Rendering Biblical proper names into English and Ukrainian (a comparative aspect)

Abstract

The article deals with the comparative characteristics of rendering proper names in the most widespread English and Ukrainian translations of the Old Testament (Pentateuch). The author makes some generalizations concerning the lexical and semantic groups of nominations, characteristic of the confessional style, as well as its typical groups of lexis with the proper names being a major constituent among them. A comparative analysis of 586 proper names from each target text allowed to the make some conclusion concerning the ways of their rendering and correlation in the target languages. Though transliteration is the main technique in both languages, the correlation of the same letters in English and Ukrainian is not always consistent. The consistency has been found to be invariable only concerning the following English-Ukrainian pairs of letters: d – д, k – к, l – л, m – м, n – н, o – o, p – п, r – р, t – т, v – в. Other letters, as well as digraphs ch, sh, ph and th, do not have consistent counterparts and are characterized by a varying degree of inconsistency. This may be accounted for by a variety of reasons, among them: a considerable (450 years) gap between the first English and Ukrainian translations, which may have contributed to the changes in the approaches to transliteration; following in the different traditions (Western or Eastern) of transliteration in rendering certain letters, specifically concerning the pair of the letters b – в, or th digraph; a greater impact on the Ukrainian translator on the part of numerous Bible translations into other languages (particularly into Russian), which were absent at the time the first English translation was done etc. Other reasons for the discrepancies might include the translators’ individual characteristics, failure to maintain the same strategy throughout the entire translation, their striving to create euphony and to avoid the sound combinations undesirable in the target language.