Re: Eng translation of Kacc 1:1

George,

The problem is that you say these word choices are "bad" and asserted
your own as "good" with no stated reasons as to why; as I pressed the
point with "Euphony", I now know your reasons; however, I disagree
with them (see below).  Again, I was already aware of these issues
before making the decision to translate in this way; you have not told
me anything (in this wise) that I did not already know, nor with the
other examples of word choice as cited.

I have not been trucculent, and I do not feel that my "manhood" has
been attacked (as you put it); but if you had written, "I disagree
with your selection of the word /X/ for reason /Y/" then that would
have been useful as, (1) it would have presented a rational argument,
and (2) it would have tacitly acknowleged that my own translation
choices are indeed based on rational arguments --or "decisions".

I think that anyone would have found quite insulting your direct
statements that there was "no reason" for a given choice "except that
it is listed in Buddhadatta's dictionary as such"; this does not
imply, but directly MEANS that you believe I am jejunely looking up
words in the Pali-Enlglish dictionary, and relying upon it in an
uncritical, irrational, or childlike manner.

As it happens, your objection to the words "Book" and "Euphony" are
revealed as having no semantic basis, but as being quite irrational
and emotional in their basis; that being the case, you could have more
properly written "As a favour to me, would you change this to..."
--given that there is no sense in which "Book" is in any way a "bad
translation" (your term) nor in which "the aesthetic sense of
'Euphony'" is unwanted or irrelevant in the Pali context.

> But these matters are not the core of my objection to `the Book of Euphony'. That
> phrase feels to me like it belongs in Edmund Spenser, or perhaps J. R. R. Tolkien, and not
> in a scholarly translation of a Pali grammar. I imagine you do not feel this way, and I agree
> that "cultural" differences are involved.

First you insult me by calling my words "Greek", now by comparing me
to popular novelists!  (NOTE TO JIM: YES, I AM JOKING).  For the
record, I've never heard of Ed Spenser, and I've never read J.R.R.
Tolkien.

> I also imagine that a far larger proportion of the
> potential users of your translation share my "culture" than share yours.

Gee, I don't know, George, I just came back from meetings at the
Buddhist Institute at Phnom Penh, and I really don't see that you have
a lot of common ground with the average, intermediate Palicist that
I've met in my lifetime.

George, did you ever get around to reading Deshpande's _Sanskrit and
Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues_?  I still feel that many of your
comments reflect a lack of background on the Pali langauge "as such",
and you're presuming to "reproach" me with factoids that I not only
have prior familiarity with --but seem to know more about than you do.
  I don't think that you've done nearly as much research on the
meaning(s) of the word akkhara as I have; while I'm entirely willing
to concede that the context-sensitive use of "letter" as equivalent is
an imperfect solution, I'm really not willing to discuss this further
with you, as I just don't think you're playing with a full deck. You
know full well that the concept of "letter" is not identical to
"glyph", nor necessarily implies writing (e.g., "by the letter of the
law" as opposed to "by the spirit" --check a dictionary, "letter" does
not always mean a written glyph) --just as, before, you must have
known that "book" can mean a section of a bound volume.  But, as I
say, you're leaving some cards out of the deck to make over-the-top
arguments that seem to mask that fact that your objections are more
"cultural" than "factual".

I would agree that linguistic terms such as "morpheme" and "phoneme"
are more accurate than "letter" and "syllable" --and I will
re-consider the matter-- but I am reluctant to use such jargon in the
main text of the translation (whereas the footnotes are more jargon
heavy) --as I know that many of my readers will be
English-as-a-second-language.

E.M.