Language-specific Insights

young man

In the translation into Purari, Jesus addresses the dead man as “younger brother.” (Source: David Clark)

brothers and fathers

The Greek that is translated as “brothers and fathers” in English is translated in various ways:

  • Purari: “younger and older brothers” (source: David Clark)
  • Mairasi: “fathers, friends, in-laws & all” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Bariai: “companions and elders” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Teutila Cuicatec: “all of you, officials of our nation and my brothers”
  • Isthmus Mixe: “old men and brothers” (according to order of respect)
  • Lalana Chinantec “companions, men”
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “you men, fathers”
  • Chichimeca-Jonaz: “you who are our relatives, and you whom I made my fathers”
  • Highland Popoluca: “my older uncles”
  • Rincón Zapotec: “elders and brothers” (source for this and six above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)

adultery

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The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “adultery” in English (here etymologically meaning “to alter”) is typically understood as “marital infidelity.” It is (back-) translated in the following ways:

  • Highland Totonac: “to do something together”
  • Yucateco: “pair-sin”
  • Ngäbere: “robbing another’s half self-possession” (compare “fornication” which is “robbing self-possession,” that is, to rob what belongs to a person)
  • Kaqchikel, Chol: “to act like a dog” (see also licentiousness)
  • Toraja-Sa’dan: “to measure the depth of the river of (another’s) marriage”
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun: “married people using what is not theirs” (compare “fornication” which is “unmarried people using what is not theirs”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Purari: “play hands with” or “play eyes with”
  • Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “talk secretly with spouses of our fellows”
  • Isthmus Zapotec: “go in with other people’s spouses”
  • Tzeltal: “practice illicit relationship with women”
  • Huehuetla Tepehua: “live with some one who isn’t your wife”
  • Central Tarahumara: “sleep with a strange partner”
  • Hopi: “tamper with marriage” (source for this and seven above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • German: Ehebrecher or “marriage breaker” / Ehe brechen or “breaking of marriage” (source: Zetzsche)
  • In Falam Chin the term for “adultery” is the phrase for “to share breast” which relates to adultery by either sex. (Source: David Clark)
  • In Ixcatlán Mazatec a specification needs to be made to include both genders. (Source: Robert Bascom)
  • Likewise in Hiligaynon: “commit-adultery-with-a-man or commit-adultery-with-a-woman” (source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

See also adultery, adulterer, adulteress, and you shall not commit adultery.

sit up

In order for the young man to get off the bier, presumably it would have been put down on the ground, and this needs to be made explicit in Purari. Accordingly, the “sat up” of various English translations needed to be rendered as “stood up.” (Source: David Clark)

Beautiful Gate

The Greek term that is translated into English as “Beautiful Gate (of the temple)” is translated into Purari as “the Door with Patterns.”