The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabic Epic of
Dhat Al-Himma edited by Melanie Magidow (Translated by Melanie
Magidow)

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/on-their-own-two-feet

A small selection of the very large number of stories about Dhat
Al-Himma, ferocious swords-woman in the time of the Arab-Byzantine
wars.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!

But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
suited to our tastes and culture.

Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.

John Savard

On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 3:34:25 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!
>
> But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
> that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
> is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
> suited to our tastes and culture.
>
> Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
> can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
> Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
> there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.

Sir Richard Burton has entered the chat.

A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.

pt

In article <723a8374-bdb4-4b2d-8279-0dbb8e2d1f65n@googlegroups.com>,
pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 3:34:25 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
>> I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!
>>
>> But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
>> that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
>> is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
>> suited to our tastes and culture.
>>
>> Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
>> can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
>> Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
>> there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.
>
>Sir Richard Burton has entered the chat.
>
>A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.

I believe Savard's test for linguistic obscurity is if he
does not encounter someone who speaks it in the first
minute of wandering around his block in whatever unfortunate
community he calls home, then the language is obscure.

--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 7/21/2022 7:43 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <723a8374-bdb4-4b2d-8279-0dbb8e2d1f65n@googlegroups.com>,
> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 3:34:25 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
>>> I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!
>>>
>>> But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
>>> that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
>>> is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
>>> suited to our tastes and culture.
>>>
>>> Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
>>> can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
>>> Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
>>> there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.
>>
>> Sir Richard Burton has entered the chat.
>>
>> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.
>
> I believe Savard's test for linguistic obscurity is if he
> does not encounter someone who speaks it in the first
> minute of wandering around his block in whatever unfortunate
> community he calls home, then the language is obscure.
>
I believe that is a generous description. Personally one finds it more
likely that if Mr. Savard doesn't speak it fluently himself he considers
it obscure.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:34:23 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!
>
>But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
>that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
>is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
>suited to our tastes and culture.
>
>Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
>can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
>Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
>there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.

Modern Standard Arabic is neither obscure nor difficult.

We learned the grammar (all the grammar) in six weeks at DLI in 1970.
The same amount of time we spent learning the sounds and other aspects
of speaking it. (We learned to speak it [in the most basic sense of
producing the sounds correctly and similar issues] first.)

The remaining 36 weeks were spent in building vocabulary. /There/ we
found why Arabic is considered "difficult": not being an Indo-European
language, there are almost no cognates with English. [1] And the
prepositions don't map well to the English prepositions either.

BTW, Modern Standard Arabic is like Hochdeutsch: the dialects are
quite different. Our last six weeks included an introduction to a
dialect. Which was mostly about -- vocabulary.

Russian, OTOH, has so much grammar that the Basic Course only covers
-- well, most of it. The Intermediate Course consisted of /two/ runs
through the complete grammar. OTOH, cognates abounded, so the
vocabulary was much easier to acquire.

[1] And they are loan-words, like "democracy", or loan-concepts, like
"capital" (in the business sense), which was rendered into Arabic in
an appalling hyphenated monstrosity that would be translated literally
as "head-money". As might be imagined, these stick out like sore
thumbs.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

In article <723a8374-bdb4-4b2d-8279-0dbb8e2d1f65n@googlegroups.com>,
"pete...@gmail.com" <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 3:34:25 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> > I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!
> >
> > But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
> > that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
> > is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
> > suited to our tastes and culture.
> >
> > Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
> > can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
> > Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
> > there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.
>
> Sir Richard Burton has entered the chat.
>
> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.
>

Only 274 million? I thought there would be more, if only as a 2nd
language.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

On Thursday, 21 July 2022 at 15:22:27 UTC+1, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 3:34:25 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> > I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!
> >
> > But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
> > that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
> > is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
> > suited to our tastes and culture.
> >
> > Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
> > can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
> > Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
> > there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.
> Sir Richard Burton has entered the chat.

(Not the Welsh actor.)

> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.

So does <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhemma>
just not have enough of what he was into? Indeed,
of four treatments in English mentioned, Melanie Magidow's
volume is the only "translation". Which I think perhaps
Sir Richard Burton (not the actor) would have enjoyed.
For all that I know, Sir Richard Burton, the actor, could have.

And while Wikipedia offers pages on the topic in four other
languages, the only other one one in Roman letter is the
Portuguese, and it says it's mainly a copy of the page in English.

Are we to conclude that the French didn't take it up, either?

On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 8:22:27 AM UTC-6, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 3:34:25 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> > I'm surprised the whole thing hadn't been translated long ago!
> >
> > But then, Arabic is so difficult and obscure a language
> > that translating this sort of literature into English perhaps
> > is not less difficult than writing similar literature but more
> > suited to our tastes and culture.
> >
> > Except, of course, there are plenty of people _now_ who
> > can speak Arabic perfectly, without being scholars of
> > Arabic... immigrants from Arabic-speaking lands. But
> > there were not many of them in the nineteenth century.

> Sir Richard Burton has entered the chat.
>
> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.

Well, I *noted* all those people who can speak Arabic who
_now_ live in our cities. So it would certainly seem that Arabic
isn't as obscure as it once had the reputation of being.

It's the fact that Sir Richard Burton was so celebrated and
so long remembered *for* translating a work from Arabic
that illustrates just how obscure it was. When he died,
stuff stopped being translated out of Arabic! At least for
a time, and to a limited extent.

So stuff wasn't being translated out of Arabic _en masse_
the way it got translated from French, German, or even
Russian!

John Savard

On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 8:48:34 AM UTC-6, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

> I believe that is a generous description. Personally one finds it more
> likely that if Mr. Savard doesn't speak it fluently himself he considers
> it obscure.

No, that would merely cause me to consider the language to
be "other than English".

John Savard

On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 4:26:57 PM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> So does <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhemma>
> just not have enough of what he was into? Indeed,
> of four treatments in English mentioned, Melanie Magidow's
> volume is the only "translation".

I looked around. Google Books has no preview of one copy
of the Cairo edition.

But one of the "four treatments in English" that wasn't a
translation did have a link in it, which was still valid, to
a *manuscript copy* of the work on Gallica.

However, as I'm not planning to learn Arabic and follow in
the steps of that other Richard Burton who didn't marry
Elizabeth Taylor, it was not worth the bandwidth to download
it for me.

Still, if it is for you, why should my effort have to be duplicated
by others:

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b110030718/f4.item

John Savard

On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 8:22:27 AM UTC-6, pete...@gmail.com wrote:

> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.

What does that have to do with whether a language is
obscure or not?

The next thing you know, you'll be telling me that
Columbus didn't discover America, because there were
already people living there when he found it!

If the point of the preceding sentence is obscure to you,
I shall now explain it: by "obscure", I mean relatively
ignored by the academic community *of Europe* (and,
subsequently, North America, when that part of the
world got going, a bit before the 19th Century).

Thus it's perfectly possible for even Chinese to be obscure -
and, in Europe, it very _definitely_ was before Marco Polo
returned home. The efforts of Robert Morrison and
Herbert Giles, among others, helped a little...

John Savard

On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 8:43:25 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:

> I believe Savard's test for linguistic obscurity is if he
> does not encounter someone who speaks it in the first
> minute of wandering around his block in whatever unfortunate
> community he calls home, then the language is obscure.

In that case, at least some of the languages written in
the Amharic script are not obscure... and Ukrainian and
French would likely qualify as well, at least on some
days. And Cree... oops, sorry, Nehiyawak.

John Savard

On Thu, 21 Jul 2022 15:57:16 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 8:22:27 AM UTC-6, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.
>
>What does that have to do with whether a language is
>obscure or not?
>
>The next thing you know, you'll be telling me that
>Columbus didn't discover America, because there were
>already people living there when he found it!
>
>If the point of the preceding sentence is obscure to you,
>I shall now explain it: by "obscure", I mean relatively
>ignored by the academic community *of Europe* (and,
>subsequently, North America, when that part of the
>world got going, a bit before the 19th Century).

The current academic community of Europe, maybe.

But in the past, several works were translated from Arabic by
Europeans: Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra#Al-jabr_wa'l_muqabalah>
(from which the word "algebra" comes), Aristotle, Almagest
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest#Names> (from the Arabic for
the Greek for "the greatest"; thus, "The Almagest" is "The The
Greatest") and, no doubt, many others, some original in Arabic, some
translated from Greek (or other languages).

The cultural importance of Arabic to Europe cannot be underestimated.

>Thus it's perfectly possible for even Chinese to be obscure -
>and, in Europe, it very _definitely_ was before Marco Polo
>returned home. The efforts of Robert Morrison and
>Herbert Giles, among others, helped a little...
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Friday, July 22, 2022 at 4:51:59 PM UTC+1, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jul 2022 15:57:16 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 8:22:27 AM UTC-6, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.
> >
> >What does that have to do with whether a language is
> >obscure or not?
> >
> >The next thing you know, you'll be telling me that
> >Columbus didn't discover America, because there were
> >already people living there when he found it!
> >
> >If the point of the preceding sentence is obscure to you,
> >I shall now explain it: by "obscure", I mean relatively
> >ignored by the academic community *of Europe* (and,
> >subsequently, North America, when that part of the
> >world got going, a bit before the 19th Century).
> The current academic community of Europe, maybe.
>
> But in the past, several works were translated from Arabic by
> Europeans: Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra#Al-jabr_wa'l_muqabalah>
> (from which the word "algebra" comes), Aristotle, Almagest
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest#Names> (from the Arabic for
> the Greek for "the greatest"; thus, "The Almagest" is "The The
> Greatest") and, no doubt, many others, some original in Arabic, some
> translated from Greek (or other languages).
>
> The cultural importance of Arabic to Europe cannot be underestimated.
(trimmed)
I am being picky, but if you look again at "The cultural importance of Arabic to Europe cannot be underestimated." I think you will find that you have succeeded in doing just that, and you meant to say overestimated.

There is a discussion of UK and US views of hard languages at http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10304&get=last (so from the perspective of native English speakers)

On Friday, July 22, 2022 at 9:51:59 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> But in the past, several works were translated from Arabic by
> Europeans: Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra#Al-jabr_wa'l_muqabalah>
> (from which the word "algebra" comes), Aristotle, Almagest
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest#Names> (from the Arabic for
> the Greek for "the greatest"; thus, "The Almagest" is "The The
> Greatest") and, no doubt, many others, some original in Arabic, some
> translated from Greek (or other languages).

You raise an important point.

Many works from classical Greece were preserved by the Nestorian Christians,
and then, after the Arabs wiped them out, they took custody of those works and
preserved them too. And stuff like the Elements of Euclid certainly got translated.

I could think of two possibilities:

1) The Arabian Nights was harder to translate, since as a work of fiction, more
familiarity with cultural nuances was required - and it wasn't written in standard,
plain Arabic, so Burton had to delve very deeply into the language.

2) Possibly when these works of antiquity, preserved by the Arabs - plus a few
of their own - jump-started the Renaissance, Europe had a bunch of Jewish
refugees handy who had a knowledge of Arabic to do the work.

John Savard

On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 09:55:17 -0700 (PDT), Andrew McDowell
<mcdowell_ag@sky.com> wrote:

>On Friday, July 22, 2022 at 4:51:59 PM UTC+1, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Jul 2022 15:57:16 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >On Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 8:22:27 AM UTC-6, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >
>> >> A language spoken by 274 million people is not obscure.
>> >
>> >What does that have to do with whether a language is
>> >obscure or not?
>> >
>> >The next thing you know, you'll be telling me that
>> >Columbus didn't discover America, because there were
>> >already people living there when he found it!
>> >
>> >If the point of the preceding sentence is obscure to you,
>> >I shall now explain it: by "obscure", I mean relatively
>> >ignored by the academic community *of Europe* (and,
>> >subsequently, North America, when that part of the
>> >world got going, a bit before the 19th Century).
>> The current academic community of Europe, maybe.
>>
>> But in the past, several works were translated from Arabic by
>> Europeans: Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra#Al-jabr_wa'l_muqabalah>
>> (from which the word "algebra" comes), Aristotle, Almagest
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest#Names> (from the Arabic for
>> the Greek for "the greatest"; thus, "The Almagest" is "The The
>> Greatest") and, no doubt, many others, some original in Arabic, some
>> translated from Greek (or other languages).
>>
>> The cultural importance of Arabic to Europe cannot be underestimated.
>(trimmed)
>I am being picky, but if you look again at "The cultural importance of Arabic to Europe cannot be underestimated." I think you will find that you have succeeded in doing just that, and you meant to say overestimated.

Oh, well.

I suppose it's too large to be considered a typo ...

Thanks for catching that!

>There is a discussion of UK and US views of hard languages at http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10304&get=last (so from the perspective of native English speakers)
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 21:49:15 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Friday, July 22, 2022 at 9:51:59 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>
>> But in the past, several works were translated from Arabic by
>> Europeans: Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra#Al-jabr_wa'l_muqabalah>
>> (from which the word "algebra" comes), Aristotle, Almagest
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest#Names> (from the Arabic for
>> the Greek for "the greatest"; thus, "The Almagest" is "The The
>> Greatest") and, no doubt, many others, some original in Arabic, some
>> translated from Greek (or other languages).
>
>You raise an important point.
>
>Many works from classical Greece were preserved by the Nestorian Christians,
>and then, after the Arabs wiped them out, they took custody of those works and
>preserved them too. And stuff like the Elements of Euclid certainly got translated.
>
>I could think of two possibilities:
>
>1) The Arabian Nights was harder to translate, since as a work of fiction, more
>familiarity with cultural nuances was required - and it wasn't written in standard,
>plain Arabic, so Burton had to delve very deeply into the language.

The Mardrus & Mathers translation (from Arabic to French and then from
French to English) that I bought (in four sturdy paperback volumes)
was done about 10 years after Burton. So you may be correct, although
Burton himself followed Payne's and, since Burton advised Payne, some
plagiarism may have occurred.

>2) Possibly when these works of antiquity, preserved by the Arabs - plus a few
>of their own - jump-started the Renaissance, Europe had a bunch of Jewish
>refugees handy who had a knowledge of Arabic to do the work.

Or at least to teach it to Western scholars. IIRC, most if not all of
these works were tranlated into Latin and read by most scholars in
that language.

Then again, Luther apparently consulted one or more Rabbis while
translating OT names for things were not clearly described, so some
interaction definitely happened.

A word that is just used, especially in a list, in one place with no
additional information can be /very/ hard to translate. Even if it is
a compound and the components are known (consider "understand", which
does /not/ mean "stand under" -- or, at least, not very often).

And yet, in some older British films, when the Judges enter and we
here "Be upstanding in Court", everybody -- stands up.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

In article <j26odhhk17adjt5a31ca44rem55eqoml2l@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 21:49:15 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
><jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>>On Friday, July 22, 2022 at 9:51:59 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>>
>>> But in the past, several works were translated from Arabic by
>>> Europeans: Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra#Al-jabr_wa'l_muqabalah>
>>> (from which the word "algebra" comes), Aristotle, Almagest
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest#Names> (from the Arabic for
>>> the Greek for "the greatest"; thus, "The Almagest" is "The The
>>> Greatest") and, no doubt, many others, some original in Arabic, some
>>> translated from Greek (or other languages).
>>
>>You raise an important point.
>>
>>Many works from classical Greece were preserved by the Nestorian Christians,
>>and then, after the Arabs wiped them out, they took custody of those works and
>>preserved them too. And stuff like the Elements of Euclid certainly got
>translated.
>>
>>I could think of two possibilities:
>>
>>1) The Arabian Nights was harder to translate, since as a work of fiction, more
>>familiarity with cultural nuances was required - and it wasn't written
>in standard,
>>plain Arabic, so Burton had to delve very deeply into the language.
>
>The Mardrus & Mathers translation (from Arabic to French and then from
>French to English) that I bought (in four sturdy paperback volumes)
>was done about 10 years after Burton. So you may be correct, although
>Burton himself followed Payne's and, since Burton advised Payne, some
>plagiarism may have occurred.
>
>>2) Possibly when these works of antiquity, preserved by the Arabs - plus a few
>>of their own - jump-started the Renaissance, Europe had a bunch of Jewish
>>refugees handy who had a knowledge of Arabic to do the work.
>
>Or at least to teach it to Western scholars. IIRC, most if not all of
>these works were tranlated into Latin and read by most scholars in
>that language.
>
>Then again, Luther apparently consulted one or more Rabbis while
>translating OT names for things were not clearly described, so some
>interaction definitely happened.
>
>A word that is just used, especially in a list, in one place with no
>additional information can be /very/ hard to translate. Even if it is
>a compound and the components are known (consider "understand", which
>does /not/ mean "stand under" -- or, at least, not very often).
>
>And yet, in some older British films, when the Judges enter and we
>here "Be upstanding in Court", everybody -- stands up.

Stand may
----- though you ------- things.
I state
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On Wednesday, 20 July 2022 at 13:35:54 UTC+1, James Nicoll wrote:
> The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabic Epic of
> Dhat Al-Himma edited by Melanie Magidow (Translated by Melanie
> Magidow)
>
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/on-their-own-two-feet
>
> A small selection of the very large number of stories about Dhat
> Al-Himma, ferocious swords-woman in the time of the Arab-Byzantine
> wars.

I'm not sure where to hang this thought but I think they
said in <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0081kdb>
(though I may misremember) that the homeland of
"The Arabian Nights" doesn't regard it as great classic
literature, even if popular, and that may also apply to Fatima.
The work I mention, being "a patchwork of sex, violence,
magic, adventure, and cruelty", did appeal mightily to
Europeans, once they got their hands on versions of it.

On 23 Jul 2022 16:13:10 GMT, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan
<tednolan>) wrote:

>In article <j26odhhk17adjt5a31ca44rem55eqoml2l@4ax.com>,
>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 21:49:15 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>><jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>On Friday, July 22, 2022 at 9:51:59 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>
>>>> But in the past, several works were translated from Arabic by
>>>> Europeans: Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra#Al-jabr_wa'l_muqabalah>
>>>> (from which the word "algebra" comes), Aristotle, Almagest
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest#Names> (from the Arabic for
>>>> the Greek for "the greatest"; thus, "The Almagest" is "The The
>>>> Greatest") and, no doubt, many others, some original in Arabic, some
>>>> translated from Greek (or other languages).
>>>
>>>You raise an important point.
>>>
>>>Many works from classical Greece were preserved by the Nestorian Christians,
>>>and then, after the Arabs wiped them out, they took custody of those works and
>>>preserved them too. And stuff like the Elements of Euclid certainly got
>>translated.
>>>
>>>I could think of two possibilities:
>>>
>>>1) The Arabian Nights was harder to translate, since as a work of fiction, more
>>>familiarity with cultural nuances was required - and it wasn't written
>>in standard,
>>>plain Arabic, so Burton had to delve very deeply into the language.
>>
>>The Mardrus & Mathers translation (from Arabic to French and then from
>>French to English) that I bought (in four sturdy paperback volumes)
>>was done about 10 years after Burton. So you may be correct, although
>>Burton himself followed Payne's and, since Burton advised Payne, some
>>plagiarism may have occurred.
>>
>>>2) Possibly when these works of antiquity, preserved by the Arabs - plus a few
>>>of their own - jump-started the Renaissance, Europe had a bunch of Jewish
>>>refugees handy who had a knowledge of Arabic to do the work.
>>
>>Or at least to teach it to Western scholars. IIRC, most if not all of
>>these works were tranlated into Latin and read by most scholars in
>>that language.
>>
>>Then again, Luther apparently consulted one or more Rabbis while
>>translating OT names for things were not clearly described, so some
>>interaction definitely happened.
>>
>>A word that is just used, especially in a list, in one place with no
>>additional information can be /very/ hard to translate. Even if it is
>>a compound and the components are known (consider "understand", which
>>does /not/ mean "stand under" -- or, at least, not very often).
>>
>>And yet, in some older British films, when the Judges enter and we
>>here "Be upstanding in Court", everybody -- stands up.
>
>Stand may
>----- though you ------- things.
> I state

I'm not sure what kind of point you are trying to make.

Other nouns, like "substance" and "hypostasis", in philosophy
(metaphysics), are used to refer to whatever is thought to "stands
under" the reality we interact with. Both are compounds of parts
meaning "under" and "stand".

Both may (or may not) have been used for "stand under" in the
real-world physical sense in their original language (Latin and
Greek).

But not "understand". It means something ... else. Or, rather, several
something elses, which tend to be purely mental.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."