Brasil

Using as an illustration a translation of Mark 5:19 from Koiné Greek to Guaraní, the author argues that faithful translation involves identifying the underlying semantic structure of a source text and expressing it in the target language, rather than mechanically transforming surface forms from source to target. Based on a detailed semantic analysis of the passage in the source and target languages, the degree of equivalence between them then indicates the degree of "literalness" or accuracy of translation. Specific issues that are discussed include obligatory features of one language that are not reflected in the other language, such as number and gender which are obligatory in Greek but not often represented in Guaraní.