I’ve been reading Hubert Benoît (pronounced, Ol-behr Ben-wah) and, believe me, if Hubert is your choice of authorities on finding the path to enlightenment you’d better bring along a dictionary. This is more true in that he didn’t write in English so his ideas on Zen, insightful and deep as they may be, are translated from French. Why don’t translators make more of an effort to present the ideas of foreign writers in simpler language? OK, so Ben-wah likes to condense meaning by using single words that seem to succinctly convey ideas of deep complexity, fine. But I think the use of more, but simpler, wordage might produce greater effect. Within the first couple of chapters of the book I’m sloggingg through, Zen and the Psychology of Transformation: The Supreme Doctrine, I’ve looked up the following words in order to clearly understand what the author wants to say in context: ersatz, ternary, hypostasis, scotomy, nounenon, ulteriorly, in situ, chimera, revendicative, filiation, anodyne. This is the problem with translations, I think. I knew some of these words and most I could surmise the meaning from the root, but not the meaning used in context of the book. This might be a limitation of English. There’s no word for that thought in English so we end up with difficult reading. I think the basic ideas and rules of writing in general apply tenfold for the translator. [click to continue…]
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