Ancient Translational Style: What Can Stylometry tell us
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Transcript of Ancient Translational Style: What Can Stylometry tell us
Ancient Translational Style: What Can Stylometry tell us
Matthew MunsonGCDH and DARIAH
Twitter: @sonofmunEmail: [email protected]
The Questions
• How much of the New Testament did St. Jerome translate into Latin?
• Can Stylometry show us whether Jerome or Rufinus was a truer translator of Origen of Alexandria?
St. Jerome and the Vulgate
• ~340 AD – 420 AD• Latin Vulgate translation– Pope Damasus 383– Finished “revision” of Gospels 384– Translated the Psalter and several
other books from Greek– Translated the whole OT from
Hebrew (finished 406)– But what about Acts-Revelation in
the NT?http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Antonio_da_Fabriano_II_-_Saint_Jerome_in_His_Study_-_Walters_37439.jpg
The Stylistic Problem
• Question: – Can we determine whether Jerome translated the
rest of the NT using stylometry?• Data:– Latin texts of the Vulgate including the Psalter
translated both from Greek and from Hebrew• Method:– Used the stylo script for R-Statistics from Maciej
Eder and Jan Rybicki
The Results – Eureka?
The Results – Hmmm?
The Translation of Origen of Alexandria
• Origen – 184 AD – 253 AD• Most important Christian
theologian before Augustine
• Was anathematized in 6th century, works destroyed
• Latin translations of St. Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia very important
http://sophiainstitutenyc.org/?s=origen+teaching+the+saints
The Stylistic Problem
• Question:– Can we determine whether Jerome or Rufinus was a
more exact translator of Origen using stylometry?• Data:– Gathered as many original and translated Origenic texts
from the two authors as possible (24 from Jerome, 11 from Rufinus)
• Method:– Again used the stylo script for R-Statistics from Maciej
Eder and Jan Rybicki
Background – Jan Rybicki and Translation Style
Results – hmmm?
Or, shown another way…
Jerome – Original vs. Translation
Rufinus – Original vs. Translation
Where do I go from here?
• Jerome NT:– Compare decisive words (Eder-Rybicki Zeta)– I expect it is simply genre, not translator style
• Jerome vs. Rufinus– Compare Jerome’s and Rufinus’ translations to
Origen’s originals• Need to compare Greek to Latin• We have very few texts that exist in both Greek and
Latin, so not a comparison of translations but of style