Some notes on a specific case: "Greek into Arabic"

My first contact with the so-called 'problem' of translation (it remains to be seen whether there is a problem in the first place and, if so, what it could be) were the result of research I did for a paper on the philosophical terminology in Islam. In the course of the 9th and 10th century, Baghdad was not only the intellectual center of the Islamic world, it was also the focus of vigorous translation activities undertaken mostly by Nestorian christians and later Muslims from languages as diverse as Persian, Greek and Sanskrit into Syriac and Arabic. Their work was commissioned by both political authorities and individuals for various reasons. Concentrating on Aristotle, Plato and various Neoplatonic authors and commentators, they established a large and, e.g. in the case of Aristotle, almost complete body of translations of Greek scientific and philosophical texts.

The relevance of this undertaking cannot be understated: On the one hand, Greek philosophical and scientific ideas left an indelible mark on both secular and religious thought in the Islamic world; on the other hand, a large proportion of these texts became known to pre-renaissance Europe only through Arabic and subsequently Hebrew versions.

Philosophical reflection in particular represented a whole new field of inquiry. In the process of translation, the translators had to invent from scratch an Arabic terminology adequately expressing the concepts the source texts dealt with. For a long time afterwards, translators and philosophers alike were developing and refining the terminological instruments to grasp the whole range of philosophical subjects their sources discussed.

Special problems arose in the case of source texts heavily dependent on characteristics of the source language. This applied e.g. to ontology, a philosophical discipline made possible by the existence and extraordinary flexibility of the Greek verb einai.

Far from being a common trait of all or most languages of the world, the existence of an expression parallel to einai, 'to be', seems to be restricted to the Indoeuropean language family. While almost every language has its own terms or constructions expressing possible meanings of 'to be', namely:

• to exist (example: A is = A exists)
• to have a certain trait (example: A is B = The attribute 'B-ness' can be correctly applied to A)
• to be identical with something (example: A is C = A is identical with C)

Only (some) Indoeuropean languages share a verb neatly wrapping up all of these concepts in one word: Latin esse, Greek einai, English to be, German sein, French être, Persian búdan etc.

From a sceptical point of view, this state of affairs would seem to make translation of ontological source texts into a language without such a peculiar expression all but impossible. While in some cases the exact meaning of the form of einai at hand can be pinpointed and substituted by a suitable target language verb or syntactical construct covering the intended aspect of 'being', there remains a sizable number of occurences which cannot be dissected and analyzed: they are either accidentaly ambiguous in meaning or obviously intended to address the whole field of meaning covered by einai.

Nevertheless, translations have been undertaken and accepted as adequate by generations of translators and philosophers. This seems to indicate that, notwithstanding the structural obstacles imposed by the transition from a Indoeuropean to a Semitic language, translators have managed to succeed.

Two questions arise:

• Is it at all possible to pass judgement on individuals' work in particular and the feasibility of these translations in general?
• Which mechanisms were employed to overcome the structural problems discussed above?

These and other questions are crucial for the understanding of almost every instance of cross-cultural communication and for assessments of their feasibility and value. Obscure and esoteric as it may seem, the case of the Arabic translations perfectly illustrate the problems this special kind of communication is beset with, be it in times long gone by or today.