History Of The Word Translation: Sumerian Epic Of Gilgamesh

The word translation is derived from the Latin word translatio that means to bring/carry across, though it is a concept that is probably as old as language itself. There are examples of literary translation of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh found in Southwest Asia that date as far as 2000 B.C. Another example can be a bilingual document known as the Treaty of Kasesh dated 1275 B.C. In Western culture there is a continuity of this idea that stretches as far as antiquity. Ancient Greeks distinguished two extremes in translations that were paraphrase and metaphrase, the second term meaning the concept of word-for-word translation (Kasparek, 1983: 83). Translation has been an important factor for the development of the Roman society, as it was heavily influenced by the works of the Greeks of whom many were translated into Latin.

As Ghanooni (2012: 77) points out, the theory for translations in that period comprised mainly of remarks, most of whom were rooted in rhetoric. The Roman Cicero (first century B.C.), a pioneer in translations in the Roman Republic, said that he prefers to keep to the figures of thought, keeping the ideas and forms of the original. Thus he aimed to preserve the original texts general style and its force, without resorting to a word for word translation. As he put it: “I did not think I ought to count them out to the reader like coins, but to pay them by weight, as it were”