# Crusader nobles emulated the ways



## Josh_

أريد أن آخد اقتباسا  بالإنجليزية وأنقله إلى العربية.  هذا الاقتباس:

"Crusader nobles emulated the ways and adopted the higher standards of living of the Middle Eastern ruling classes"

ومحاولتي:

احتذى النبلاء الصليبيون على أساليب الطبقات الحاكمة للشرق الأوسط وتبنوا مستوى معيشتها الأعلى.

ما آراؤكم؟​


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## ayed

*احتذى النبلاء الصليبيون عادات الطبقات الحاكمة للشرق الأوسط وتبنوا أعلى مستويات معيشتها.*​


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## elroy

ayed said:


> * أعلى مستويات معيشتها*​


That means "the highest of their standards of living" and not "their higher standards of living," which is something different.

My suggestion:  مستوياتهم الأعلى للمعيشة.

Also, I would say الطبقات الحاكمة *في* الشرق الأوسط.​


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## Hani_D

> وتبنوا مستوى معيشتها الأعلى.


 
There are certain ways in English that can't be translated properly to Arabic without rephrasing first.The rephrase should be:

"Crusader nobles emulated the ways and adopted the standards of living of the Middle Eastern ruling classes *which were higher than those of Europe*"

otherwise, the sentence will give a deceptive meaning in Arabic. This is a major problem that 99% of Arab translators don't know how to deal with; hence, the translations to Arabic from English are always awkward and convey altered meanings.


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## Tajabone

elroy said:


> That means "the highest of their standards of living" and not "their higher standards of living," which is something different.
> [/left]


 
How did you come to that conclusion ?  Ayed's sentence seems very correct.


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## elroy

Hani_D said:


> "Crusader nobles emulated the ways and adopted the standards of living of the Middle Eastern ruling classes *which were higher than those of Europe*"


 Yes, I thought of something like that.  Your point is well made. 


Tajabone said:


> How did you come to that conclusion ?  Ayed's sentence seems very correct.


 The original sentence compares the standards of living of the Middle Eastern ruling classes with those of the Crusaders.  Ayed's translation does not.


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## Tajabone

elroy said:


> The original sentence compares the standards of living of the Middle Eastern ruling classes with those of the Crusaders.


I would have said it the opposite way (comparing the Crusaders' condition to the ruling class living standards) but forget it ...



elroy said:


> Ayed's translation does not.


 
Are you sure ? Let me be sceptical for a while.
Comparisons and mainly superlatives are not that easy to translate. In your other post correcting Ayed's translation, I saw a point which can explain why you go on thinking it was erroneous.
You seem to think that *أعلى* corresponds only to the superlative form "the highest" ... while it is not it's only usage. This form can also accept a plural noun just after it and be a superlative of a collective or plural noun just like : *أكبر الأندية الأروبيّة*. 
This is,I guess, why you thought Ayed's translation was missing the point while he provided a very correct sentence.
A last point: it is inadvisable to separate lexems within a fixed syntagm (expression, etc.) as you did here (مستوياتهم الأعلى للمعيشة ) when you want to translate: compositionality is an invalid principle when you go from a language to another one.


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## elroy

Tajabone said:


> Are you sure ? Let me be sceptical for a while.
> Comparisons and mainly superlatives are not that easy to translate. In your other post correcting Ayed's translation, I saw a point which can explain why you go on thinking it was erroneous.
> You seem to think that *أعلى* corresponds only to the superlative form "the highest" ... while it is not it's only usage. This form can also accept a plural noun just after it and be a superlative of a collective or plural noun just like : *أكبر الأندية الأروبيّة*.
> This is,I guess, why you thought Ayed's translation was missing the point while he provided a very correct sentence.


 Tajabone, your points are in support of what I was saying! 

أكبر الأندية الأوروبيّة translates to "the largest (of) European clubs." Similarly, Ayed's أعلى مستويات معيشتها translates to "the highest of their standards of living." In both examples, we are comparing one member of a group to the other members of that same group.

However, in the original sentence, the standards of living of the Middle Eastern ruling classes are being compared with other standards of living that are not those of the Middle Eastern ruling classes. The sentence is not talking about the Middle Eastern standards of living that are the highest within that group.


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## Tajabone

What you said is right but I smell an amphibology here.

Let me use French:

The highest of their standards = Le plus haut de leur niveau (de vie)
The higher standards = les plus hauts niveaux (de vie)

Both French and English use different forms to express two ideas while in Arabic one form can do the job. Note that in English "highest" or "largest" do not indicate the number (singular or plural) while it is directly obvious in French (les plus grands, les plus hauts, etc.)
Furthermore, I know well that we are comparing two groups and two conditions, the Crusaders trying to reach the higher conditions of the Middle Eastern ruling classes.

As for أكبر الأندية الأروبيّة, it is precisely a case where one could think that *أكبر* is only referring to a team or a group of teams ! (and this was my intention but you thought I meant only one team, I guess). This is,I think, where the problem lies. According to you,is *أعلى *in Ayed's example referring to a singular or a plural unity ?


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## elroy

> (and this was my intention but you thought I meant only one team, I guess)


 No, I didn't.  I didn't even think about the number of clubs, because that's not relevant.


> According to you,is *أعلى *in Ayed's example referring to a singular or a plural unity ?


 It could be either. As I said above, that's not relevant here. Either way, I think the translation is inaccurate.

My point is that أكبر الأندية الأوروبية means "the European club *or clubs *that is/are the biggest within their group" and not "the European club or clubs that is/are bigger than other, non-European, clubs." The same applies to أعلى مستويات معيشتها.


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## Tajabone

This is a logical fallacy, Elroy  You're conflating a quality with its substance (reference). This is why I've mentioned an amphibology ...
Bedtime for me. And sorry Josh ! we've moved from Crusaders to Football teams ! Scandalous !


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## elroy

I don't know what you're talking about, Tajabone.  Concrete criticisms of specific points of mine would be welcome, but vague references to "logical fallacies" and the like will get us nowhere.


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## ayed

*احتذى النبلاء الصليبيون عادات الطبقات الحاكمة للشرق الأوسط وتبنوا مستويات معيشتها العليا*


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## Josh_

Thanks for your guys' help.  No need for anyone to apologize, I enjoy a good debate.  

Anyway, maybe I'm not completely understanding the contention here, but I wanted to say that while it is true that the comparative and superlative in Arabic use the same word the way I learned it is that the general difference between comparative and superlative is the placement of the اسم تفضيل -- if it is in front of the noun it is the superlative -- أكبر رجل -- and if it is behind than it is comparative -- رجل أكبر من الآخر .  Since they adopted the higher -- and not highest -- standards of living that is why I worded it the way I did.


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## kifaru

Relieve me of my ignorance oh, scholars. Why is the word *النبلاء *(nobaala), which I'll guess is a French loanword, used as opposed to some other word that is derived from Arabic? Is there not a word in arabic that has the same meaning? I have seen الأشراف used to denote nobility although I think it may have some religious connotation.


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## Hani_D

You guessed wrong. _Nabeel_ is an Arabic word.

النَّبْلُ السِهام العربية وهي مُؤنثة لا واحد لها من لفظها وقد جَمعُوها على نِبَالٍ و أَنْبَالٍ و النَّبَّالُ بالتشديد صاحب النَّبْل و النَّابِلُ الذي يعمل النَّبْل و النُّبْلُ بالضم النَّبَالَةُ والفضل وقد نَبُلَ من باب ظرُف فهو نَبِيلٌ و النُّبَلُ حجارة الاستنجاء وفي الحديث {اتقوا المَلاَعِن وأَعدوا النُّبل} والمُحدثون يقولون النَّبَلُ بالفتح ونبله رماه بالنبل و نَابَلَهُ فَنَبَلَهُ إذا كان أجود منه نبلا أو أزيد نبلا وباب الكل نصر 

It's not common for Arabic to use loan words, _especially_ European loan words. You've got to be extra careful before guessing something like that.


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## kifaru

Thanks. I appreciate the help.


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## elroy

ayed said:


> *احتذى النبلاء الصليبيون عادات الطبقات الحاكمة للشرق الأوسط وتبنوا مستويات معيشتها العليا*


 The problem with that suggestion is that عليا is not a comparative.


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## Abu Bishr

Hi All

This is my suggestion:
**
*احتذى**النبلاء الصليبيون**عادات**الطبقات الحاكمة للشرق الأوسط وتبنوا**مستويات معيشتها التي هي أعلى من مستويات معيشتهم / التي تفوق مستويات معيشتهم*​
It's a variation on Ayed's


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## cherine

Hello guys,

I've been wanting to answer this thread since its first day, but my browser was -and still is- giving me hard time quoting. So, I'll go through the boring process of copying-pasting 

And please excuse me, but I'll leave aside the long discussion about superlative, it's too elaborate for me. I'll only try to give a translation for the sentence.


			
				Josh said:
			
		

> "Crusader nobles emulated the ways and adopted the higher standards of living of the Middle Eastern ruling classes"
> 
> ومحاولتي:
> احتذى النبلاء الصليبيون على أساليب الطبقات الحاكمة للشرق الأوسط وتبنوا مستوى معيشتها الأعلى.​​


First, some notes:
- I found "emulate" in the dictionary with the meaning حاكى، ضاهى .
I don't think using ح-ذ-و is wrong, but I always see the verb in the form of fa3ala not ifta3al حذا حذو فلان . So, if I'd use it, I'd say حذا النبلاء الصليبيون حذو الطبقات الحاكمة في الشرق الأوسط 

- We usually don't use the adjective العالي-العالية with مستوى المعيشة it's mosty الراقي - المرتفع .

- It's true that "Middle East" is الشرق الأوسط but this term is rarely used in the context of Crusades' History. We usually see العرب , المسلمون or الشرق/المشرق .

- Ruling classes is الطبقات الحاكمة but why not just say حُكّام ?

Based on this, and on the translations suggested so far, here's my suggestions which I don't claim to be better than any other, they're just that: suggestions.
You'll notice that I didn't bother much about the literal translation, as long as the meaning is -in my opinion- kept.

قام النبلاء الصليبيون بمحاكاة حكّام المشرق في أساليبهم وطرائق معيشتهم الراقية.
حذا النبلاء الصليبيون حذو حكّام المشرق في ما يخص أسلوب حياتهم المرّفه/الراقي.
قلّد النبلاء الصليبيون حكامَ المشرق في أسلوب حياتهم الراقي.​​


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