These translations changed world history

Translating a book instantly expands its readership. A few translations go beyond that: They have influenced the course of history. Here are ten examples.

They export philosophy, fuel political movements, and leave their mark on art and language. Books can accomplish all of this, but sometimes translators provide the ultimate impetus. We have collected ten of these historic translation milestones.

The Septuagint into Greek

The translation of the Torah, or the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible, from Hebrew into Greek began around 2,300 years ago. It mainly took place in Alexandria. The anonymous translators made the Jewish scriptures and their ideas accessible not only to Greek-speaking Jews, but also to educated Greeks and later to Romans.

The Septuagint built a bridge between Jewish and Greek culture and was a powerful driver of monotheism. The existence of a Greek Bible was crucial for the development of early Christianity, because it facilitated its spread in the Hellenistic world.

As an important foundation for St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, it also gave rise to the medieval biblical tradition. However, its influence extends far beyond theology. The Septuagint has influenced European philosophy, ethics, and even the legal system. Ultimately, it permeated the entire culture and politics of Europe.

Buddhist texts into Chinese

The first Buddhist texts were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese around 200 BC. The most important translations were gradually produced between the 4th and 10th centuries.

The texts had a strong impact on Chinese culture and the religious environment: Buddhism evolved into one of the three major teachings alongside Daoism and Confucianism. Architecture and art were influenced by it, as was philosophy. For example, Zen tradition was derived from Buddhism.

The integration of Buddhism into Chinese culture ultimately became the source of a shared cultural heritage for East Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

The Quran

There are clear parallels between the translations of the Quran from Arabic and the translation of the Septuagint into Greek. Both had massive historical, religious, and cultural implications.

For the first hundred years, there were no translations, because the Quran was considered the untranslatable word of God. However, the first translations into Persian and Turkish appeared in the 8th century. It was not until the 12th century that a translation into Latin followed, whose title, “The Law of the Lying Prophet Muhammad,” did not hide its malicious agenda. From the 16th century onward, there were translations into French, English, and German, but the first scientifically accurate translations of the Quran, which refrained from polemics, did not get released until the 19th century.

Similar to the Septuagint, translations of the Quran also contributed significantly to the spread of a religion. Early versions in Urdu, Swahili, and Malay, for example, promoted its spread in Asia and Africa. Another phenomenon that was somewhat reminiscent of that of the Luther Bible: Since Muslims could now read the Quran in their own language, reform movements and tensions with traditional Islamic scholars also quickly arose.

In Europe, the scientific translations of the later period opened up a third way between fact-free fascination with the exotic and polemical rejection of the foreign—a serious confrontation with Islam.

Aristotle into Arabic

In 825, Caliph al-Ma’mūn founded the “House of Wisdom” in Baghdad, an academy where scholars produced scientific and philosophical translations into Arabic. Among other things, the translators worked on the works of Aristotle, thereby rendering an invaluable service to the world,

because Aristotle was on the verge of being forgotten in Europe at that time. Starting in the 12th century, the writings of Greek philosopher returned to Europe via Spain and Sicily and were translated into Latin.

This detour ensured that Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics are preserved to this day. They formed the foundation of scholasticism and ultimately helped bring about the Renaissance and modern science. At the same time, however, the writings also influenced the Islamic world, where they lead to the proliferation of astronomy, medicine, and mathematics and even made a lasting impact on Islamic theology.

The translators in Baghdad thus accomplished much more than simply saving a few books from the ravages of time. They preserved a globally relevant intellectual foundation and stood at the cradle of modern science.

The Bible in German

Martin Luther had good reasons to hide under a false name at Wartburg Castle. The theologian and Augustinian monk, who had been excommunicated, knew that his translation of the Bible into German would cause a scandal, but even he could not have foreseen the actual consequences of his work.

In 1522, the New Testament was published in German for the first time, and in 1534, Luther completed his translation of the entire Bible. The provocative move was actually intentional! Until then, the Church had ensured that the complete Bible was strictly only available in Latin, which secured the authority of interpretation for educated theologians. With his translation, Luther sent an unprecedented message: The Word of God should belong to everyone, and everyone should be allowed to read and understand it without the mediation of the Church. The idea of the priesthood of all baptized Christians was a primary catalyst behind the reformation with all its well-known historical consequences.

At the same time, the Luther Bible was a milestone in the development of the German language. It took Early New High German to a new level by creating a uniform, comprehensible standard written German language. German grammar and vocabulary are still influenced by Luther today. Casting your pearls before swine; the wolf in sheep’s clothing; hiding a light under a bushel; separating the wheat from the chaff – Luther’s powerful language still lives on in today’s German idioms.

Last but not least, Martin Luther also provided an enormous boost to literacy and education among the entire population. His translation of the Bible led to an explosive development of modern printing, which had already been known for a hundred years. Reading evolved into a key competence in education. Ultimately, Luther’s translation of the Bible also impacted other languages. Translation into vernacular languages subsequently became increasingly popular throughout Europe.

The Principia into French

Sir Isaac Newton wrote in Latin. His “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,” published in 1687, in which he takes the findings of Galileo and Kepler to a whole new level of physics, was initially reserved for an educated elite.

This only changed seven decades later. In 1759, the “Principia” was published in French. In addition to being a high-quality translation in terms of language, it was also an annotated edition that made Newton’s complicated trains of thought comprehensible to non-physicists.

The French version not only had an enormous impact on science itself. It also had a demonstrable effect on philosophers such as Voltaire and the Enlightenment movement in general. It also marked the beginning of France’s great mathematical tradition. At the same time, this translation played a major role in turning French into the universal language of European science in the 18th century.

Furthermore, the translation of the “Principia” was one of the first significant translations by a woman. Émilie du Châtelet was an outstanding mathematician as well as a philosopher of the Enlightenment. Today, she represents the often overlooked significance of intellectual women in the Age of Enlightenment.

The Rosetta Stone

On July 15, 1799, a French officer’s horse stumbled over a stone protruding from the sand in the Nile Delta. This coincidence heralded the beginning of modern Egyptology.

The Rosetta Stone, a granite stele measuring barely more than three feet high, contains the same text in Ancient Greek, Demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphics describing a decree honoring King Ptolemy V. About 23 years after the discovery, linguist Jean-François Champollion, building on the preliminary work of others, achieved a major breakthrough. He deciphered the previously indecipherable hieroglyphics! The French linguist thus opened the door to understanding the literature and history of ancient Egypt, including its religion and science as well as everyday life in antiquity.

At the same time, this translation changed linguistics. The method of comparing different language systems through bilingual texts became a fundamental principle. But the Rosetta Stone also had a major impact on archaeology. Daily newspapers around the world reported extensively on Champollion’s success, triggering not only widespread enthusiasm for Egypt, but also a veritable boom in archaeological research in the 19th century.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were the defining figures of the black civil rights movement of the 1960s. However, they did not become best friends. Especially in the early years, Malcolm X accused his significantly less radical brother-in-arms of pandering too much to the white establishment. He repeatedly insulted him by calling him “Uncle Tom.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, and the novel quickly became a global success thanks to translations into more than 40 languages. The author was a staunch opponent of slavery and wrote her novel with the clear intention of bringing this scandal to the attention of the world (or at least America). And it did just that! The book sold sensationally well and became a line of reasoning for the Northern states in the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln’s alleged remark to Beecher Stowe has become famous: “So, you’re the little woman whose book started this great war.”

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” also brought the issue of slavery into focus outside America. In Latin America and Russia, it fueled debates about colonialism and serfdom, and in Europe, it led to a significant shift in public sympathy toward the Northern states.

There is no denying that the novel reflected the time in which it was written. The black slaves were portrayed stereotypically. Also, the Christian capacity for suffering of the main character is rather strange from today’s perspective. Even more notably, it is a white author who wants to help black people achieve justice here. With that in mind, Malcolm X’s frustration is understandable, but it ignores the enormous impact of this book.

Das Kapital in Russian

The first volume of Das Kapital was published in Hamburg in 1867. After Karl Marx’s death, Friedrich Engels completed the two subsequent volumes in 1885 and 1894. The first translation into Russian had already appeared in St. Petersburg in 1872. This had literally global consequences.

Industrialization was emerging in Russia, which was heavily agrarian at the time, and Marx’s complex economic critique of capitalism quickly fell on fertile ground. With Das Kapital, intellectuals suddenly had a theoretical foundation for a revolutionary movement.

The translation into Russian contributed decisively to the formation of political circles that led to the founding of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Russia. Revolutionaries like Lenin used “Das Kapital” as a theoretical foundation for their criticism of tsarism and for the development of Bolshevism.

After the victory of the October Revolution, Das Kapital shaped the economic policy of the Soviet Union and also became the cornerstone for planned economies in other countries.

The Diary of Anne Frank

The Dutch edition was published in 1947, followed by the first German translation in 1950. The Diary of Anne Frank is now available in more than 70 languages and is one of the most widely read books in the world.

The diary entries of the adolescent girl, who casually intersperses the horrors of National Socialism with personal observations about everyday life, became a central text for the culture of remembrance.

Naturally, in Germany and Austria, the impact was particularly strong. The Nuremberg Trials ended in the year before the German translation was published. The attitude that a line had finally been drawn under the past was widespread. After all, the guilty parties had been named and sentenced. However, “The Diary of Anne Frank” made the commonplace insanity tangible, the great guilt that followers and sympathizers had brought upon themselves. The girl, who died in 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with most of her family, continues to hold up a mirror to society to this day.