My gob can still be smacked by the continuing evolution of the Mormon Church.

From Deseret News (Feb 13/25):

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2025/02/13/15-new-hymns/

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced on Thursday that it has added 15 hymns to its new hymnbook, “Hymns — For Home and Church."


Two of the newly added hymns are ‘Softly and Tenderly’ and ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord'?


Excerpt from Discipleship Ministries – United Methodist Church:

…“Were You There” is one of the most prominent and popular of the African-American spirituals. Yet, like most spirituals, the origins of “Were You There” are impossible to trace, borne not from the pen of an individual but out of the communal slave experience.”


I guess they have well and truly flushed away JS and BY’s “curse of Cain” doctrine.


The church states that “Select hymns will also be translated into additional languages, including Afrikaans, Burmese, Igbo, Malay, Navajo, Persian, Setswana, Twi, Yoruba and Zulu.”

I can’t imagine that the new hymns will find a big audience amongst the groups mentioned above. But I guess anything is possible.

Meanwhile, it seems like Mormon leaders want to play with all the other kids at this point in their history. It can be lonely being the “peculiar people” it seems.


I noted the word ‘transcreation’ in the Deseret News article. I have never heard that word before (I love it when that happens).

From the American Translators Association:

https://www.atanet.org/client-assistance/transcreation-translating-and-recreating/

“Sometimes translating a text isn’t enough: you need more than just a copy of the original text in another language, you need a text that is specifically aimed at your target audience and takes into account their different cultural background. This is when you need to have your text “transcreated” (or “adapted”) rather than simply having it translated. But what is transcreation?

“Transcreation basically means recreating a text for the target audience, in other words “translating” and “recreating” the text. Hence the term “transcreation”. Transcreation is used to make sure that the transcreated text is the same as the original text in every aspect: the message it conveys, the style, the images and emotions it evokes and its cultural background. You could say that transcreation is to translation what copywriting is to writing.”


I understand the concept when applied to the translation of text from one language to another. How does it apply when it comes to song lyrics though? Why would you have to utilize transcreation in adding non-Mormon music to the Mormon hymnbook?

To Mormify it I guess? It wouldn't be good to accidentally include a non-mo belief even if only in song.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2025 06:19PM by Nightingale.

I'm not a fan of the word "transcreation", I'm afraid. I find it esthetically unappealing.

The Italians have a saying — "traduttore, traditore”, which very loosely translated (!) means "to translate is to betray". I do not think you can translate decent poetry or lyrics properly, not in most cases anyway. This will definitely be the case with these hymns. Even someone the Broad Scots works of Robert Burns read badly when rendered into standard English. Different languages have very different flavors.

Maybe the Mormons have done this already. The version of "Guide me o thou Great Jehovah" in the hymn book is insipid compared to the rousing versions you can hear in non-LDS contexts.

I am told — and I can't confirm this — that the Finnish LDS have a very different hymnbook from English speakers, which includes a lot of traditional Finnish hymns. This is supposedly because Finnish is so different from English.

Trifecta Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Different languages have very different flavors.

Yes, could be a definite challenge!


> I am told — and I can't confirm this — that
> the Finnish LDS have a very different hymnbook
> from English speakers, which includes a lot of
> traditional Finnish hymns. This is supposedly
> because Finnish is so different from English.

Yes, Finnish is so different from English. So are most other languages. :)

I agree that "transcreation" does not sound pleasant. The connotation of it as well makes me just not really enjoy that word. Like maybe you can hear the same tune but either the words don't translate well or the meanings get changed. Or any other negative outcome you can imagine.

Interesting to think about though.

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Trifecta Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Different languages have very different flavors.
>
>
> Yes, could be a definite challenge!
>
>
> > I am told — and I can't confirm this — that
> > the Finnish LDS have a very different hymnbook
> > from English speakers, which includes a lot of
> > traditional Finnish hymns. This is supposedly
> > because Finnish is so different from English.
>
> Yes, Finnish is so different from English. So are
> most other languages. :)
>
> I agree that "transcreation" does not sound
> pleasant. The connotation of it as well makes me
> just not really enjoy that word. Like maybe you
> can hear the same tune but either the words don't
> translate well or the meanings get changed. Or any
> other negative outcome you can imagine.
>
> Interesting to think about though.

To be fair, western European languages are the best distributed. I think it is easier to render English into Spanish than into Japanese for example.

They also differ in fundamentals. There are languages which have no verb "to have", or even words for "yes and no". That's just for starters. One word in one language has to be defined by several in one language and vice versa.

I have read a lot of poetry "in translation". In some cases I can read the original to varying extents. I often get a very different sense from the translation, not just in meaning but feel and rhythm. Poetry varies a lot by language. Many English speakers put heavy emphasis on rhyme. In Italian, there is far less skill required to rhyme words, so that is unimportant. Some languages emphasize meter and syllabic stress far more, both of which are skills that appear to be dying out in the Anglosphere.

The most obvious problem here is that they are going down the same line as the Jehovah's Witnesses, i.e. get everything else translated from the English. It would have made more sense to use native hymns in each language (where available) if and when they don't conflict with LDS ideas.

“Each hymn in the new ‘Hymns — For Home and Church’ book is accompanied by an explanation of the hymn’s history”

So, “historically” these were all written by apostates and/or those with the curse of Cain! But now we’ll expropriate them.