brothers (Acts 13:15)

The Greek term that is translated into English as “brothers” is rendered into Purari as “elder brothers” in order to show respect.

flowers, wreaths

The Greek term that is translated as “wreath” or “flowers” into English is rendered in Purari as “tree flowers” to avoid the implication that they were shell decorations.

essentials

The Greek term that is translated as “essentials” or “essential rules” in English is translated in Purari as “small handful of rules.”

young man

In the translation into Purari, Jesus addresses the dead man as “younger brother.”

married status

In Purari society everyone marries, so the question was raised why Philip’s daughters were unmarried. The final rendering into Purari tended to imply that they were all under 18, in order to avoid the implication that they were all so undesirable that nobody wanted to marry them.

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.”

adultery

The Greek that is translated as “adultery” (typically understood as “marital infidelity”) in English 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”
  • 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)
  • In Purari: “play hands with” or “play eyes with”
  • In Hakha Chin the usual term for “adultery” applies only to women, so the translation for the Greek term that is translated into English as “adultery” was translated in Hakha Chin as “do not take another man’s wife and do not commit adultery.”
  • Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “talk secretly with spouses of our fellows”
  • Isthmus Zapotec: “go in with other people’s spouses”
  • Hopi: “tamper with marriage” (source for this and two above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • In Falam Chin the term for “adultery” is the phrase for “to share breast” which relates to adultery by either sex. (Source for this and three above: David Clark)
  • In Ixcatlán Mazatec a specification needs to be made to include both genders. (Source: Robert Bascom)

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