The word tapeinos in the New Testament and its rendition in Ukrainian translations

Levko, Olexandr (2018) The word tapeinos in the New Testament and its rendition in Ukrainian translations. Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 63 (2). pp. 283-295. ISSN 0039-3363

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Abstract

Abstract The paper addresses the rendition of the words denoting humility in six Ukrainian biblical translations of the 19th and 20th centuries. The author outlines the evolution of the semantics of tapeinos in Ancient Greek, Bible Greek, and New Testament Greek, identifying its contextual meanings in the New Testament. It is established that Ukrainian translations of the 19th century tend to use smyrennyi ‘humble’ and smyrennia ‘humility’ (as well as the outdated smyrnyi ‘humble, mild’, smyrnota ‘humbleness’, and smyrnist ‘humility, mildness’) to render the positive and neutral semantics of tapeinos and its nominal derivatives, while the translations of the end of the 20th and the 21st centuries mostly rely on pokirnyi ‘submissive’ and its cognates pokirlyvyi ‘submissive’, pokora ‘submissiveness, obedience’, pokirnist ‘submission’, though in some cases they also use sumyrnyi ‘humble, peaceable’ and the corresponding noun sumyrnist ‘humility, humbleness’ (but not smyrennia). When used in the negative meaning, tapeinos is rendered in modern biblical translations by prynyzhenyi ‘humiliated’, ponyzhenyi ‘base’, upokorenyi ‘subdued’ (occasionally by smyrennyi), whereas the translations of the 19th century do not take into account the negative connotations of tapeinos, and therefore render it by smyrennyi.

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