the global consequences of mistranslation the adoption of the “black but ” formulation in europe, 1440–1650误译的全球影响的采用u201c黑但u201c配方在欧洲,1440 - 1650.pdf

Religions 2012, 3, 544–555; doi:10.3390/rel3030544 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 /journal/religions Article The Global Consequences of Mistranslation: The Adoption of the “Black but …” Formulation in Europe, 1440–1650 Kate Lowe The School of History, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK; E-Mail: k.j.p.lowe@qmul.ac.uk Received: 6 June 2012; in revised form: 19 June 2012 / Accepted: 25 June 2012 / Published: 26 June 2012 Abstract: This article investigates the genesis of a linguistic model occasioned by a mistranslation that was taken up in the Renaissance, and had an enduring global impact. I call this model the ―black but…‖ formulation, and it is to be found in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries throughout written texts and reported speech, in historical as well as literary works. It was modeled grammatically and ideologically on the statement ―I am black but beautiful‖ often attributed to the Queen of Sheba in 1:5 of the ―Song of Songs‖, and had a detrimental effect on how members of the early African forced diaspora were viewed by Renaissance Europeans. I argue that the newly adversarial nature of the phrase was adopted as a linguistic and cultural formulation, and introduced into Western European cultures a whole way of approaching and perceiving blackness or looking at black African people. Keywords: Black; linguistic formulatio