Comparing the evolution of a language to the translation of a completely unrelated language with many incompatibilities is absurdity. Ancient hebrew does not exist any more. But modern hebrew speakers have no trouble reading the antiquated language; even if a Germanized accent in the case of the Ashkenazim or an Arabized accent in the case of the Sephardim (or an Sinosized accent in the case of the Yu-tai of Kaifeng, China, or Kushesized accent n the case of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia) would not seem correct to the speakers back then they would understand us. Can Swedish not understand Greenlandic? The Peedee Indians in SC can understand the Sioux in the Dakotas even though they split long before the arrival of white men. The same goes for Cherokee and Iroquois. A fluent Sioux speaker can understand all of the place names in South Carolina, 1500 miles away from where they live. But there would be no compatibility between Germanic English and Semitic Arabic. The only Germanic speaking people that may have had contact with Semitic people that may have continued on in migration are the Hittites, but they have disappeared to history. In other words, Arabic and English have nothing in common. And to compare those differences between in contrast to the differences between a modern version of the same language is a stretch.
Levi
Except that its a fact that only a handful of scholars can read the Quran in ancient Arabic. Its not merely some change of accent here and there, and some words being replaced with newer words and stuff like that. Its simply a language no one can read anymore.
Didnt the 50 virgins if you die turn out to be 50 vases or something? Translation error.
Compare it with the bible. The original thing was written in Latin, then the middle ages came along and nobody spoke Latin anymore except a handful of monks and their grasp on Latin was flawed at best. So they rewrote it, over and over, translated it, and now you have a book that probably isnt the same as the original anymore.
Actually, the old testament would have been written in Hebrew, Aramaic, which is now dead, and Greek. Even the new testament was translated into Greek pretty early on, so there is both Latin and Greek translations to draw upon.
Greek is so old a written language with such a varied and complex vocabulary that ambiguities in the language are rare. So even though the language varies today, the basis for study remains. Idioms are the hard thing to translate. When an idea is expressed in an idiom, coming up with an equivalent expression is difficult, if not impossible. It's like reading Shakespeare. Anyone with a basic command of the English language can read it. But only someone with insight into the historical perspective of the text can understand it. That's why seminaries teach Greek and Latin, especially in the context of original translations of the bible. The idea is that priests and pastors can understand what modern translations are actually saying - I won't get into abuses, etc...
I'm fairly confident that word for word copies made it through the centuries mostly unmolested. Particularly in Greece since the Greek language never died and the Greek orthodox church still uses their original churches and texts from the Byzantine Era.
