bradford
Depereo said:Pretty straightforward, really: Do you think that English translations of the original Chinese texts fully do the I Ching justice?
I'm just wondering because I would think that translation from Chinese to English would result in losing some of the important meanings of what the writing is trying to convey, and that's the only reason why I'm a little hesitant to delve into I Ching any time soon.
Depereo
Thats a prety good question. Look at it this way - Old Chinese had about 8000 characters to describe the whole of existence. English is at the other extreme with a quarter million to cover the spread. It is reasonable then to say that Chinese words have to be a lot "fatter" in meaning to do the job. The implications are richer. So yes, it would take a bundle of English words to carry the meanings of a Chinese word, and no simple translation of the Yi can carry its richness and breadth.
However, by that logic, you shouldn't be studying Tarot at all, because here we try to cover the spread of existence with only 78 words.