida and Reyburn (1981, as cited in Abdul-Raof 2001
:22) call “formal overloading by which the translators try and overuse rare combination of words. The characteristics of this formal overloading is severe adherence to source language syntax, the use of archaic language and formal bias”. Too literal translation as Abdul-Raof states (2001) with no reference to exegetes “becomes a hindrance to the full understanding and creates a cross-cultural misunderstanding”. On the other hand, a translation done with ample footnotes or exegetical help can cause damages to the form of the Qur’an, because such a translation normally requires over-attention to the meaning. Furthermore, a translation which aspires to achieve a sort of effective symphony to resemble that of the original, may entail too much freedom to achieve that, and this consequently might cause the loss in some formal features and do damage to the meaning.
All and all, as stated above the tendency shown by societies and translators to attempt new translations shows that even if these works might be regarded highly successful, they fall short of conveying certain features of the Qur’an, and connoting the idea that total equivalence in case of Qur’an translation is impossible which is axiomatic.
۱٫۵ Research Questions
۱٫ What are lost and gained in each translation of the Holy Qur’an with respect to meaning and form?
۲٫ What aspect of the original, i.e. form or meaning, each translation type has been more successful in preserving?
۳٫ Which translation type/translation method has been the most successful one in preserving the Qur’anic form?
۴٫ Which translation type/translation method has been the most successful one in preserving the Qur’anic meaning?
۱٫۶ Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework used in this thesis leans on Nida and Taber categorization of translating religious texts in their book The Theory and Practice of Translation (۱۹۶۹). The theoretical framework based on this work draws on the concept of Formal Correspondence and Dynamic Equivalence. While Formal Correspondence tries to focus attention on the massage itself, both in form and content, Dynamic Equivalence gives more attention to the principle of equivalent effect. It will be briefly decided, based on the general overview of each translation, which translation method is used in each one of them, then they will be compared against the original text to come up with the relevant answers to research questions.
۱٫۷ Definition of Key Terms
In this section the key terms of the research have been described. The terms defined here are as the following: form, meaning, translation loss, translation gain, Formal Correspondence, and Dynamic Equivalence.
Translation Loss: The incomplete replication of the ST in the TT; that is, the inevitable loss of textually and culturally relevant features (Dickins et al., 2002:21-25).
Translation Gain: Since no particular definition was found for this term, based on the researcher’s review of the related literature from Nida (1964, 1975), Nida and Taber (1969), and Newmark (1988a & 1988b, 1993) for the term it can be defined as a process in which feature(s) of the original are preserved or kept in the target language. For Newmark (1988b:90) the terms seems to be referring to a sort of translation principle titled as compensation and thus “occurs when loss of meaning, sound effect, metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part of a sentence is compensated in another part or in a contiguous sentence.”
Form: Refers to any language form, or structure, in other words, some particular way that language parts relate to each other. Linguists essentially use the terms construction, form, and structure as synonyms. (Abbas Motamadi (Ed), 2008:46).
Meaning: Meaning refers to something that someone wants to communicate. […] we consider meaning to include propositional content, denotation, connotation, perlocutionary force, and illocutionary force. Meaning is not simply contained in individual words, but also in how the various words of utterances relate to each other. […]. Scripture translators have typically focused upon meaning in terms of the original author’s intention. […]. (Abbas Motamadi (Ed), 2008:140).
Formal Correspondence: A method which focuses its attention “on the message itself in both form and content. In such a translation one is concerned with such correspondences as poetry to poetry, sentence to sentence, and concept to concept. […] the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language (Nida, 1964: 159). […] it is basically source oriented; that is it is designed to reveal as much as possible of the form and content of the original message. In doing so it attempts to reproduce several formal elements. As far as meaning is concerned it attempts not to make adjustments in idioms, but rather to reproduce such expressions more or less literally […] (Nida, 1964; 165-166).
Dynamic Equivalence: This type of translation is based on “the principle of equivalent effect” (Rieu and Philips, 1954, as cited in Nida, 1964:159).
‘Naturalness of expression’ is a key concept in this translation and it “tries to relate the receptor to modes of behaviour relevant within the context of his own culture; it does not insist that he understand the cultural patterns of the source-language context in order to comprehend the message. Therefore, as a requirement the cultural items must be smoothed over in translation. It reflects the meaning and the intent of the source. It is ‘the closest natural equivalent to the source language message” (Nida, 1964; 160-166).
۱٫۸ Scope and Limitations
Many translations of the Holy Qur’an have been done during history. Some are considered masterpieces, though they have been unable to transfer the glory and grandeur of this Divine Book as it deserves it. The researcher limited his study on three translation types of this Great Book namely the ones by: 1. Fazllolah Nikayin (2006), 2. Arthur J. Arberry (2007), 3. Abdullah Yusuf-Ali (1937).
These three translation types represent poetic, prose and explanatory translations respectively done of the Qur’an. The researcher further limited his study on Surah Ya Sean.
There are other translations of different types done by other Muslim and non- Muslim Scholars which can be worked on. Also interested researchers can work on other Surahs in this area of research.
Chapter Two
Review of the Related Literature
۲٫۱ Overview
The present chapter is a brief survey over the historical, practical, and theoretical background of loss and gain in (mostly) three types of Qur’an translation. The survey tried to shed light on the aspects of the Qur’an which are usually lost and gained in poetic, prose, and explanatory translations.
۲٫۲ History of Qur’an Translation; Works and Ideological Stands
During history, to achieve prosperity and Salvation human being, while reaping the benefits of his specific civilization, has continually endeavored to benefit from other nations too. The main medium making this benefit possible was a concept of understanding. Understanding seemingly was possible through translation. This can be why translation has been so important among us so that “the first traces of [it] date from 3000 BC” (Newmark, 1988a:3). As time goes by it reveals more and more of its significant position in human civilization, in a way that the twentieth century has been called the ‘age of translation’ (Jumpelt, 1961, as cited in Newmark, ibid). One of this main sources of prosperity and great benefit has been the Qur’an, the book sent down to m
ankind to guide him through the darkness of the ages. The book which was revealed to the Prophet Mohammad (S.A.), has been translated to numerous languages in the world. The reason is that the Holy Qur’an contains contents which are the most essential for mankind. As a result human being has tried to benefit from it as much as possible. This possibility could be seen in the light of translation. Persians seem to be the first people to benefit from this Holy Book through translation. As Mustafa (2009) puts it:
The first ‘translations’ of the Qur’an appeared in Persian during the reign of the Abbasids (c.750-1258). Undertaken by Persian converts to Islam, these were primarily commentaries, but they nonetheless contained much word-for-word translation […].
Apart from Qur’an translation by Persians, Iranians continued to make their valuable contributions to the Qur’an. Poshtdar (2008) remarks that Persians learnt Arabic and “excelled so much in Arabic that they wrote the first lexico-morphological and rhetorical books on Arabic.” These books were mostly needed to understand the Qur’an. (ibid)
It was not only Persians that translated the Sublime Qur’an into their language. In West, due to the significance of the Qur’an, the book underwent some renderings. However, most of these renderings were done, in most of the cases, with the ‘explicit aim of refuting Islam’ (Mustafa, 2009). Different non-Muslim translators, mostly unfamiliar, incompetent, and polluted by bigotry, took up the challenge. As it is clear from the following accounts, works, prefaces, and ideas, it seems noteworthy to say that these people mostly lacked the knowledge regarding the Sublime Qur’an. As a result their works suffered from severe shortcomings. Another factor, as alluded above, which deterred their understanding, emanated from their bigotry and ideological presuppositions.
Generally the history of Qur’an translation into European languages can be categorized into three general eras:
