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To: Cronos

Checked your homepate. You are quite the scholar.

I have studied Spanish in high school (forgotten much) - so I know just a little of the Latin roots.

In a Bible study, we got a sample of texts from Greek and Hebrew, and a lexicon and challenge to translate it to English. It was very difficult - especially when Hebrew has no vowels and the text is all run togther.

And easy to see in English translations different shades of meaning - which we argue about so much.


489 posted on 06/02/2011 9:31:21 AM PDT by NEWwoman (God Bless America)
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To: NEWwoman
You flatter me -- a scholar I'm not -- I can name you any number of people I know who seem to just absorb languages.

There's a Swiss girl I know who speaks French, German, English and Italian fluently and Polish, Russian and Yiddish somewhat fluently too. NOw she's learning Georgian -- scarily brilliant.

I just love the way how languages interact with everything from religion to culture to even economics -- sometimes you only think in one way because the language allows you to.

So I know something about history, languages, religions and culture, but ask me to appreciate art or food or fashion and I'm like "ok" ;-P

490 posted on 06/02/2011 9:38:30 AM PDT by Cronos (Palin, Cain, Jindal)
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To: NEWwoman
English is horribly imprecise

For instance, in Polish one would say "Byłem w biurze" (I was in the office) which instantly tells you that I am a guy and I'm not even using "I" which would be "JA byłem w biurze"

And ditto with a number of other languages that are very precise. In English one is stuck with normally just one word which has multiple shades of meaning while in Greek and Latin (neither of which I know well enough) these things are highly precise.

Of course Spanish too is very simple -- both global languages that get simplified as more variations appear.

With the argument about the Trinity -- there is no good English word for "Hypostasis" -- "person" fails miserably and "persona" may be more precise but is still too vague.

The Greek word is supposed to be even better than the Latin.

492 posted on 06/02/2011 9:42:28 AM PDT by Cronos (Palin, Cain, Jindal)
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