Absolute hapax legomena in the book of song of songs and their translation into the Indonesian language

Abstract

This dissertation is about "Absolute Hapax legomena in the book of Song of Songs and their translations into the Indonesian language." The term Hapax Legomena (the singular is: hapax Legomenon which means "once said") has been used since the time of Homer in Alexandria, Egypt. The Bible, both the Old and New Testament have a lot of hapax legomena. This dissertation focuses on hapax legomena in the Old Testament in general and absolute hapax legomena in the book of Song of Songs in particular. Chapter one gives the Introduction to Hapax Legomena in the Old Testament. Hapax Legomena in the Old Testament has been used since the Masoretic period. Early Hebrew Grammarians continued this custom. The practice is still used until now, the Modern period. In the Modern period, hapax legomena is divided into absolute hapax legomena (hapax legomena with non-homonymic roots) and non-absolute hapax Legomena (hapax legomena with homonymic roots). Chapter Two explains the History of Interpretation of Hapax Legomena in the Old Testament. Hapax legomena have been interpreted differently through the ages. Some of the hapax legomena were explained as a mixture of syllables ("portmanteau words"). Others explained hapax legomena through non-Hebrew cognate. Still others interpreted hapax legomena by means of the immediate context. Chapter Three presents the Distribution of Hapax Legomena in the Old Testament. The Old Testament consists of the poetical (e.g. Job, Song of Songs) and non-poetical books (e.g. Genesis, Exodus). This chapter supports that the poetical books have more hapax legomena than the non-poetical books of the Old Testament. The book of Song of Songs, though it is one of the shortest books in the Old Testament, has the most ha x legomena compared to other poetical books of the Old Testament. Chapter Four deals with the Interpretation of Absolute Hapax Legomena in the book of Song of Songs. The present writer found fifteen absolute hapax legomena and about twenty-six non-absolute hapax legomena or unique words in the book of Song of Songs. These fifteen absolute hapax legomena were explained according to their contexts and cognates. The twenty-six hapax legomena non-absolute are listed in the appendix. To get the meaning of each hapax legomenon by the help of its contexts and cognates, the NIV, NEB and NRSV were used as comparative versions in addition to the Masoretic Text as the main text. In this chapter, the writer also uses the third principle of "the Held Method" which uses semantic parallelism to get the meaning of an absolute hapax legomenon which is located in semantic parallelistic structure with a non-hapax word. The last chapter provides the Indonesian Translation of Absolute Hapax Legomena in the book of Song of Songs. Three Indonesian Bible Society Versions for the book of Song of Songs, Terjemahan Lama (The Old Version), Terjemahan Baru (The New Version) and Bahasa Indonesia Sehari-hari (Today's Indonesian Version) were compared. These three Indonesian Bible Society versions have their own ways in translating absolute hapax legomena in the Song of Songs. Both the Old Version and the New Version use formal correspondence principle as their method. Today's Indonesian Version uses dynamic equivalence principle as its method. By comparing the meaning of absolute hapax legomena which the writer found in chapter four with the three Indonesian versions, the present writer suggests his translation for the fifteen absolute hapax legomena in the Song of Songs. One sample of the use of context, cognate and "The Held Method" to solve the meaning of an absolute hapax legomenon is taken from Song of Songs 2:11 n 1? cm~ ~) 2V vncpn The absolute hapax legomenon in this verse is VilOH ( vno + n ) which is located in colon "a". What is the meaning of Vern? First, the present writer saw the context. In colon "b", the sentence reads, the rains are over and gone" (NIV); “the rains are over and gone"(NEB); "the rain is over and gone" (NRSV). The short verse of 2:11b is supported by the immediate context of Song of Songs 2:12 “Flowers appear on the earth" (NIV); “the flowers appear in the country-side” (NEB); “the flowers appear on the earth" (NRSV). We know that when rain is over and gone, that means that spring has come. Something related with rain must be the subject of the verb Secondly, the present writer check the cognate. Both Arabic, “passed.” (“winter”) and Aramaic, Nino (winter) support the meaning of "winter" for absolute hapax legomenon vnon. Thirdly, “The Held Method” was helpful in explaining absolute semantic parallelism of the verb (“passed”） in colon “a” and the two verbs vnori. The 中厂（‘‘over and gone”） in colon "b" is apparent. Not only Song of Songs 2:11 has semantic parallelism of verbs, but it has also semantic parallelism of subject. , the subject of the verb “passed” in colon “a” is parallel semantically with □與] (“rain”） the subject of the verbs “over and gone” in colon "b". “The Held Method” supports the meaning of “the winter” for absolute 如 /贏 To conclude, the translation for Song of Songs 2:11 with absolute hapax legomenon vnon in this verse is: "The winter is passed, the rain is over and gone". The Indonesian translation for Song of Songs 2:11 is: "Musim dingin sudah lewat, hujan sudah berhenti, sudah berlalu. For the translation of a specific hapax legomenon into Indonesian, the present writer suggests the use of transliteration principle. This transliteration is taken from the original Hebrew word or from the cognate word which is quite similar in form and spelling with the Hebrew word the translation of absolute hapax legomenon CDID from Song of Songs 4:14 is a good example. The Arabic cognate for absolute hhapax legomenenon CD1D is kurkum. Moreover, the Hebrew word DlD was originated from Sanskrit kurkuma. Hence, the Indonesian translation for absolute hapax legomenon DDID is kurkuma. As a matter of fact, translation into Indonesian by means of transliteration is not a new principle. A few other Hebrew words in the Old Testament are translated using the transliteration principle,e .g.: m n ... iTTiS; (Ex. 28:30) are translated into Indonesian as "urim dan tumi" ； (Ex. 25:7; 28:4) are translated as "efod." From the book of Song of Songs, GW in Song of Songs 1:17; 5:15 is translated as “pohon araz" or "kayu araz." To make the transliteration of the original Hebrew or cognate word better understood by the readers, we can use footnote to explain the transliterated word. If we put explanation of a transliterated Hebrew word in a particular verse of the Bible, we are putting our own interpretation into the Bible. To the present writer, this is not translation, but interpretation. The present writer hopes that this dissertation can be of help in the research of absolute hapax legomena in the book of Song of Songs and their translations into the Indonesian language.