Hi salleles, thanks for your Dutch translation. I think it's very good. As an experiment I didn't read yours before making a translation myself, so as not to be influenced by your choice of words beforehand. So here is what I came up with:
"Het Gebed van de Ziel"
Oh Goddelijke Kosmische Geest
Heilig Bewustzijn in de Schepping
Gedragen in het Hart
Heerser van de Geest
Redder van de Ziel
Leef in mij vandaag
Wees mijn Dagelijks Brood
Gelijk ik anderen Brood geef
Help mij groeien in Kennis
Van Gans de Schepping
Zuiver mijn Ogen
Opdat ik mag Zien
Zuiver mijn Oren
Opdat ik mag Horen
Zuiver mijn Hart
Opdat ik mag Weten en Liefhebben
De Heiligheid van Waarachtig Bestaan
Goddelijke Kosmische Geest
As you can see it came out quite different. This was what I expected actually, because Dutch is a language full synonyms that are more or less overlapping in meaning, and people choose different ones all the time.
I chose "in de schepping" as opposed to your "al het geschapene" (line two), which is kind of the same but not exactly the same. I do believe that 'in' is better than 'van' because the original English 'in' is much closer in meaning. I think the second sentence means to say that the divine cosmic mind (1st line) is holy awareness in all creation, meaning that there is literally awareness in all creation, not of all creation. 'Van' would be closer to 'of' in English, so I used 'in'. I think your 'al het geschapene' is a beautiful find!
I used 'geest' in stead of 'verstand' as you did in line four. I think it's closer to the original meaning, but I could be way off. What do you think? And what would be the difference in the meaning of the word 'mind' in line one and four?
I choose to translate 'As' into 'Gelijk' in stead of your 'Zoals' (line eight), but the meaning is, as far as i know, almost the same. One could use 'evenals', 'net zoals' or 'evenzo' as well. 'Gelijk' just sounded better to me, but that could be just my Christian upbringing speaking from the past :)
I translated 'Help me grow in knowledge' as 'Help mij groeien in Kennis', where you translated it as 'Help mij kennis te vergaren'. Don't really know which would be best. My translation feels a bit awkward, but it is correct spelling and grammar, and I think close to the original. 'Kennis vergaren' would translate back as 'gather knowledge' I think. Any thoughts on this anyone?
What I also noticed is that you translated 'clear' differently three times, as 'schoon', 'zuiver' en 'reinig' (line 11, 13 and 15). I chose to use 'zuiver' in all cases because I feel 'reinig' is more something you would do to the kitchen sink, and 'schoon' isn't much used as a verb, much more as a noun. I also think 'zuiver' comes closest to the original meaning, but that could be my subjective opinion also. When you would translate 'zuiver' back to English it would be closer to 'pure' than clear, though google translate does suggest 'clear'. When translating 'reinig' and 'schoon' to English google suggests 'clean', which is close but different.
Another difference between your translation and mine is that I used 'mag' as a translaten of 'may', where you used 'kan' (line 16 and 17). I think 'mag' is closer, but still a bit off. I also used 'Opdat' in stead of 'Zodat', but those are very close. Still thinking about that one.
Last one: I used 'waarachtig bestaan' where you used 'het ware bestaan'. I think both are good.
I'll try to get my hands on some of those old heavy Dutch dictionaries to look up some more words. I think my dad has one, and hem being a school teacher I'll also ask him to translate the prayer, just to see what he comes up with. Although Dutch is my first language this little exercise surprised me because it illustrated to me what a difficult language it is.
Please feel free to comment. I hope we can get to a final Dutch translation of the prayer.
Yeah!!!
