![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There has been much written about the new English translation of the Novus Ordo mass that the Roman Catholic Church in the English speaking world started using this Advent season. Some of what has been written has been positive, some negative, and much of it has felt like people trying to put a positive spin on something that they aren’t certain that they really like.
While my initial response to the news that a new translation was forthcoming was a bit of the “what’s wrong with what we’ve got now” reaction, but I made a conscious decision to wait and see. I really wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to the translators, and not rush to judgment. Which raises the question about why I’m writing about it now, less than a month into the actual use of the new translation. But, it think I want to record my initial impression, so I can reflect on it down the road to see if and how my feelings might change.
So, what are my initial impressions? Honestly, I find little about it to be particularly positive. The new translation is wordier, often awkwardly so. While trying to be more faithful to the Latin of the official Order of the Mass, what may be poetic and flowing in Latin is clunky and jarring in English. This is less a problem with the prayers recited by the congregation than it is with the Eucharistic Prayer that the priest recites. I’ve been trying to pay attention to it, but it is so grammatically convoluted that I find myself losing much of the meaning, and then my mind wants to wander. This is not particularly conducive to my being a full participant in the mass, and definitely is not providing any deeper understanding or appreciation for the mystery behind the service.
And the vocabulary! I don’t know that the word “consubstantial” is ever going to flow off my tongue gracefully, and I have to wonder how many people in the congregations really have a good idea what it means. And that’s just one example. There are others, especially in the parts for the priest. Again, these words are distracting and disrupt the flow of the prayers, in my opinion.
So, if the purpose of the new translation was to elevate the language and make it a soaring reflection of the majesty and awe of the central mystery of the mass, it is an epic failure. English can be an incredibly poetic language, one that can be uplifting and inspirational. But you don’t get that effect from a very literal translation from another language. If you want that effect in an English translation, then the translator needs a great deal of latitude to find less literal ways of expressing the meaning of the original, without being tied to any sort of literal translation. This is, of course, more difficult, but necessary to avoid the problems I see in the current translation.
While my initial response to the news that a new translation was forthcoming was a bit of the “what’s wrong with what we’ve got now” reaction, but I made a conscious decision to wait and see. I really wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to the translators, and not rush to judgment. Which raises the question about why I’m writing about it now, less than a month into the actual use of the new translation. But, it think I want to record my initial impression, so I can reflect on it down the road to see if and how my feelings might change.
So, what are my initial impressions? Honestly, I find little about it to be particularly positive. The new translation is wordier, often awkwardly so. While trying to be more faithful to the Latin of the official Order of the Mass, what may be poetic and flowing in Latin is clunky and jarring in English. This is less a problem with the prayers recited by the congregation than it is with the Eucharistic Prayer that the priest recites. I’ve been trying to pay attention to it, but it is so grammatically convoluted that I find myself losing much of the meaning, and then my mind wants to wander. This is not particularly conducive to my being a full participant in the mass, and definitely is not providing any deeper understanding or appreciation for the mystery behind the service.
And the vocabulary! I don’t know that the word “consubstantial” is ever going to flow off my tongue gracefully, and I have to wonder how many people in the congregations really have a good idea what it means. And that’s just one example. There are others, especially in the parts for the priest. Again, these words are distracting and disrupt the flow of the prayers, in my opinion.
So, if the purpose of the new translation was to elevate the language and make it a soaring reflection of the majesty and awe of the central mystery of the mass, it is an epic failure. English can be an incredibly poetic language, one that can be uplifting and inspirational. But you don’t get that effect from a very literal translation from another language. If you want that effect in an English translation, then the translator needs a great deal of latitude to find less literal ways of expressing the meaning of the original, without being tied to any sort of literal translation. This is, of course, more difficult, but necessary to avoid the problems I see in the current translation.
Tags:
