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Imprecise Language.

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by MartyF, Jan 15, 2020.

  1. MartyF

    MartyF Well-Known Member

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    “Chinese as a language is not as precise as English,” Chang said. “English has one advantage over many languages in that it is designed for legal agreements. It is technical [and] precise. Chinese is not. I’m afraid that, effectively, the Chinese text will become the controlling document.”

    From here

    Tonelson: China Won’t Abide by the Trade Deal No Matter How It's Worded

    So, are other languages really less precise than English?
     
  2. RighteousnessTemperance&

    RighteousnessTemperance& Well-Known Member

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    I cannot say whether the language allows too many loopholes, but the thesis of the article sounds on target--the Chinese regime is not to be trusted. From the article...

    Tonelson also agreed with Chang’s assessment that U.S. should be pursuing a policy of “decoupling” its economy from China; and to that end, the Phase One trade deal isn’t beneficial from a longterm strategic and economic perspective.

    Tonelson said, “This is the time to keep kicking China while it’s down. The Chinese economy was growing at its slowest rate in decades. Its foreign trade balance has weakened tremendously. Its exports to the United States — by its own statistics, which … can be dodgy — fell by about 20 percent, last year.”

    Tonelson noted that the Trump policy of “creating tremendous pressure on China was working to decouple” the two economies. “It had been achieving tremendous progress. China today is much less important to the U.S. economy than the day [Trump] was inaugurated.”

    Echoing Chang’s calls for pursuing disconnection of the American and Chinese economies, Tonelson said, “Decoupling — making sure the U.S. economy has as little to do with China as is practically possible — has to be the overriding U.S. objective.”

     
  3. MartyF

    MartyF Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, The article made me think about it but I really didn't want to get political with this thread. I linked the article because I didn't want people to think that I was personally making it up when I said other languages were less precise than English.

    One of the things I thought about is the fact that Chinese only use a pictographic written language. This means that the Chinese written language doesn't seem to have such things as verb tenses. This would seem to be like Biblical translations would also completely miss this and possible other problems. This was my thought more than anything else. It would seem to kill "word for word" translations in this case or increase ambiguity in the translated work.
     
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