Letters of George Borrow | Page 3

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Letters of George Borrow to the British and Foreign Bible Society

LETTER: February 10th, 1833

To the Rev. J. Jowett WILLOW LANE, ST. GILES, NORWICH, FEB.
10TH, 1833.
REVD. AND DEAR SIR, - I have just received your communication,
and notwithstanding it is Sunday morning, and the bells with their loud
and clear voices are calling me to church, I have sat down to answer it
by return of post. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that I was
rejoiced to see the Chrestomathie Mandchou, which will be of no slight
assistance in learning the Tartar dialect, on which ever since I left
London I have been almost incessantly occupied. It is, then, your
opinion, that from the lack of anything in the form of Grammar I have
scarcely made any progress towards the attainment of Mandchou;
perhaps you will not be perfectly miserable at being informed that you
were never more mistaken in your life. I can already, with the
assistance of Amyot, TRANSLATE MANDCHOU with no great
difficulty, and am perfectly qualified to write a critique on the version
of St. Matthew's Gospel, which I brought with me into the country.
Upon the whole, I consider the translation a good one, but I cannot help
thinking that the author has been frequently too paraphrastical, and that

in various places he must be utterly unintelligible to the Mandchous
from having unnecessarily made use of words which are not Mandchou,
and with which the Tartars cannot be acquainted.
What must they think, for example, on coming to the sentence . . .
APKAI ETCHIN NI POROFIYAT, I.E. the prophet of the Lord of
heaven? For the last word in the Mandchou quotation being a
modification of a Greek word, with no marginal explanation, renders
the whole dark to a Tartar. [Greek text which cannot be recorded];
APKAI I know, and ETCHIN I know, but what is POROFIYAT, he
will say. Now in Tartar, there are words synonymous with our seer,
diviner, or foreteller, and I feel disposed to be angry with the translator
for not having used one of these words in preference to modifying
[Greek text]; and it is certainly unpardonable of him to have Tartarized
[Greek text] into . . . ANGUEL, when in Tartar there is a word equal to
our messenger, which is the literal translation of [Greek text]. But I will
have done with finding fault, and proceed to the more agreeable task of
answering your letter.
My brother's address is as follows: Don Juan Borrow, Compagnia
Anglo Mexicana, Guanajuato, Mexico.
When you write to him, the letter must be put in post before the third
Wednesday of the month, on which day the Mexican letter- packet is
made up. I suppose it is unnecessary to inform you that the outward
postage of all foreign letters must be paid at the office, but I wish you
particularly to be aware that it will be absolutely necessary to let my
brother know in what dialect of the Mexican this translation is made, in
order that he may transmit it to the proper quarter, for within the short
distance of twenty miles of the place where he resides there are no less
than six dialects spoken, which differ more from each other than the
German does from the English. I intend to write to him next Thursday,
and if you will favour me with an answer on this very important point,
by return of post, I shall feel obliged.
Return my kind and respected friend Mr. Brandram my best thanks for
his present of THE GYPSIES' ADVOCATE, and assure him that, next
to the acquirement of Mandchou, the conversion and enlightening of
those interesting people occupy the principal place in my mind. Will he
be willing to write to the Gypsy Committee concerning me? I wish to
translate the Gospel of St. John into their language, which I could

easily do