a million ways to say I love you
They
say
There
are a million ways
In
this day and age
I
could only find
In
my computer's brain
The
words to say I love you
In
53 languages of the 10,000 languages
Spoken
on this planet
Someday
I may be able
To
say the simple words
I
love you
In
all known languages
This
will have to suffice for a start
So
I will say it
Loud,
and clear
Just
so you understand:
I
love you (English)
Mein
tumse pyar karta hoon (Hindi)
Tu
Tane prem karoo chu (Gujarati)
Ame
tomake bhalo bashe (Bengali)
Me
tula premkarto (Marati)
Hum
apse mohabbat karte hain (Urdu)
Mein
thoda prem karanga (Punjabi)
Man
Dooset Daram (Persian)
Ana
Ahabik Yanooni (Arabic)
Havala (Hebrew)
Yongchon (Chinese)
Aloha (Hawaian)
Cinta (Indonesian)
Dangshinun sarang hayo (Korean)
Ajo (Japanese)
Kasih (Malay)
Phom
tirak khun krap (Thai)
Akoay
Paginghe ikou (Tagalog)
Toi
yeu ong (Vietnamese)
Renmen (Creole)
Jesuis
L'amour voies (French)
Liefdle (Flemish)
Estoy
amor tu (Spanish)
Yosono
amore tu (Italian)
Estou
o amore tu (Portugese)
Dashuri (Albanian)
Maiteizam (Basque)
OBHYAM (Bulgarian)
Ljubav
(Croatian)
Laska(Czech)
Jeger
en kaerlighed du (Danish)
Ikben
houden van jig (Dutch)
Gra
(Gaelic)
Ich
bin lieben tu (German)
Agape/eros (Greek)
Ami
(Esperanto)
Armastama
(Estonian)
Rakam
(Finish)
Envagyok
szeretet te (Hungarian)
Elska
(Icelandic)
Ejekirin
(Kurdish)
Milestiba
(Latvian)
Meile
(Lithuanian)
Eu
dragoste tu (Romanian)
JHOBOEL
Lubush (Russian)
Elske
(Norweigan)
Easka
(Slovak)
JBYBAB
(Serbian)
Jagdan
karlek du (Swedish)
KOYATH
(Ukraine)
Benin
sevi sen (Turkish)
Ahava
(Yiddish)
The Translator -- Nathan James
The first known translations were 2nd-millennium BCE transfers of the Sumerian epic about Gilgamesh into Asian languages. "Translation" derives from a Latin term meaning "to bring or carry across," while the Greek term was "metaphrasis" (to speak across) -- leading to the distinction between "metaphrase" (a literal or word-for-word translation) and "paraphrase" (a saying in other words). In "De oratore" (55 BCE) Marcus Tullius Cicero instructed translators not to rework foreign texts into Latin word for word but freely, like an orator : "I saw that to employ the same expressions profited me nothing, while to employ others was a positive hindrance… Afterwards I resolved … to translate freely Greek speeches of the most eminent orators". As a consequence, "I not only found myself using the best words, and yet quite familiar ones, but also coining by analogy certain words such as be new to our people, provided only they were appropriate." Quintus Horatius Flaccus ("Horace") (in "Ars Poetica," ca. 20 BCE) advocated a style that would "neither linger in the one hackneyed and easy round; neither trouble to render word by word with the faithfulness of a translator" nor treat the original writer's beliefs with too easy a trust, like someone claiming private property in public ground. They both advocated free imitation rather than word-for-word transcriotion. In 395 BCE Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus ("Jerome"), the translator of the Bible into Latin, "freely announced" to his fellow saint, Pammachius, that "in translating from the Greek -- except of course in the case of Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery -- I render not word for word, but sense for sense." To one of his critics he reponded, “What men like you call fidelity in transcription, the learnèd term pestilent minuteness.” Martin Luther, who translated the Bible into German in the 16th cdentury, was the first European to propose that one translates satisfactorily only toward his own language. In the 2nd century Titus Flavius Clemens (Clement of Alexandria) had written that “The Lord’s scriptures bring forth the truth and yet remain virgins, hiding within them the mysteries of the truth." Much the same could be said of translation: it is writing that is and isn't what it is. Translations are creative acts that are not created by the translator, and yet the translator is not just an empty conduit through which the original passes.
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