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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: of their speech, and do our translating accordingly. Then they
will understand it and recognize that we are speaking German to
them.
For instance, Christ says: Ex abundatia cordis os loquitur. If I
am to follow these asses, they will lay the original before me
literally and translate it as: "Out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaks." Is that speaking with a German tongue? What
German could understand something like that? What is this
"abundance of the heart?" No German can say that; unless, of
course, he was trying to say that someone was altogether too
magnanimous, or too courageous, though even that would not yet be
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