[Buddha-l] liturgical languages

[curt]

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>>To be honest I just don't think that Western Buddhism has yet produced
>>the personell who are QUALIFIED to compete with such works of
>>art as the Morning Bell Chant in Sino-Korean, for example. That will 
>>require people who are, first of all, fully enlightened
>>    
>>
>
>How quickly we move from the realm of the subjective to the realm of the
>ridiculously dogmatic. Thanks for the giggle. It seems a good way to end
>a conversation that shows no signs of going anywhere.
>  
>
Not so fast my giggling friend. It sounds to me like you are
implying, or possibly you are coming right out and saying, that
someone who does not fully understand the Buddha's teaching can
nevertheless correctly translate these teachings from one language
into another. But how can someone who does not understand these
teachings in one language be thought to understand them in two
languages? And just to be clear - I am here assuming an identity
between these two states: (1) the state of fully understanding the
Buddha's teachings, and (2) the state of being fully enlightened.
And another thing I want to be clear about: I am distinguishing
between translations that will be used for study and those used for
religious/devotional practice - and I am assuming that a higher
standard (or, more precisely - the highest standard) should be used
for translations that are used for religious practice.

Maybe an example would help. Say for example that someone
is translating a book about Chemistry from Arabic into Swahili.
The translator would need to know more than simply the two
languages. In fact the translator would need to know more than
just the cultural and historical context of the original text - the
translator needs to understand the subject matter itself. This even
applies to literature - someone who merely understands the language
but doesn't "get" what the author was expressing can't do a decent
translation of even an expository essay on the simplest subject
matter.

I'm sorry if you feel like this is going nowhere. But I am very curious to
know what you think the proper qualifications should be for someone
to do a meaningful translation of liturgical texts for liturgical use.

- Curt