Wednesday, December 9, 2015

낙서

낙서

Okay, enough about my back story for right now. More will come shortly, also written with 20/20 hindsight and a tinge of sarcasm. 

With this post, I want to write about one thought that I have had since becoming CO-J-COLDS.

I wish there were JST Bibles in other languages than English. Koreans mostly use the 개역개정 which is based off a hundred year old Chosun Dynasty (조선시대) form of Korean, which is hard and too esoteric for most Koreans to completely grasp.

So I usually use NIV Bibles to help with Scriptural studies among non-native speakers if I don’t share my Testimony in Korean.

Even the Korean Book of Mormon 몰몬경 is a word-for-word translation in a similar style to the Chosun Dynasty form of grammar that the Korean language Bible was written in, which is a newer translation than the meaning translation that the LDS church in Korea used for awhile.




Some of the older Korean members from my Ward still have some of those earlier translations; which, I am told, can be taken differently when read into. Either way, both translations/interpretations are slightly complicated for native Korean speakers. I mean, English phrases, like "나의 허리의 열매들("fruit of my loins") translated directly from Korean to English comes out as "my hip area's fruit," with "fruit" being the actual edible kind of fruit. With parts like this that don't flow easily between cultures, language comes to the central stage.

Wherever I got, I either need to decide to bring an English Quad and a Korean Book of Mormon and a Korean Bible, or I chose between either language. But, regardless of the language I carry, I always have a Korean Ben Gates copy of the Book of Mormon.

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