The Problem of German intermediary Translation into Arabic (Goethe's Novel The Sorrows of Young Werther as a model)

Abstract

There is no doubt that the human beings were blessed by God to have different languages. There are those who speak Semitic languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic and there are those who speak Indo-European languages such as Hindi, English, German, etc. This multiplicity normally leads to diversity of the cultures, arts, literatures, and philosophies. Because language is regarded as the means of expressing all these matters, it is necessary to find a way of communication between the different communities. Thus, there has been a need to know and be acquainted with the different languages through the establishment of translation that occurred in the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, especially during the rule of the 5th Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān, (646–8 October 705). That is because translation was considered a way of the cultural and social communication. Thus, this research is conducted in three parts to discuss the problems of intermediary translation of German literary text into Arabic. The first part talks about the beginning of the Arabic acquaintance with the famous translations of German literary works, especially in Iraq and Egypt to determine the characteristics of this reception. In the second part we will discuss the most famous German novel which translated into Arabic several times and has gained a lot of resonance in the Arab world. It is Die Leiden des jungen Werthers [The Sorrows of young Werther]. Hereby we refer to their translations, in order to see the influence of the intermediary translation on the original text. The third part is talking about the feature of intermediary translation. It must be investigated which problems causes such translation.