The lack of accountability is a major factor that contributes to a situation where anyone can claim to have the most definitive and authoritative translation, and any challenges or disagreements can be labeled as merely opinions.Ĥ) The ideal translation would be a true translation in that every character in the original can be matched to the nearest equivalent word or phrase in English, and no characters are skipped. There are very few people with the qualifications cited above, so there is no rigorous peer review of Tao Te Ching translations. A lack of understanding in this respect can lead to mistranslation.ģ) Its translator would be held accountable on accuracy. The Tao Te Ching originated 2,500 years ago, so some of its words are no longer in modern usage, and some have changed meaning over the centuries.

Native command and familiarity is crucial academic knowledge alone is insufficient.Ģ) Its translator would be someone who knows ancient Chinese quite well.

Without this level of fluency, the translation would miss many linguistic subtleties and nuances. What would such a translation be like? We came up with the following thoughts:ġ) Its translator would be a native speaker of both English and Chinese. We started out by envisioning the ideal Tao Te Ching translation, to see how close we could get to it. This translation is an attempt to address this important question. So how can we know, with a reasonable degree of certainty, what the Tao Te Ching actually says? When we compare these variant renditions side-by-side, they can seem like totally different books. There are many Tao Te Ching translations available, and some of them vary wildly in their rendering of the ancient classic.

Tao meaning in english