I am looking for someone who is facile at translating Medieval Arabic scientific treatises (in physics, mechanics, or engineering especially). For future research (and possibly my next book), I need a literal translation of two pages of the surviving Arabic translation of Hero of Alexandria’s Mechanics (posted here). And I need to be able to ask questions about the valences of certain technical words or phrases, so your specialization is important. I’ve had other Arabic translators look at it, and because it hinges on highly technical vocabulary from Medieval physics, it’s beyond their expertise, so I’m told not just any Arabic translator can tackle this. It also has to be volunteer; I can’t afford to hire anyone.
If anyone is interested, please email me. Or if you know anyone who might be interested, or who might know someone who might be interested, please pass this on to them. The wider this query gets spread around, the higher the odds I may find someone willing and able to do this. Anyone who does will of course get full credit for it in any publication that results. For anyone who does take this on, note that the first sentence of the first page and last sentence of the last page aren’t important (so if they are sentence fragments, you can skip them). The core is the part that spans the two pages; that’s the material I’m most interested in. Our work together on this could result in something significant enough to publish in peer reviewed science history journals.
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P.S. Yes, I already have the standard English translation of these passages. It’s not what I need. I need a more literal translation, one that helps me ask questions about the valences and contexts of words and phrases. So I need a real expert. And that means a human. AI can’t do this. Maybe in twenty or fifty years there will be an AI that can. But alas, this is now. 🙂
