O najnowszym, „dynamicznym” przekładzie psalmów

Abstract

The recent Polish translation of the Psalms, entitled „Księga Psalmów. Nowy Przekład Dynamiczny” („The Book of Psalms. A New Dynamic Translation”) was published in 2013. According to the editor’s preface the translation was made in compliance with the rules of dynamic equivalence. If we assume that the dynamic equivalence amounts to the similarity of receptor’s responses to the original and to its translation, then the reviewed translation turns out to be rather formal than dynamic equivalent of the source, because it translates poetry into prose. It seems that the editors accepted a narrowed and simplified notion of dynamic equivalence, which confines it to the faithful expression of the original meaning in contemporary, easy-to-understand language. The translators did not gain even this result to the full, because they rendered many constructions and idioms literally, distorting the meaning or the style of the source text. On the other hand the reviewed translation gives proper dynamic equivalents of some grammatical constructions (for example sentences with names of body parts whose Polish version contains possessive dative). In accordance with the rules of dynamic equivalence, male-oriented expressions are often translated in a gender-inclusive way. The language used in the translation is a mixture of old and modern elements (contemporary vocabulary of the translation clashes into few grammatical archaisms).