Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia
The Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow translated narratives of the Arrernte of Central Australia into German. In the first volume of his huge ethnographic study, published in 1907, he describes the Arrernte Altjira as a high god, arguing that the name should not be translated as “dreaming”, which is...
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Centre for Translation Studies, University of Vienna
2023
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ftunivwienojs2:oai:journals.univie.ac.at:article/6372 2023-08-27T04:09:28+02:00 Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia Pym, Anthony 2023-08-01 application/pdf https://chronotopos.eu/index.php/cts/article/view/6372 eng eng Centre for Translation Studies, University of Vienna https://chronotopos.eu/index.php/cts/article/view/6372/8216 https://chronotopos.eu/index.php/cts/article/view/6372 Copyright (c) 2023 Anthony Pym http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 chronotopos - A Journal of Translation History; Bd. 4 Nr. 1; 11-29 chronotopos - A Journal of Translation History; Vol. 4 No. 1: Focus: Translation Theories of Translators; 11-29 chronotopos - A Journal of Translation History; Vol. 4 No 1; 11-29 2617-3441 cultural translation missionaries humanism religion info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion peer-reviewed article 2023 ftunivwienojs2 2023-08-06T23:25:19Z The Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow translated narratives of the Arrernte of Central Australia into German. In the first volume of his huge ethnographic study, published in 1907, he describes the Arrernte Altjira as a high god, arguing that the name should not be translated as “dreaming”, which is how most Australians understand the mythological primal time of First Nations cultures. Strehlow also implicitly justified the appropriation of Altjira as the name of his Christian god. The split between these two translations of Altjira became a confrontation between two networks that distributed trust in translations in very different ways. Although Strehlow offered no theory for his translation practice from Arrernte into German, his discourse can be understood as drawing on a nineteenth-century tradition of pedagogical translation, on the theory of natural religion expounded by the Lutheran Max Müller, and on the linguistic humanism of Wilhelm von Humboldt, which saw a common human aspiration in language, demanding respect for the words and ideas of the other, but also provided secular justification for the imposition of supposedly advanced cultural forms. Article in Journal/Newspaper First Nations Universität Wien: OJS-Service |
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Universität Wien: OJS-Service |
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English |
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cultural translation missionaries humanism religion |
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cultural translation missionaries humanism religion Pym, Anthony Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia |
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cultural translation missionaries humanism religion |
description |
The Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow translated narratives of the Arrernte of Central Australia into German. In the first volume of his huge ethnographic study, published in 1907, he describes the Arrernte Altjira as a high god, arguing that the name should not be translated as “dreaming”, which is how most Australians understand the mythological primal time of First Nations cultures. Strehlow also implicitly justified the appropriation of Altjira as the name of his Christian god. The split between these two translations of Altjira became a confrontation between two networks that distributed trust in translations in very different ways. Although Strehlow offered no theory for his translation practice from Arrernte into German, his discourse can be understood as drawing on a nineteenth-century tradition of pedagogical translation, on the theory of natural religion expounded by the Lutheran Max Müller, and on the linguistic humanism of Wilhelm von Humboldt, which saw a common human aspiration in language, demanding respect for the words and ideas of the other, but also provided secular justification for the imposition of supposedly advanced cultural forms. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Pym, Anthony |
author_facet |
Pym, Anthony |
author_sort |
Pym, Anthony |
title |
Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia |
title_short |
Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia |
title_full |
Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia |
title_fullStr |
Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Translating the Indigenous. Carl Strehlow’s Word for God in Central Australia |
title_sort |
translating the indigenous. carl strehlow’s word for god in central australia |
publisher |
Centre for Translation Studies, University of Vienna |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://chronotopos.eu/index.php/cts/article/view/6372 |
genre |
First Nations |
genre_facet |
First Nations |
op_source |
chronotopos - A Journal of Translation History; Bd. 4 Nr. 1; 11-29 chronotopos - A Journal of Translation History; Vol. 4 No. 1: Focus: Translation Theories of Translators; 11-29 chronotopos - A Journal of Translation History; Vol. 4 No 1; 11-29 2617-3441 |
op_relation |
https://chronotopos.eu/index.php/cts/article/view/6372/8216 https://chronotopos.eu/index.php/cts/article/view/6372 |
op_rights |
Copyright (c) 2023 Anthony Pym http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 |
_version_ |
1775350863190032384 |