(BA) Quotation marks

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29 July 2022

Quotation marks are a form of punctuation used in English to indicate that a quotation is being made. They do not exist in Hebrew, although, like English, Hebrew has verbal ways of indicating that a quotation is beginning. Quotation marks neatly divide text by speaker -- one knows when the "main author" is talking, and when "another voice" is speaking in a text.

Unfortunately, and here I am probably being an extremist, my concern is that the addition of quotation marks to a text add a sort of distinction that is sometimes not quite true to the originals. For example, in prophetic texts, it is not uncommon for the "viewpoint" of the writing to switch back and forth rapidly and at times ambiguously between the viewpoint of the prophet and the viewpoint of the deity. I dislike the idea of having to delineate, word by word, these switches.

Likewise, it may sometimes be unclear exactly when a quotation ends and the "authorial voice" picks up again. And at times Hebrew creates nested quotations of a sort that one wouldn't typically see in English.

For all these reasons, it seems to me that when I'm revising the ASV text, I may as well leave the text as it is: without quotation marks. It puts the reader on notice that the quotation marks aren't there in the text originally, and I don't think it puts too much of a burden on the reader.