Tabasco Chontal

envy

The Greek that is translated as “envy” in most English translations is, according to Nida (1952, p. 134), translated into Tzeltal and Tabasco Chontal in the following manner:

“Envy is bred of covetousness and self-centeredness. The Tzeltals, who recognize a covetous man as having a ‘small heart,’ say that an envious person has ‘a greedy heart.’ ‘Small hearts’ and ‘greedy hearts’ go together, and the soul shrinks in direct proportion to its greediness. The envious person is never satisfied, for he can never keep step with his own insatiable ego.

“The Chontal Indians, living in the low, swampy delta land of Tabasco in southern Mexico, regard envy in a more subtle way. They say of the man who is envious of his neighbor, ‘He did not want to see his neighbor.’ This describes the end result of envy. People cannot bear to see others enjoying the privileges which they insist should be their own. The envious man has acquired such a self-directed stare that he cannot take his eyes off self to see another’s enjoyment.”

In Central Mazahua is is translated as “jealous of each other, their fellow people” and in Sayula Popoluca as “hate those who have something.” (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

doubt

The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “doubt” in English versions is translated with a term in Tzeltal that means “heart is gone.” (Nida 1952, p. 122)

In other languages it is represented by a variety of idiomatic renderings, and in the majority of instances the concept of duality is present, e.g. “to make his heart two” (Kekchí), “to be with two hearts” (Punu), “to stand two” (Sierra de Juárez Zapotec), “to be two” or “to have two minds” (Navajo), “to think something else” (Tabasco Chontal), “to think two different things” (Shipibo-Conibo), “to have two thoughts” (Yaka and Huallaga Huánuco Quechua), or “two-things-soul” (Yucateco).

In some languages, however, doubt is expressed without reference to the concept of “two” or “otherness,” such as “to have whirling words in one’s heart” (Chol), “his thoughts are not on it” (Baoulé), or “to have a hard heart” (Piro). (Source: Bratcher / Nida, except for Yucateco: Nida 1947, p. 229 and Huallaga Huánuco Quechua: Nida 1952, p. 123)

In Chokwe “kwalajala is ‘to doubt.’ It is the repetitive of kuala, ‘to spread out in order, to lay (as a table), to make (as a bed),’ and is connected with kualula ‘to count.’ [It is therefore like] a person in doubt as one who can’t get a thing in proper order, who lays it out one way but goes back again and again and tries it other ways. It is connected with uncertainty, hesitation, lack of an orderly grasp of the ‘count’ of the subject.” (Source: D. B. Long in The Bible Translator 1952, p. 87ff.)

wisdom

The Greek that is translated as “wisdom” in English is rendered in Amganad Ifugao and Tabasco Chontal as “(big) mind,” in Bulu and Yamba as “heart thinking,” in Tae’ as “cleverness of heart” (source for this and all above: Reiling / Swellengrebel), in Palauan as “bright spirit (innermost)” (source: Bratcher / Hatton), in Ixcatlán Mazatec as “with your best/biggest thinking” (source: Robert Bascom), and in Dobel, it is translated with the idiom “their ear holes are long-lasting” (in Acts 6:3) (source: Jock Hughes).

deny oneself

(To view the different translations of this term in a simplified graphical form on a new page, click or tap here.)

The Greek that is translated with “deny himself” or deny oneself” is according to Bratcher / Nida “without doubt one of the most difficult expressions in all of Mark to translate adequately.” These are many of the (back-) translations:

Tetelcingo Nahuatl: “to not accept self”
Amganad Ifugao and South Bolivian Quechua: “to forget self”
North Alaskan Inupiatun: “to have no regard for oneself”
Toraja-Sa’dan: “not bother oneself about oneself”
Huautla Mazatec: “to cover up oneself”
San Miguel El Grande Mixtec: “to not worship oneself”
Tzeltal: “to stop doing what one’s own heart wants”
Yaka: “to let go that which he wants to do himself”
Cashibo-Cacataibo: “says, I will not do just what I want to do”
Tzotzil: “to let him say, I do not serve for anything” (in the sense of having no personal value)
Sapo: “to not do what is passing through his mind”
Central Mazahua: “to not take constant thought for himself”
Tabasco Chontal: “to quit what he himself wants”
Highland Totonac: “to undo one’s own way of thinking”
Dan: “to put his own things down”
Kekchí: “to despise himself”
Kituba: “to refuse himself”
Javanese: “to turn his back on himself”
Southern Bobo Madaré: “to disobey himself” (in the sense of denying one’s own wishes)
Huastec: “to leave himself at the side”
Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “to leave his own way”
Loma: “to take his mind out of himself completely”
Panao Huánuco Quechua: “to say, I do not live for myself”
Mitla Zapotec: “to say No to oneself” (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
Copainalá Zoque: “forgetting self”
Huallaga Huánuco Quechua: “declaring I do not live for myself” (source: Nida 1952, p. 154)
Galela: “put self down” (source: Howard Shelden in Kroneman 2004, p. 501)
Mairasi: “to shuffle out of one’s vision (=forget) everything which is one’s own” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Q’anjob’al: “does not belong to himself any longer” (source: Newberry and Kittie Cox in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff.)
Achi: “don’t do only what you want to do”
Chipaya: “leave your own way of living” (source for this and above: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)

spices

The Greek that is translated as spices in English is translated in Tabasco Chontal as “medicine/spices which pertained to rubbing on the body” and in Seri as “a substance that smelled like perfume. It was for pouring on the dead, one to keep his body from stinking.” (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)

dishonor God

The Greek that is usually translated in English as “dishonor God” is translated in various ways:

Yatzachi Zapotec: “defame God’s character or disgrace him”
Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “have no reverence before God”
Tabasco Chontal: “cause God to be hated”
Sayula Popoluca: “put God in a bad light”
Highland Totonac: “put God to shame”
Tzeltal: “cause embarrassment to God”
Isthmus Zapotec: “err against God”
Central Tarahumara: “become an enemy of God” (source for all above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

care for no man, defer to no one

The Greek that is translated into English as “care for no man” or “defer to no one” (in the sense of not seeking anyone’s favor) is translated in Tabasco Chontal as “you say the same thing to everyone” and in Shilluk as “you show the same respect to everyone.” In Shipibo-Conibo it is “in your mind no one is anything,” in Chol it is “your heart is equally straight in the presence of all men” and in Tzeltal “it does not matter who — all of us are equal as far as you are concerned.”

alive to God

The Greek that is translated as “alive to God” or similar is translated as “living in order to give honor to God” in Yatzachi Zapotec, as “it is God for whom you live now” in Highland Totonac, “God has caused you to be alive, to do what he wants” in Tabasco Chontal, and as “live like servants of God” Huehuetla Tepehua. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

confess (sin)

The Greek that is typically translated as “confess” in English in the context of these verses is translated in a variety of ways. Here are some (back-) translations:

Highland Puebla Nahuatl, Tzeltal: “to say openly”
San Blas Kuna: “to accuse oneself of his own evil”
Kankanaey: “telling the truth about their sins”
Huastec: “to take aim at one’s sin” (“an idiom which is derived from the action of a hunter taking aim at a bird or animal”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
Tabasco Chontal: “saying ‘It is true, I’ve done evil'” (source: Larson 1998, p. 204)
Central Pame: “pulling out the heart” (“so that it may be clearly seen — not just by men, but by God”) (source: Nida 1952, p. 155)
Shipibo-Conibo: “to say, It is true we have sinned” (source: Nida 1964, p. 228)
Obolo: itutumu ijo isibi: “speaking out sin” (source: Enene Enene).

flesh (human nature)

The Greek that is often translated as “flesh” in English (when referring to the lower human nature) can, according to Nida (1947, p. 153) “very rarely be literally translated into another language. ‘My meat’ or ‘my muscle’ does not make sense in most languages.” He then gives a catalog of almost 30 questions to determine a correct translation for that term.

Accordingly, the translations are very varied:

Highland Totonac: “like other men”
Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “the path of sinful people”
Mezquital Otomi: “of earthly kind” or “old life”
Huehuetla Tepehua: “old life”
Tzeltal: “body”
Sayula Popoluca: “body that does evil”
Tabasco Chontal: “old mind” (Source for this and above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
Nyanja: “character that is inclined to evil things” (source: Ernst Wendland in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 319ff.)
Huautla Mazatec: “the self” (Nida 1947, p. 248)
Toraja-Sa’dan: a’gan pa’kalean tolino or “an essence belonging to the existence in the body” (source: H. van der Veen in The Bible Translator 1952, p. 207ff.)
Warao: “old obojona.” Obojona is a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions” (source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff.). See other occurrences of Obojona in the Warao New Testament.

abundance, surplus

The Greek that is translated as “(out of their) surplus (or: abundance)” is translated into Tabasco Chontal as “they gave money which they didn’t need” and into Tzeltal as “the left-over money.”

all she had to live on

The Greek that is often translated into English as “all she had to live on” is translated into “all she had; this was her food” into Tabasco Chontal or “all she was going to eat” into Copainalá Zoque).