On the graphic adaptation of proper names in the first Romanian translation of the Septuagint (Ms. 45)
Affiliations
Department for Interdisciplinary Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Str. Lascăr Catargi 54, 700107 Iași, Romania
History
Received December 5, 2015
Accepted December 13, 2015
Published February 12, 2016
Abstract
Among the difficulties that have always challenged the translators of the Bible one can mention the adaptation of proper names in each idiom. Certain biblical proper names were adapted into Romanian when the first translations of fragments belonging to the Old and the New Testaments were performed. However, most biblical proper names were adapted into Romanian for the first time in the translation of the Septuagint performed by Nicolae Spătarul (Milescu) in the second half of the 17th century and preserved in a manuscript copy (the Romanian manuscript no. 45) from the same century. The main source of this translation was an edition of the Septuagint issued in Frankfurt in 1597. In accordance with the spirit of literalism in Bible translation in that period, the main tendency of translators and reviewers was to preserve, as much as possible, the original form of proper names as they appeared in the source-text, attempting, at the same time, to integrate them in the formal system (graphy, declension) of the Romanian language. Starting from the formal particularities of the names in the source-text, we aim at describing certain aspects related to the graphic principles that the transposition of proper names from the Greek source into Ms. 45 was based upon.
Copyright
© 2016 The Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. The article is freely accessible under the terms and conditions of the CC-BY Open Access licence.