Comment by forgotoldacc

Comment by forgotoldacc a day ago

3 replies

Because then you miss out on a lot of more recent content that'll become a classic in the future. Also, translations are copyrighted. There's 500 year old public domain stuff that's been translated in the past few decades and those aren't in the public domain. Older translations may be, but even going back 30 years, people would translate every foreign work in the style of the King James Bible. Translations in natural, modern speech are an oddly new thing.

zozbot234 a day ago

> even going back 30 years, people would translate every foreign work in the style of the King James Bible. Translations in natural, modern speech are an oddly new thing.

And yet, people used to read those older translations just fine. It's just a matter of literary style, it doesn't really impact the understanding of the text.

  • [removed] 19 hours ago
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  • forgotoldacc 20 hours ago

    With vocabulary and grammatical changes over time, it does majorly affect understanding. People prefer to read things in a language and dialect they understand. Archaic English diverges pretty heavily from modern dialects of English.