spełniacz

Looks like a standard Krąpcian term ...

bytowość

" ... cała filozofia grecka nie wiedziała nic o roli aktu istnienie jako decydującego o bytowości, ograniczała się wyłącznie do analiz form-struktur."

"Tomasz zwrócił uwagę, że jeśli istnienie jest czymś ukonstytuującym bytowość (coś jest bytem, gdy istnieje) ..."

I've put

"Aristotle ... knew nothing of the role of existence as the act decisive of being" - but that's not quite clear, in the way the PL is.

and

"Thomas pointed out that if existence is the factor constituting being (something is a being, if it exists"

I am wondering about beingness for "bytowość" (though I'm not convinced it's necessary, at least here), and about a better way of putting the bit about "aktu istnienie jako decydującego o bytowości".

czynność - działalność

action - operation

Have you found a consistent distinction between these two? I am appealing to your extensive experience!

racja

e.g. "racja bytu".

by analogy with "zasada racji dostatecznej" I suppose it would be "reason", but ... it's from ratio, isn't it? Which in my mental Thomispeak I always read as "account", but now I think of it that's a bit biased towards description of things rather than things.

What do you use?

Pytajnosc

“Pytajność&rdquo is a word that appears in Lublin Thomism. As far as I know it is not part of ordinary Polish. There is also the adjective "pytajny." Now in English we have "questionable" (and ergo "questionability") but that has too strong a meaning already, close to "dubious" and "dubious character", perhaps "untrustworthy". The sense of the Polish is that something that is "pytajny" is such that we can pose questions concerning it, because it is intelligible. But how could we make up an English word that was so short?

"uniesprzecznienie" II

Dusza pojawia się jako uniesprzecznienie, czyli, jak to się mowi: „uwolnienie od sprzeczności to, że coś raczej działa niż nie działa”

from an interview with Krąpiec

"treść|

:)

Today I have "utreściowiony"!

Wyodrebnienie

For a while, I have been translating wyodrębnianie as discerning or discernment. Sometimes perhaps "distinction" works out, or "listing", but I think discernment works etymologically, and has the idea of singling things out to see them distinctly, and then make lists.

ISTOCZENIE ?

I have a title: "Hierarchia procesu istoczenia" -- which for now I translate as "Hierarchy of the process of essentialization" --- the article goes on about Hegel, and how being is undetermined and empty, and not in an hierarchy, but "only the process of the istoczenia of the absolute spirit is hierarchized".

Problem, “istoczyć” is not in my dictionaries.

NAOCZNOŚĆ

The sentence … prowadził badania nad formami naoczności czasu i przestrzeni …. The term “naoczność” could perhaps be rendered by “evidence”, but the only connection is etymological, from “videre”, “to see”. I think this means, “he did research on the ways that time and space appear to us”. Is “naoczność” one of those words that only philosophers use in order to be difficult? Does it appear, as a noun that is, in normal everyday discourse? It is not in my dictionary, although “naoczny’ is. And “naoczny” is one of those words that can translated as a phrase or part of phrase, so how can we make a single English adjective out of it?

"trafność"

Stawianie problemów. Ten etap charakteryzują [...] ; trafność, wyrażająca się w tym, że problem nie implikuje fałszywych założeń, ani nie prowadzi do fałszu: [...]

"Soundness".

So says context, so says WSP-A (sort of). Though of course by itself the first assocation is "accurate", or something of the sort.

Given

The adjective “dany” is, of course, “given”. In English we might say “on any given day”. Polish writers, maybe especially in philosophy, use “dany” very often. Even though English can use it the same way, it does not appear as often. I think Polish writers use it to emphasize that the subject is definite or general, since by default we do not know if a subject is definite or indefinite in Polish. I find it usually makes better English without losing any meaning if “dany człowiek” is translated as “anyone”, or “any particular person”, “a particular person”.

Reduce, or Can be reduced

The verb “sprowadzić” is primarily rendered as “to reduce”. When it comes to ideas, English authors as I read them use the terms “reducible”, and “can be reduced” where Polish authors would write “reduced” and “is reduced” (sprowadzony, sprowadzi się).

MAYBE TROUBLE WITH ADJECTIVES

Some adjectives can be confusing if translated literally. For example “logiczne” and “prawne” — logical, legal. For example, “logiczne dzieła Bertranda Russella”, “the logical works of Bertrand Russell” — this is fine if the reader knows that Russell wrote about logic, but “logic works” or “works on logic” is more clear, because “logical” is the opposite of “illogical” (absurd). “Logical” does not primarily mean “about logic”, but English does not have a single word for “about logic”. The same with “nauki prawne” as “legal sciences”, which implies that it is a science that is not against the law, as opposed to an illegal science, for which the policeman will arrest you.

hyphenated adjectives

I often see hyphenated adjectives in Polish, and the result is ambiguous. For example, “był dziekan Wydziału Filozoficzno-Historycznego”. Of course, I could translate it as the “Philosophical-Historical Department”, or as the “Philosophy-History Department”, but in fact it is either the “Department of the Philosophy of History”, or the “Department of the History of Philosophy”. I will guess that it is the first, but I wish that Polish writers would be aware of the ambiguity of that construction, which is becoming more and more common. I will post more examples in the comments maybe, because it is pretty common.

---

Sometimes, it seems that hyphenated adjectives are best rendered by the word “and”, for example “aktualność głównych wątków filozoficzno-theologicznych okresu średniowiecza” — “the relevance and currency of the main elements of the philosophical and theological elements of the period of the Middle Ages”.

K.

What exactly is the abbreviation "k." in an expression such as “ur. 14 IX 1859 w Skrzypczyńcach k. Humania (Ukraina)”. In this case, I found the same information in German: “(Nobelpreisträger); Zielinski Tadeusz, *1859 Gut Skrzypczynce, Kr. Uman, Ukraine”. It seems to be translated into German as "gouw.”. In other cases, it seems to mean a suburb of a big city.

Ukrainian Place Names

I always get worried about Ukrainian place names. Some of those places were in Polish territory and had Polish spellings. I never know whether to keep the Polish letters, or transliterate them phonetically into English, or find the Ukrainian name in Wikipedia as it is transcribed into English.

Z zwiazku z tym

How many different ways can we render “Z związku z tym …”?

-ing and -ac

Whenever a sentence contains a phrase like “uzyskując stopień doktora filozofii”, the simplest recourse is to use a gerund or participle in English, so here it will be “receiving the degree of doctor of philosophy”. But there are problems. First, Polish is richer in participles and gerunds than English. The English “-ing” could be the Polish “-ący, -ącego, ącej, -ąco, ąc, etc. etc.). The second problem is that the “-ąc” form does not contain information about the subject of the verb. Usually that is implied, but in many cases a writer has not considered how it might be ambiguous and uses it instead of “-ący”. In some ways, it is like the Latin absolute construction, that is, something is done to something by something, and that whole event is related in some way to the rest. It might simply be simultaneous, or might be a cause, or an effect, or other relation. Often, I simply translate the phrase as a separate sentence + “and”. So the example becomes “… and he received a doctorate in philosophy”. English can use an absolute construction, but it is somewhat alien to English. There are some absolute constructions that are commonplace, like “notwithstanding”, e.g., “notwithstanding your objections”, or “Considering the weather, there will be a crowd” (If we consider the weather …).

UJECIE

“Ujęcie” seems pretty straight-forward, colloquially “grasp”, in philosophy “apprehend”. It seems to me that this noun would often mean “an approach to”, a little broader than a concept of something, like a way of thinking. I have seen this phrase often: “poznawcze ujęcie”, maybe because “ujęcie” is non-cognitive meanings. I usually translate “poznawcze” but it is not really necessary, because “apprehension” in English only has a cognitive meaning. The Latin sense of grasping or catching with the hands only appears in the verb, as “The police apprehended the suspect with stolen goods”.

BYTES and KILOBYTES

The book of Proverbs says it is no shame to count very closely when it comes to work and business.
Now, when we are paid for each character (1,800 characters per page), we count in bytes. I simply count bytes when I am creating text files, because 1 byte=1 character. When you use the “DIR” command from a Command prompt (or DOS prompt, still available in Windows), you will get a precise count of bytes. When you use Windows Explorer, you see the number of Kilobytes. But a kilobyte (despite “kilo-”) is not a thousand bytes, but 1024 bytes (1024 being 2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2).

Aegidius vs. Giles

More a comment that a question. Aegidius of Rome, or Egydiusz in Polish, is Giles of Rome in English. Why would English have a totally different name for Aegidius, is it a name that means something?

"budowanie metafizyki"

Construction? Tak po prostu?

"uogólnienie rozumiejące"

Uświadomienie to następuje nie w drodze rozumowania, separacja jako całość, podobnie jak abstrakcja, nie jest rozumowaniem, lecz jest aktem poznania bezpośredniego. Jeżeli w tym ujęciu być bytem, znaczy być treścią o proporcjonalnym istnieniu, to twierdzi się tak, nie dlatego, że dotychczas nie spotkano takich innych bytów, które nie są złożone z istoty i istnienia, ale dlatego, że zrozumiano, iż inaczej być nie może. Każde inne rozumienie byłoby sprzeczne z danymi najpierwotniejszego doświadczenia. Jeżeli w tym przypadku zauważa się jakiś uogólnienie, to nie jest ono rozumowaniem, ale jest uogólnieniem rozumiejącym.

Is there some accepted English phrase? I'm asking around, but at the moment I am stumped. I'm sure there is some obvious solution I'm overlooking.

"ostateczny"

... żadna nie daje ... całościowego, koniecznego i ostatecznego wyjaśnienia rzeczywistości...

Metafizyka ... nie ma już za zadania ... ostatecznego wyjaśnienia rzeczywistości ...

...twierdzenia uzyskane na drodze ogólnienia danych nauk szczegółowych ... należy uznać za ostateczne hipotezy dotyczące bytu.

I am wondering what to do with these.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

“Under the influence …” in colloquial English has the connotation of being drunk or intoxicated, and the phrase appears often in law. "DUI" — driving under the influence. So, find another way in a sentence like this. “Pod wpływem filozofii hermeneutycznej opowiadał się za historycznym rozumieniem teologii” — literally, “Under the influence of hermeneutic philosophy, he supported a historical understanding of theology”, e.g., “He was influenced by hermeneutic philosophy, and he …”.

NOUNS INTO VERBS

Polish writing often has phrases with subjects, objects, and actions all expressed by nouns. Here is such a phrase “na pytanie o możliwość ludzkiej wolności”. Literally: “to the question of the possibility of human freedom” — it is more natural in English to use a clause that could be its own little sentence: “to the question of whether human freedom was [or is] possible”.

SOURCE-BASED

The word “żródło” is straightforward: “source”. The adjective and adverb are troublesome: “żródłowy” and “żródłowo”.
Sometimes I translate the adjective as “original”, or as “source-based” “source-related”, or a paraphrase. Any other suggestions? These are probably very straightforward in German.
“Pierwotny” can also be translated as “original”. Other alternatives, as required: “primary” or “first” (which are good, but often too broad), “pristine” (an excellent rendering, except that it has acquired a meaning of cleanliness and purity that is irrelevant), “primitive” (which is good, but has a negative connotation),

OD --- from, or since, or something else

“OD” with a date is simply translated as “Since”. “Od 1989 jest nagroda jego imienia.” — “Since 1989 there has been an award in his name”. However, “since” applies then the action is continued to the present. A paraphrase is necessary the action has been terminated in the past. “Od 1812 Beethoven by’ głuchy” — “In 1812 Beethoven became deaf”.

AMONG OTHER THINGS

The phrase “między innymi” (m.in.), or in English “among other things”, appears often enough in Polish and in English, more often in Polish. The way it often appears, however, leads to ambiguity. Consider the following sentence:

“Pracował w diecezji m.in. jako sekretarz biskupa”.

Literally, word by word: “He worked in the diocese, among other things, as secretary of the bishop.” Where does “among other things” fit. “He worked, and did other things…”, “in the diocese, and elsewhere”, “as secretary, and in other positions”, “for the bishop, and for others” — perhaps all of the above. It seems that this means that he worked in the diocese, and did several jobs, including that of secretary to the bishop. However, here the translator is introducing more precision than exists in the original text.

“Among other things” and “między innymi” are much overused. When the translator can discern exactly what it refers to in a sentence, it is better to use the word “including”. For example, “Pisał m.in. tych prac:” is better this way: “He wrote many works, including the following:”. Otherwise, “m.in.” is providing non-information, e.g., he wrote, he slept, he ate, and other things.

Or this example: “Wydano także m.in.: …”. The literal translation: “Among other things, [the following] were also published”. This is better translated as “The following works are also among those that were published”, or “Also, other works were published, including the following: …”

EXPERIENCE

In Polish philosophy, there are several words that can be translated as experience. The two most important are “doświadczenie” and “przeżycie”. Normally, the translator can simply use the word “experience”. However, some authors, such as Wojtyła use both terms in the same sentence to make some subtle distinction. It seems that when such a distinction is made, these words are “claques” referring to German, which has the two words “Erlebnis” (which contains “leben”, life, like Polish ”życie”,) and "Erfahrung”. In normal English, we might speak of “experience” in a general sense as a long process of accumulated experience, and of “an experience” as a singular and often vivid event. Normally, the former would be “doświadczenie”, the latter “przeżycie”. However, “doświadczenie” can sometimes refer to a singular event, and then there is “przeżywanie”, which is a process of having “przeżycie”.

Another word is “doznanie”. If we are writing for Aristotelian’s it is fine to use “passion”, but otherwise, it might be “experience”, or better maybe, “passive reception”.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND INFORMATION LOSS

It is necessary to be careful when translating personal pronouns. English conveys much less information in a personal pronoun. For example, this sentence in context in Polish has all the necessary information about who did what: “Ukazał jego życie, myśl, i dzieło” — but information is lost if it translated simply as “He showed his life, thought, and work.” So, in this case, it is necessary to substitute names for pronouns, like this: “Weisheipl showed Thomas’ life, thought, and work”.

This is also the case with "its", because "it" may refer to a thing that is female (e.g. "filozofia") or male ("problem") in grammar.

There are some cases where a phrase begins with "it" (ona, on, ono, jej, jego etc.) but it is not clear what noun is referred to by the pronoun. If the author is unclear, and it is not clear from the material, the translator will leave it roughly as vague as he found it and use a pronoun.

POLISH SPECIAL CHARACTERS IN HTML

For writing Polish letters in search engines (Google) and in html files, one uses the standard UTF codes. For those of us who usually don't use Polish keyboards, this is necessary.

They are as follows:
Ą = Ą
ą = ą
Ć = Ć
ć = ć
Ę = Ę
ę = ę
Ł = Ł
ł = ł
Ń = Ń
ń = ń
Ó = Ó
ó = ó
Ś = Ś
ś = ś
Ź = Ź
ź = ź
Ż = Ż
ż = ż

Restrictiveness

In English and some other language, it is very clear whether a phrase or a word is restrictive or not. For example "The dog that has rabies bit a cat". The phrase "that has rabies" tells you which dog bit the cat. "The dog, which has rabies, bit a cat" -- simply adds some further information, but is not identifying the dog. I don't know if there are specific conventions in Polish that show restrictiveness or not. I suspect that it is haphazard, and that the Polish language usually does not concern itself with it. Perhaps it is expressions like "właśnie"?

Nonnullae annotationes de verbis inusitatis

(H. wrote) Uniesprzecznienie ---- If a phrase is allowed, I use various expressions. The real and true meaning, not a literal translation, is "to resolve apparent paradoxes". I have used "to resolve apparent contradictions" as well. A real contradiction, of course, cannot be undone, but a paradox is a seeming contradiction, and it can be resolved. Otherwise, if only one word can be used "decontradictification" follows the rules.

(H. asked) Now, a question to a translator. The Encyclopedia never uses Cyrillic letters. I often deal with articles about Russian, Bulgarian, and other philosophers using names that are based in the Cyrillic alphabet. With well-known names, I follow the common spelling (based on a Google search and the number of results). Even some of the most famous Russian names are spelled in many ways in English literature. For less common names, or title of books, I transliterate from Polish phonetics to English in a standard way (w=v, y=i, cz=ch, etc.). That is not the problem. However, I see Serbian names rendered in the Latin alphabet. As far as I know the Serbians use the Cyrillic alphabet. However, do they have a standard system for spelling their names using the Latin alphabet? If I see a name ending in "c", should I leave it, or transliterate it as "ts"?

(W. responded)
The question about Serbian translation is a perfect one for the Translator's Cafe forums. However, thinking back to the Balkans war, the names were spelled with a "c" at the end. Indeed, with a ć (as in "c"wiczenie). And that is what the transliteration table here

http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=32321&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

suggests. Milošević, Милошевић. In English I've only ever seen it spelled with a "c" at the end: I suppose English speakers are very used to spelling things one way and pronouncing them another!


(H. remarked) It seems like Polish authors often use "pojecie" to mean "termin" or "wyraz". Here is a typical sentence:

"W Pradze od ok 1380 nie poslugiwano sie pojeciem "nominalista", gdyz uzywano juz przeciwstawien "moderni" i "antiqui"."

To me, the translation sounds bizarre if I use "concept" here, and I am going to say "expression" instead.

(W. responded) I agree with your interpretation of "pojęcie" below.

(H. further commented) Indeed, and sometimes it is necessary to find another word for "conceive, concept, conception" because if there is not enough context, the word can be taken in a biological sense. So sometimes, "idea". And sometimes to be clear, I add "of" to the verb, even if it goes at the end of the sentence, like this: "It was something she conceived of." (No ambiguity, it is about mental concepts, but some grammarians don't like a preposition at the end of a sentence. However, English is a Germanic language, and the grammarians who say that tried to make English conform to Latin models). "It was something she conceived" can be taken in either sense.

Some problem words: prad, ruch, kierunek. Sometimes translators take great liberties: "ideas", "school" etc.. These Polish words are used so much, and it sounds funny to translate them literally each and every time.

Another problem word is "rozwazania" -- lit. considerations, perhaps meditations. But the way it is used, sometimes better as "arguments, writings, lines of reasoning, what he thought".

Another problem word is "poznanie". In English knowledge is the most general word, and includes cognition (where the process of knowledge is emphasized). In Polish poznanie is the general word, and includes wiedza, nauka (where the finished knowledge is emphasized). So I go by instinct whether poznanie should be knowledge, cognition, or even learning. Sometimes "poznal" is best as "he learned". I think "teoria poznania" is usually better as "theory of knowledge", because that is more common in English philosophical texts, but an intelligent reader will understand "theory of cognition". I think that the word "cognition" is used mostly by empirical psychologists and medical people, not so much by English speaking philosophers. Once a nurse was speaking to an old woman as if to a child, and the old woman chose to say nothing in reply. The nurse then was writing down "she is not cognitive" on official reports.

Saint Jerome, who did labour in the field of translation, pray for us!

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

This blog is for the exchange of ideas among translators who translate Polish philosophical and theological texts, esp. Christian and Thomistic texts, from Polish to English.