There are challenges and opportunities in translating the Quran into Greek.
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This is according to Hekmatollah Molla-Salehi and Sofia A. Koutlaki who presented a paper titled “Qur’anic Translation in Greek: Challenges and Opportunities” at the first International Conference on Translation of the Quran earlier this week.
“The Greek-speaking world has had a close, yet uneasy relationship with Islam,” Ms Koutlaki said in her speech. “On the one hand, Greece and Cyprus lie at the eastern borders of Europe, very close to the Middle East, to which it is also culturally akin. On the other hand, Greece has experienced Islam for centuries in the guise of the Ottoman conquerors. These geographical and historical factors have given rise to ambivalent attitudes towards Islam among Greeks.”
She said the paper aims to highlight the challenges and the opportunities that the Greek language provides for a successful Quranic translation.
“The challenges stem from Greek readers' generally negative attitudes towards Islam, but can be met successfully in two ways: firstly, by avoiding lexical choices that bear negative connotations, and secondly, by making use of the opportunities that the status of the Greek language has enjoyed throughout history as vehicle of philosophical thought in its classical form and as a biblical language in its Koine/Hellenistic form.”
The paper concludes that the fact that an averagely educated Greek can access a significant number of lexical items from earlier forms of the language means a Greek Quran translation can utilize rich vocabulary stores in attempting to convey the greatness of the inimitable original.
The first International Conference on Quran Translation was held in Tehran on December 14-17.
It was jointly organized by Allameh Tabatabaei University and the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO).
Quran translators from 10 countries, including Russia, France, Pakistan, Spain, China, and the Republic of Azerbaijan took part at the international conference. /SR
