Clivedurdle

But is there not a huge worldwide population that could be doing this work - all the preachers, priests, monks, mullahs on the planet?

Gugenheim ancient?

ughaibu

Your link in post 20 only gives me a brief introduction, I guess you mean the proposition beginning "let there be a right prism with square bases"?

Roger Pearse

Many thanks for the kind words. But it's something that we can all do, you know?

Perhaps we don't know any Greek? Well, some people know Latin, and old Latin translations of most of the untranslated Greek stuff are available.

Or perhaps we don't know any ancient languages? Well, French translations are available of many texts never translated into English, and the machine translators are really pretty good for French. Anyone who did French at school -- however basic -- can start to translate stuff and put it online, and increase the knowledge base.

Some people know German, or Italian; there is material in both these languages which isn't in English.

Imagine only doing a paragraph of some ancient letter. But if you stick it in Wikipedia, then it's not lost. It's not time wasted. Or post it in this forum, or send it to me (if public domain).

We can all contribute, really we can. All we have to do is try! Find something which looks interesting, and go with it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I wish. Many of these have other duties, you know.

Monks do indeed carry out some translations; indeed there is something of an arms race going on in Greek orthodox monasteries in the US at the moment to publish revised versions of Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on John.

French catholic priests are the mainstay of the marvellous Sources Chrétiennes series.

But those monks and priests who are really scholarly mostly want to do real scholarship. Making a translation is not scholarship, you see. (This is a real problem not confined to the clergy) People like the Bollandists make our scholars look like children.

But if we look at the majority of the translations that do exist to 1900, probably mostly they were done by clergymen, gentlemen of leisure as they sometimes were. Most modern clergy are poor, few and overworked, tho. I have yet to get any clergy involved.

Another problem for us is that we speak English. We don't have many monasteries, thanks to Henry VIII. Our scholars are mostly not that good. All of them need to publish research, not translations.

You would be astonished at how few people with Greek and Latin can be induced to do translating, even for money. Why else do you think that a busy man like myself learned Syriac? -- Because I couldn't get anyone else to do it.

If I were a billionaire, I could probably breed my own translators. Sadly the cheque must have been lost in the mail.

Likewise if I could obtain substantial state or lottery funding. I did have a go at this, was messed about and finally got told in no uncertain terms that people like me didn't get grants.

These are the reasons why it doesn't happen. But there is no reason at all why we shouldn't have a go at things. Every reason why we should!

Sorry, but I don't understand this bit. What is this? Is this some project?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

I meant Gutenberg!

Could this not be approached like a SETI project, using google? It sounds like it just needs some structure and project management. There are more than enough computers and scanners around.

Roger Pearse

Perhaps. Beyond my abilities, tho.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

But someone here on IIDB will know someone! There is a down side though!

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=104020

Roger Pearse

Well, if you can envisage it, why not have a go, and see what happens? My time may be committed, but it doesn't mean that everyone else can't work.

Grab a chance and you'll never be sorry for a might-have-been.

All the best,

Roger Pearse