The Greek that is translated as “a sower went out to sow his seed” or similar in English is translated in Chukchi as “the man who makes the bread-grass grow came out to put the seeds of this grass into the soil.” Andrei S. Desnitsky explains (in: The Bible Translator 2018, p. 233ff. ): “This polysynthetic Paleo-Asiatic language is spoken by several thousand people living on the Chukotka peninsula beyond the polar circle, just opposite Alaska. Only reindeer breeding is possible there, no agriculture. Edible plants such as cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) grow in the wild and are never cultivated, so scenarios related to sowing are completely unfamiliar to speakers of the language.
“What can be done, then, with the famous phrase, ‘A sower went out to sow his seed’ which begins perhaps the best-known parable in the New Testament? The present version says qytğ’i tyŋeč’yllqyll’ynritllevyll’yn jarğety enanretllavynvo tyŋeč’yllqyllti emrenynŋevŋe, which can be roughly rendered as ‘the man who makes the bread-grass grow came out to put the seeds of this grass into the soil.’ This long explication is very far from a natural picture of everyday peasant life such as we find in the original. The meaning will be generally understood by readers whose experience, due to modern media, is no longer limited to the local style of life, but it definitely sounds neither natural nor poetic.
“We discussed this case for a long time with the Chukchi translation team, trying to find a cultural substitute, but in the end we gave up. The only natural way to express the idea would be to invent a completely different story about a reindeer herder who treats his herds in different ways so that some perish and some flourish and multiply, but we hardly could call this story a translation. And, after all, metaphors of sowing and reaping are present everywhere in the New Testament, so eliminating them completely was not an option.”
The Greek that is translated as “wineskins” in most English translations is translated in Guhu-Samane as “gourds.”
“Wineskins” caused “puzzlement [because] why would one put wine or any liquid into the skin of an animal since the skins just rot quickly? [But] it is conceded that a person wishing to store a liquid (wine or other) would not choose an old, but a new gourd. The people here are familiar with wine in the Eucharist and can readily conceive of how wine (literally ‘strong water’) could burst an old gourd and as such the argument is not lost.” (Source: Ernest L. Richert in Notes on Translation December 1963: p. 4-7; reprinted in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 198ff. .)
In Matumbi it is also translated as “gourd” (mapu’tu’), which just like wineskins become less flexible the older they are, and the verb associated with its breaking (“rip” in English) was translated as “burst.” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
In Chukchi translating this concept presented an obstacle. Andrei S. Desnitsky explains (in: The Bible Translator 2018, p. 233ff. ): “This polysynthetic Paleo-Asiatic language is spoken by several thousand people living on the Chukotka peninsula beyond the polar circle, just opposite Alaska. Only reindeer breeding is possible there, no agriculture. (…) Needless to say, the process of fermentation is absolutely unknown to the Chukchi people. Alcoholic beverages (almost always strong) arrive in Chukotka in bottles and cause many problems for the local population, who had absolutely no experience of drinking alcohol before they met Russian and American traders. So the very idea of pouring vodka into any kind of leather sack sounds bizarre.
“Here, we managed to find a substitute. When Chukchis build a sledge, they tie wooden parts together with leather straps. For a new sledge they need to be fresh and flexible, since an old strap which has lost its elasticity would simply break and the whole construction would collapse. This was the choice we made in translating the verse into Chukchi. As for the continuation (‘no one after drinking old wine desires new wine’), the translators found another piece of leather equipment used for driving a dog sledge that is better if it is old and tested.”
