Hebrew

Hebrew is one of the world’s oldest languages, with an incredibly long and eventful history. Its roots can be traced back to a decade before the common era, wherein Ancient Hebrew was spoken by Ancient Israelites. The original language of the Old Testament, or the Torah, is Ancient Hebrew.

The expulsion of Ancient Israelites during the Babylonian Exile led to a decline in the language, and Hebrew came to be largely replaced by Aramaic. The Hebrew language continued to be used in religious texts and practices, however. Then, the Hebrew language would see a revival during the Zionist movement. Modernization efforts were led by figures like Eliezer Ben-Yehuda as the Zionist project began to colonize Palestine in its initial efforts to create a modern Jewish state.

Unfortunately for translators, different languages aren’t just different versions of one original or universal language. Each language forms from its context, to describe objects and phenomena specific to its conditions, and to the communities that it serves. As a result, it can be quite difficult to perform accurate translations between certain languages.

All of this means that accurate, precise translations need to be done with a bit of cultural understanding. It’s not enough to know the direct translations of the words—this is why direct translations are often clunky at best—but the proper translation must know the relevant concepts and expressions in the target language for a translation to be not just accurate, but to feel natural as well. Cultural understanding is one of the most important aspects of a good translation.