--- redlotustemple@... skrev:

> Also, up to date language can be filled with much
> slang and inappropriate
> methods of speaking and structure from an academic
> standpoint. Myself being a
> Buddhist priest

I think "priest" is a wrong word for "bhikkhu", since
you don't administer any sacraments. "Monk" is better,
but still not good, as your order is not cloistered.
"Friar" would be preferable (in the same way as there
are no Franciscan monks, only Franciscan friars), but
I more and more prefer just to say "bhikkhu".

> the need for such language creates
> an appropriate tone setting
> of the language and keeps a foundation of edified
> translation of the spoken
> form. Similar to the use of old and new English in
> Bible translations,
> incredible levels of structure and meaning are lost
> and immensely impact one's
> internalizing the meaning of the words themselves.

Ideally, a translation should have the same stilistic
level for its readers or listeners now as the original
text had for its readers or listeners then. In the
case of the Bible, or at least the New Testament, I
have been told that the original text was not archaic
at all (it's Greek is Koiné, not Classical); so to
read it today in Elizabethan English will not give a
correct impression, and may give you "incredible
levels of structure and meaning" created by the
translators rather than the authors.

So in the case of Pali proze, I think archaisms should
be avoided, as far as they aren't clearly there in the
original. Pali poetry is a slightly different case, as
it *does* contain some archaisms; still we shouldn't
forget that the Tipitaka was not formulated in
Sanskrit, as would have been natural if its first
editors had had the same attitude as today's advocates
of King James' Bible, but in one of the Prakrits, i.
e. in an idiom that was probably of a rather everyday
character at the time, at least in the proze parts.

I also think euphemisms should be avoided, as not
quite consistent with the ideal of clearly seeing
things as they really are. I am thinking especially of
Horner´s "obeying the calls of nature", where Neumann
follows the Pali text much more bluntly: "Entleerung
von Kot und Harn" (if I remember correctly).

Gunnar