The Role of Synonymy in Causing Inconsistencies in the Choice of Equivalents in Farsi Translations of the Holy Qur'an: A Case of the Twelve Contemporary Translations of the Ash-Shams and Al-Balad Suras
Subject Areas : Quarterly Sabzevaran Fadak
mostafa kamaljoo
1
,
Mehdi Shahrokh
2
1 - Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, University Of Mazandaran,
2 - Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, ‎Iran‎
Keywords: Synonymy, Translation of the Qur', Equivalents, an, comparative study, synonyms,
Abstract :
The Holy Quran is a book for human guidance in Arabic, whose understanding is only available through translation to those who do not know Arabic. None of the translations of the Qur'an can ever compare with its Arabic origin and they serve only as a means for a better understanding of the Qur'an. However, since Arabic is one of the most complete languages and it involves many fine details, this makes the translation of the Qur'an a very challenging job. Therefore, unless the translator has a competent knowledge and command of the fine details of the Arabic language, his translation would be a flawed one. This research aims to study the role and the effect of synonymy on inconsistencies and their frequencies in translation based on the analytical descriptive method. For this purpose, the translations of two short Suras of Ash-Shams and Al-Balad by the following contemporary translators have been selected for comparison: Ansariyan, Ayati, Bahrampour, Khorramdel, Khorramshahi, Sadeghi Tehrani, Fooladvand, Qaraati, Mojtabavi, Mo'ezi, Makarem Shirazi, and Elahi Qomsheie. The results of this study show a significant ratio of differences in finding the Farsi equivalents among these translators, Such that the percentage of differences is much higher than that of the similarities. the highest ratio was seen between Khorramdel and Mo'ezi and the least ratio was seen between Fooladvand and Sadeghi Tehrani. This probably represents the least and highest amount of influence among these translators, and of course their only instrument in producing these inconsistencies is the synonymy phenomenon in
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