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Language: English
English (eng) is a(n) Indo-European language of Australia, Bermuda, Brazil, Belize, Canada, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Cook Islands, Cuba, Christmas Island, Dominican Republic, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), United Kingdom, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Ireland, Isle of Man, British Indian Ocean Territory, Jersey, Cayman Islands, Liberia, Mexico, Norfolk Island, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Suriname, United States Minor Outlying Islands, United States, Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of, South Africa, marked as not endangered
The Greek word that mean both (the organ) “tongue” and “language” (glossa) allows for a word play in Acts 2. While English still has some traces of “tongue” also being used as “language” (such as in “mother tongue“) it is generally considered archaic in that use, although a number of modern English Bible translations (New International Version, Christian Standard Bible, English Standard Version) maintain “tongue” as the word for “language” in Acts 2:4.
Other languages have a more natural match between the words for “tongue” and “language”:
The Hebrew in Job 1:3 that is translated as “people of the East” in English might present an obstacle to translations for people living east of Israel and that have different associations what place this refers to.
There are a at least two kinds of strategies dealing with this:
“people in all the lands” or “people in those regions” (see the Dari common language translation or the Iranian Persian (Farsi) translation by Biblica)
“people in the east of Israel” or “people in all the area east of the Jordan River” (see the Hiligaynon or the EnglishTranslation for Translators — for both see complete verse (Job 1:3))
The English translation by E.L. Greenstein (2019) translates it as sons of Qedem and explains: “Qedem, ‘the East,’ is identified with the area of Harran, the Hebrew patriarchs’ homeland, in Genesis 29:1-4; see also Numbers 23:7; but here it may refer to the entire Transjordan .”
The Hebrew in Job 7:1 that typically is translated as “hard service” or similar in English is translated in the English translation by E.L. Greenstein (2019) as “fixed sentence.”
The Hebrew in Job 8:8 that typically is translated as “what their ancestors have found” or similar in English is translated in the English translation by E.L. Greenstein (2019) as “the deep-wisdom of their ancestors.”
The Hebrew in Genesis 2:7 that is translated by many English versions as “dust of the ground” or similar is translated in the English translation by Robert Alter (pub. 2004) as “humus” to recreate the pun in the Hebrew where ‘adam is “human” and ‘adamah is “soil.”
The now commonly-used English idiom “bottomless pit” (for something that holds a very large amount of something) was first coined in 1526 in the English New Testament translation of William Tyndale (spelled as bottomlesse pytt) for the Greek abussos. (Source: Crystal 2010, p. 289)
For other idioms in English that were coined by Bible translation, see here.
The Hebrew in Job 11:1^3 that typically is translated as “stretch out your hands toward him” or similar in English is translated in the English translation by E.L. Greenstein (2019) as “raise your palms in prayer.”
The Greek that is often translated as “deacon” in English is translated as kavumbi in Chokwe, someone “who serves another, not from compulsion or for a wage, but because of vumbi or grace.” (Source: D. B. Long in The Bible Translator 1952, p. 87ff. )
A number of English translations (Revised Standard Version 1952, Phillips 1958, Jerusalem Bible 1966 and its later revisions, Lattimore 1982, La Bible de Communautés Chrétiennes 1994, Christian Community Bible 1997, The Orthodox New Testament 2004, and New Catholic Bible 2019) use the feminine form deaconess in Romans 16:1. This can also be found in some French translations (La Bible Du Semeur 1992, Louis Segond 1910, and Nouvelle Edition de Genève) as well as the majority of Spanish, Italian, and German versions (French: diaconesse, Spanish: diaconisa, Italian: diaconessa, German: Diakonisse).
One French translation (La Bible Du Semeur) and a couple of German translations (BasisBibel 2021 and Gute Nachricht Bibel 1968 / 2018) also use the feminine form of deacon in 1 Timothy 3:11 (for a discussion on this, see Translation commentary on 1 Timothy 3:11).
