Mongolian Translation Issues in the Book of Matthew: Lexical Ambiguity and Faithfulness to Form
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2009
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
In this paper, I analyze techniques used to translate the Bible from English into
Mongolian and also attempt to highlight the goals the translators strove for as well as the
challenges they faced. My analysis covers the state of Mongolian lexicography, style of
translation, and determination of receptor terminology for key Christian terms. The
primary sources are the finished translation of the Mongolian Bible, two Mongolian-
English dictionaries and the Oxford English Dictionary. Most data is taken from the
book of Matthew in order to have a manageable corpus, although some data is taken from
other books for illustrative purposes. It is suggested that, excepting some non-central
elements, the Mongolian Bible is generally highly concordant but occasionally not if
there is sufficient contextual reason. In order to approximate source document form, key
terms are never made into calque translations. In instances where the term in question of
the source document is insufficiently clear, multiple receptor terms may be used based on
which is most inclusive of the meaning implied by context. Generally the receptor term
prizes a close match with associative meaning, sometimes at the expense of designative
meaning accuracy, because additional meaning is provided by context. Efforts to
maintain the same form as the source document are complicated because of pronominal
over-differentiation and additional participant-referent tracking when compared with
English.