The Greek that is translated as “together” or “with one accord” in English is translated in Yamba and Bulu as “(with) one heart.” (Source: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. )
In Enlhet it is translated as “their innermosts did not go past each other.” “Innermost” or valhoc is a term that is frequently used in Enlhet to describe a large variety of emotions (for other examples see here). (Source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
The Greek that is translated as “keep (your) courage,” “take heart,” or “be cheerful” in English is translated in Bulu as “help the heart” and in Yamba as “to cause the heart to rest.” (Source: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. )
The Greek that is translated as “trance” in English is translated in Yamba and Bulu as “(my/his) heart was swinging back and forth.” (Source: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. )
In Lalana Chinantec it is translated as “about the same thing as dreaming.” (Source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
The Greek that is typically translated as “self-control” in English is translated in Yamba and Bulu as “(a) cool heart.” (Source: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. )
In Eastern Highland Otomi it is translated as “be careful what one does,” in Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac as “determine that they cannot do the things that are not good, and in Highland Popoluca as “not do like our evil thoughts want.” (Source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
In the dominant Protestant German translation by Martin Luther (all editions) it is translated with Keuschheit or “chastity” in Galatians 5:23 and in the Catholic Einheitsübersetzung as Enthaltsamkeit or “abstinence.” While both of these versions used the Greek text as their source, these translations that emphasize the sexual component of “self-control” might well be influenced by the LatinVulgate translation that translated the one Greek term (ἐγκράτεια) with two Latin words: contentia (“temperateness”) and castitas (“chastity”). See also fruit of the Spirit). (Source: Jost Zetzsche)
The Greek in Acts 28:25 that is translated as “disagree with each other” or similar in English is translated in Yamba as “(they did) not encounter one heart” and Bulu as “(they did) not mix their hearts.” (Source: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. )
The Greek in Luke 10:41 that is translated as something like “worried (or: anxious) and bothered about many things” is translated in Tzeltal as “doing all kinds of things has gone to your heart and you have difficulty because of it” (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel) and in Bariai as “You are concerned (lit. your interior is here and there) and worried (lit. you have various interiors) about very many things” (source: Bariai Back Translation).
In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) it is translated idiomatically as ich will dir anerkennen, dass du vor lauter Machen und Tun nicht weiß, wo dir der Kopf steht or “I will acknowledge that you don’t know where your head is because of all the doing and making.”
The term that is translated as “worried (or anxious)” in English is often translated idiomatically. Examples include “eating for oneself one’s heart” (Shona, version of 1966), “black with worry” (Chichewa), “breaking one’s head” (Sranan-Tongo), “hanging up the heart” (Bulu), “crumbling in one’s abdomen” (Western Kanjobal), “one’s stomach is rising up” (Farefare), or “one’s mind is killing one” (Navajo (Dinė)). (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
The Hebrew and Greek pesach/pascha that is typically translated in English as “Passover” (see below) is translated in a variety of descriptive ways of various aspects of the Jewish festival. (Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):
Umiray Dumaget Agta: “the celebration of the day of their being brought out of bondage”
(source for this and above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
Obolo: ijọk Iraraka — “Festival of Passing” (source: Enene Enene)
Yakan: “The festival of the Isra’il tribe which they call For-Remembering” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
Wolof: “Festival of the day of Salvation” (“the term ‘pass over’ brings up the image of a person’s crossing over a chasm after death”) (source: Marilyn Escher)
Bura-Pabir: vir kucelir fəlɓəla kəi — “time-of happiness-of jumping-over house”
Sabaot: Saakweetaab Keeytaayeet — “Festival of Passing-by” (source: Iver Larsen)
Language spoken in India and Bangladesh: “Festival of avoidance”
Vlax Romani: o ghes o baro le Nakhimasko — “the Day of the Passing”
Saint Lucian Creole: Fèt Délivwans — “Feast of Deliverance” (source: David Frank)
Finnish: pääsiäinen (“The term is very probably coined during the NT translation process around 1520-1530. It is connected to a multivalent verb päästä and as such refers either to the Exodus (päästä meaning “to get away [from Egypt]”) or to the end of the Lent [päästä referring to get relieved from the limitations in diet]. The later explanation being far more probable than the first.”)
Northern Sami: beas’sážat (“Coined following the model in Finnish. The Sami verb is beassat and behaves partly like the Finnish one. Many Christian key terms are either borrowed from Finnish or coined following the Finnish example.”)
Estonian: ülestõusmispüha — “holiday/Sunday of the resurrection” — or lihavõttepüha — “holiday/Sunday of returning of meat”
Karelian: äijüpäivü — “the great day” (“Here one can hear the influence of the Eastern Christianity, but not directly Russian as language, because the Russian term is Пасха/Pasha or Воскресение Христово/Voskresenie Hristovo, ‘[the day of] the resurrection of Christ,’ but the week before Easter is called as the great week.”) (Source for this and three above: Seppo Sipilä)
Russian (for Russian speaking Muslims): праздник Освобождения/prazdnik Osvobozhdeniya — “Festival of-liberation” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Kono: laaŋumɛ̃ɛ̃ or “skip over the person” (provisional term). Alesha Hagemeyer explains in this blog post that laaŋumɛ̃ɛ̃ is a play on the term laaɲámɛ̃ɛ̃ or “to skip over the water” which is traditionally used for the sacrifice of a sheep or a goat after the death of a family member. That term literally means “to skip over the water” so that “their loved one will pass over the water and enter the presence of God”
English: Passover (term coined by William Tyndale that both replicates the sound of the Hebrew original pesah — פסח as well as part of the meaning: “passing over” the houses of the Israelites in Egypt) — oddly, the English Authorized Version (King James Version) translates the occurrence in Acts 12:4 as Easter
Many Romance languages follow the tradition from Latin that has one term for both “Easter” and “Passover” (pascha). Portuguese uses Páscoa for both, Italian uses Pascha, and French has Pâque for “Passover” and the identically pronounced Pâques for “Easter.”
In languages in francophone and lusophone (Portuguese speaking) Africa, indigenous languages typically use the Romance word for “Easter” as a loanword and often transliterate pesach/pascha. In Kinyarwanda and RundiPasika is used, in Swahili and Congo SwahiliPasaka, and in LingalaPasika. In some cases, the transliteration of “Passover” is derived from the European language, such as Umbundu’sPascoa (from Portuguese) and Bulu’sPak (from French). In languages that use Pak or similar for both “Passover” and “Easter” (such as Adioukrou), the identical spelling “serves to reinforce the idea that this is one celebration, not two distinct ones” (source: Hill 2006).
As John Ellingworth (in The Bible Translator 1980, p 445f. ) points out “in most contexts only the presence or absence of the definite article distinguishes them [in French la pâque for Passover and Pâques for Easter]. Since most African languages do not have definite articles, there remains no way to distinguish between the two terms where the general population has borrowed the word for Easter and the Bible translators have borrowed the word for Passover to use in their translation. Some even consider the references to [Passover] before the death of Christ as prophetic!”
The Greek that is translated as “astonished” or “amazed” or “marvel” in English is translated in Pwo Karen as “stand up very tall.” (In John 5:20, source: David Clark)
Elsewhere it is translated as “confusing the inside of the head” (Mende), “shiver in the liver” (Uduk, Laka), “to lose one’s heart” (Mískito, Tzotzil), “to shake” (Southern Bobo Madaré), “to be with mouth open” (Panao Huánuco Quechua) (source: Bratcher / Nida), “to stand with your mouth open” (Citak) (source: Stringer 2007, p. 120), “ceasing to think with the heart” (Bulu), “surprise in the heart” (Yamba) (source for this and one above: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. ), or “have one’s mouth full” (Maan (source: Don Slager).
In Mark 5:20 and elsewhere where the astonishment is a response to listening to Jesus, the translation is “listen quietly” in Central Tarahumara, “forget listening” (because they were so absorbed in what they heard that they forgot everything else) in San Miguel El Grande Mixtec, “it was considered very strange by them” in Tzeltal (source: Bratcher / Nida), “in glad amazement” (to distinguish it from other kinds of amazement) (Quetzaltepec Mixe) (source: Robert Bascom), or “breath evaporated (or “escaped”)” (Mairasi) (source: Enngavoter 2004).
In Western Dani astonishment is emphasized with direct speech. In Mark 1:22, for instance, it says: “Wi!” yinuk, pi wareegwaarak — “They were all amazed, saying ‘Oh'” (source: Lourens De Vries in The Bible Translator 1992, p. 333ff. )
In Low German it is translated as grote Oken maken or “make big eyes” (sometime followed by: un kreegn dat Stillswiegen: “and became silent”) (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006).
In the Kölsch translation (Boch 2017) it is translated as brummte de Lück de Kopp or “the heads of the people buzzed,” Bauklötz jestaunt, lit. “marvel toy blocks,” and vür Staune de Muhl nit mieh zojekräch or “so full of marvel that they couldn’t close their mouths again.”
In the Pfälzisch translation by Walter Sauer (publ. 2012) it is often translated as baff vor staune or “speechless because of their marvel.” (Source: Jost Zetzsche)
