Editing 2168: Reading in the Original
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|Created by a HAWAIIAN-GREEK HYBRID. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
− | + | Many academics and aficionados argue that studying old texts in the original language is more valuable than reading translations. The argument is that translations are rarely able to fully capture all of the nuances, linguistic subtleties and intent of the original author, and may even alter the meaning in some way due to the translator's interpretation and word choices. The drawback to this is that it requires the reader to be sufficiently fluent in whatever language the text is written in, which is frequently an archaic dialect, and so only really useful for studying old texts. Mastering an obsolete language solely to enhance your reading experience is a big commitment, and so has become something of a signifier of a truly dedicated scholar. By the same token, bragging about such signifiers is often taken as a mark of self-involved academic arrogance. Because many of the foundational texts in Western civilization, including the ''{{w|Iliad}}'', the ''{{w|Odyssey}}'', the Biblical {{w|New Testament}}, and the works of philosophers like {{w|Plato}} and {{w|Aristotle}} were originally written in Greek, commenting that you only read works "in the original Greek" has long been an indicator of high-level literary scholarship. | |
− | A similar thing happens | + | A similar thing happens in countries where English-speaking movies are usually dubbed, and people smugly remark that they instead prefer to watch the original English version of everything from sitcom to Hollywood blockbuster. |
− | The joke in this comic is that Cueball has apparently taken the time to learn Greek in | + | The joke in this comic is that Cueball has apparently taken the time to learn Greek, so that he can read Wikipedia in that language. However, he is not reading the "original" version of Wikipedia articles, but their equivalent in the [https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A0%CF%8D%CE%BB%CE%B7:%CE%9A%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%B1 modern Greek language edition of Wikipedia]. (An [https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/grc Ancient Greek Wikipedia test project] also exists, but is not nearly as large as the modern Greek one.) Wikipedia has editions in about 300 languages; many articles link to equivalent articles in other languages, but they are not usually translations of each other, having been written separately by speakers of the different languages. The dedication to appearing to be a committed scholar is contrasted with the ignorance of not understanding that Greek is not the original language of every text. |
− | The | + | The title text is an etymology joke, since "Wikipedia" was coined from two parts, "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiki#English wiki]", from Hawaiian, and "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pedia pedia]", from Greek. However, words having roots in different languages is common and does not signify any link between the separate languages; for example, while the word "Wikipedia" does have etymological roots in Hawaiian and Greek, there is no hybrid of the two languages which articles could be written in. |
− | The | + | The movie ''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' has a joke concerning someone speaking of a foreign "original" language of something that actually was originally written in English: Chancellor Gorkon says, "You have not experienced Shakespeare until you've read it in the original Klingon." (In reality, Shakespeare lived in England, and wrote in English, not Klingon.) |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== |