Do we intentionally translate ancient stuff and languages to sound old timey as an artistic choice, or is there some other reason?
Do we intentionally translate ancient stuff and languages to sound old timey as an artistic choice, or is there some other reason?
Every time I see an ancient text translated, it always sounds like it was spoken by a classy Englishman from the 1800s. Is there a reason it's translated that way instead of modern English?
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A lot of old stuff doesn't translate cleanly, even between two modern, similar languages.
Imagine if the only German you knew of was from an 80 year old German-English dictionary that you had to use to translate a news article written in German last week. Newer words are completely absent, places have changed names, good luck pronouncing anything correctly, and idioms, slang, and many scientific, political, and cultural reference are completely indecipherable. Proper nouns (ie names) will be somewhat challenging, especially names invented in the last few decades.
My aunt moved from Germany to France in the 50s or 60s or so. When she speaks German she doesn't have a French accent or anything but it still sounds slightly off because her language stopped evolving. It's eerie and cute.
My grandmother took me to her birthplace in Denmark and kept saying she couldn't speak Danish with the locals, despite having spoken Danish with her family in America semi-regularly. I never thought it was because her vocabulary and accent was stuck in 1940s and she didn't feel confident speaking that way.
Her problem was probably that nobody understands Danish.
Ha, great skit. Last I visited was for a wedding between a Swede and a Dane, they both claimed the other spoke like they had mashed potatoes in their mouth.