Theos-Talk Archives (May 2008 Message tt00627)

Elsewhere (LMW?) one Master wrote, that theosophy should benefit an English 
speaking world.
Judge also pointed out, that it important to bear in mind, that the TS was 
founded in New York.

Ergo they choose the English language, because in Great Britain and USA 
English is spoken.
In case that in 1875 Spanish or Vulcanic would have been the language in GB 
and USA, they probably had chosen another language.

I have heard that Boris de Zirkoff in a private letter once has pointed out 
the presence of spiritual terms in the German language.
How much degenerated the Germans of today are is best shown that at the term 
Sein, when the Germans re-translate it from the English artificial word 
Be-ness into into a likewise artificial German Sein-heit!!!

If one reads the stanzas with open German eyes, especially with knowledge of 
Old High German, one is impressed of striking similarities and one feels the 
Germany's lost primordial Ur-Religion of the heathens/buddhists/gnostics 
which existed until the Romanian foreign rule.
F.e. the term Sat also exists in OHG and instead of a "tranlation" one only 
needs another pronounciation!

Frank

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Konstantin Zaitzev
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 8:45 AM
Subject: Theos-World Language problems


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "prmoliveira" <prmoliveira@...>
wrote:

> Just imagine, for argument's sake, that HPB (and her two Teachers,
> since The Secret Doctrine was their "triple production") had written
> the following passage in, let us say, Russian:

> "This "Be-ness" is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two

> How many people in the world would be able to read it, let alone
> understand it?

She could select any widely understood language, like Spanish or
German. Writing right about these things you quoted she empasized that
English is utterly unfit for philosophical literature, and that in
German she could use term das Sein for Be-ness and need not to invent
a new term.
Even if she wrote everything in Russian, the more saticfactory
translations to the most of European languages could be prepared from
it than from English, and maybe even the English translation would be
better than the current English original.
An edidence of an American was spoken out here that even in the
neighbouring states different words for the same things are used. For
example, in Russian this situation is almost impossible, the language
is strictly uniform all over the country; the regionalisms are slight
and don't impede any understanding.
In 19th century the Ukrainian language, which is different, was
considered a dialect, but later, both for the sake of Ukrainians who
wanted to speak their language and for the sake of purity of Russian
language it was declared a separate language which develops its own
way. Yet it has in itself many dialects and the people of east and
west of Ukraine sometimes hardly understand one another.
The differences in English have gone so far than even native speakers
lost the sense of their own language. One Russian travelled over
America. He spoke English fluently but with a Russian accent. In one
of middle west states an American asked him:
- I see from you speech that you came from afar.
- Yes, I am, - replied the Russian.
- From the East Coast, perhaps?