Any chance of getting this in Logos? It's already scanned, corrected and marked up, so most of the work is done - but it's very expensive, I think.
We've talked with them in the past, but I don't think it's likely we'll be getting these texts soon, especially not as a set.
This company sells into the library market, which works differently (and at higher price points) than our market. Most of the library content vendors we've talked with are afraid of our consumer pricing ending libraries' willingness to pay their high 'per FTE' costs -- libraries will just say 'the users who need it can buy directly.'
A large portion of the 1,279 works aren't in English. Most are in Latin, and we don't have a big enough market for Latin works yet. The ones that are in English are in the public domain, and we actually have quite a few of them already. I'll have the team add the rest of the English works to our PD queue.
Thanks, both, I thought that might be the case. It would be good to get the English texts available, at least.
You might improve take-up of Latin resources if you integrated some form of machine-translation. Google Translate usually does a reasonable job. If you paid for their API to machine-translate all these resources once, and then built your own web-service to provide that stored translation on demand, that might be a cost-effective way of doing it. If you were very clever, you might even find a way of getting the English text in search results.
You could use the same system to increase demand for German theological resources, too.
Thanks, both, I thought that might be the case. It would be good to get the English texts available, at least. You might improve take-up of Latin resources if you integrated some form of machine-translation. Google Translate usually does a reasonable job. If you paid for their API to machine-translate all these resources once, and then built your own web-service to provide that stored translation on demand, that might be a cost-effective way of doing it. If you were very clever, you might even find a way of getting the English text in search results. You could use the same system to increase demand for German theological resources, too.
For something as important and as deep as the scriptures (and related writings), I would recommend a different route.
There isn't a different route. The only options are (1) We all learn Latin; (2) We pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a human translation; or (3) we have an almost free, but imperfect machine translation.
I agree that Google translations are far from perfect, but they're usually good enough to get the gist. So here are the first few sentences from John Owen's Latin work, followed by an unedited English translation:
Nisi persuasum haberem, erudite lector, tua interesse eorum nonnulla saltem quæ libello hoc in disquisitionem veniunt accurate nosse, ipsum potiùs veris injecissem flammis, quàm memet eis, quas istiusmodi conatibus minitantur multorum præjudicia. Quæ enim res alio quocunque, singulatim quemvis ab hisce studiis deterrere soleant, eæ omnes hoc tempore confertim se nobis offerunt. Verùm cùm a multis jam retro annis, votis et cogitationibus vita ista mihi præsumpta fuerit, quâ cœlestis sapientiæ et veritatis divinæ studiosis aliquo modo prodesse, adversùs μορμολόκεια ista, quorum alias promptus est ad mentes hominum minime malorum aditus, animum obfirmandum duxi.
Unless convinced I had learned reader, that at least some of your interest in this book in question, they come to know the accurate, true injecissem flames him, rather than with them myself, which threaten many enterprises such prejudices. For the things which any thing is different from, one by one to discourage any one from these studies, are usually are all to close himself to us at the time of this offer. But seeing from many years back, my prayers and thoughts of life that has been presumed, which celestial wisdom and truth of God in a way to benefit students, μορμολόκεια against this, the other is willing to have access to the minds of men is not at all bad, mind obfirmandum I married.
There are clearly serious problems. But is it more readable than the Latin? For me, unquestionably so. I think I can get the sense of the sentences, even though some bits are lost to me and other bits may be inaccurate.
The only options are (1) We all learn Latin;
Bingo... It isn't THAT hard
I have had some education in the latin language... Its easier to pick up than greek. Not that I am fluent in either nor am I advocating that everyone follow my own path. Tens of thousands of dollars spread out across tens of thousands of people suddenly becomes quite feasible... I think this will be the answer in the end... Get them translated into english. Get them endorsed by well known english speakers in related traditions, and viola. Its not as though you will need to put out the tens of thousands of dollars your self to bring the scholarship into Logos... CP or Pre-Pub defrays the cost quite nicely.I googled for german theological text to give you guys an idea of bad Google translate is with German. The following is part of Dietrich Bonhoffers book on ethics (not sure the english title). "This "relationship between reality and Wirlichwerden" corresponds to the "of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit". "Gutseinwollen only exists as a desire for the real in God"."I'd guess based upon this example that most EVERY theological term, and probably many terms from philosophy or other branches of academics will not go through properly...Seems like educated German goes through easier in terms of word order, etc, than did the german of my friend.
Here is the entire text:http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theologie-examen.de%2Fexzerpte%2Fethik%2Fbonhoefferethik.htmIts actually more readable than I had expected by several orders of magnitude.
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