Language-specific Insights

paradise

The Greek, Ge’ez, and Latin that is transliterated as “paradise” in English is often transliterated in other languages as well. Translations include “Place of well-being” (Toraja-Sa’dan, Tzeltal), “abode of happiness (or: of happy people)” (Marathi), “garden of eternal life” (Uab Meto), or the name of a place where you don’t have to work and fruits drop ripe in your hand (Ekari). (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)

In Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese it is translated as 乐园 / 樂園 (lèyuán in Mandarin, lok6jyun4 in Cantonese). This term, literally meaning “garden of joy,” originates from Buddhist terminology.

See also paradise of God.

hearts burning

The Greek in Luke 24:32 that is often translated as “Were not our hearts burning within us?” is translated as

  • “a boiling comes to our hearts inside” in Marathi (an idiom for joy and enthusiasm)
  • “drawn, as it were, our mind” in Balinese
  • “hurt (i.e. longing) our hearts” in Ekari
  • “something was-consuming in our-heart” in Tae’ (an idiom for “we were profoundly moved”) (source for this and above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • “O, how sweet coolness did our hearts feel” in an early version of the Bible in Sranan Tongo. “The translator “did this to avoid misunderstanding. In Sranan Tongo, when one says ‘my heart is burning’ he means ‘I am angry.'” (Source: Janini 2015, p. 33)
  • “Wasn’t it as rain coming down on us?” in Afar. “Heat is bad, rain is good in the desert.” (Source: Loren Bliese)
  • “our interiors bubbled up” in Bariai (source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • “Weren’t our hearts constricted within us?” in Khakas (source: David Clark in The Bible Translator 2015, p. 117ff. )

In the 2008 Moba Yendu Kadapaaonn translation it is translated as “were not our hearts encouraged (literally: made strong)?” While Moba has a rich metaphorical library using the concept of “heart” (pal) it follows very different paradigms compared to Greek, Hebrew and English concepts. (Source: Bedouma Joseph Kobaike in Le Sycomore 17/1, 2024, p. 3ff. .) (See also I hold you in my heart)

their eyes were prevented from recognizing

The Greek in Luke 24:16 that is translated as “their eyes were prevented from recognizing” in English is translated with idioms in languages like Shona with “their eyes were clouded, or, shrouded/blindfolded,” Uab Meto with “their eyes were misty” or with a simile such as “their eyes were just as if they had been caused to be shut” in Marathi.

In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) it is translated idiomatically with wie mit Blindheit geschlagen or “as if struck with blindness.”

distracted by all the preparations

The Greek in Luke 10:40 that is translated as something like “(Martha) was distracted by all the preparations” is translated by other languages as:

  • “all kinds of work to do had gone to Martha’s heart” (Tzeltal)
  • “Martha was wearing-herself-out how/the-way her feeding them” (Tboli)
  • “because much work fell to Martha, her agitation flew/flared-up” (Marathi)
  • “Martha’s mind was stirred up with excess of service” (Zarma)
  • “she danced to and fro in serving” (Uab Meto)
  • “much work overwhelmed Martha” (Sranan Tongo) (source for all above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • “her face kept on getting turned with her work inside the house” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • “she was alone in the kitchen because she was making food for them, and there were many problems that she had with what she was doing” (Western Bukidnon Manobo) (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • “Marta’s eye was here and there with the doing of tasks” (Bariai) (source: Bariai Back Translation)

foolish people

The Greek in Luke 11:40 that is translated as “(you) foolish people” or “(you) foolish ones” is (back-) translated in a number of ways:

  • San Blas Kuna: “people having a dark liver” (“incapable of intelligent, thoughtful behavior”) (See Seat of the Mind for traditional views of “ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling.”)
  • Ekari: “thought not (having) people”
  • Kituba, Sinhala, Marathi, Javanese: “people without sense/understanding/intelligence”
  • Batak Toba: “those short-of-mind” (“mostly referring to stupidity or ignorance in general”)
  • Zarma: a word indicating a person who refuses to use the intelligence he has
  • Chichewa, Yao: expressions implying intractability and willful opposition to common interests or commonly accepted ideas (source for this and above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Mairasi: “(you are) beeswax” (source: Enggavoter 2004)

See also insane / fool.

scribe

Click here to view graphically

The Greek that is usually translated as “scribe” in English “were more than mere writers of the law. They were the trained interpreters of the law and expounders of tradition.”

Here are a number of its (back-) translations:

  • Yaka: “clerk in God’s house”
  • Amganad Ifugao: “man who wrote and taught in the synagogue”
  • Navajo (Dinė): “teaching-writer” (“an attempt to emphasize their dual function”)
  • Shipibo-Conibo: “book-wise person”
  • San Blas Kuna: “one who knew the Jews’ ways”
  • Loma: “educated one”
  • San Mateo del Mar Huave: “one knowing holy paper”
  • Central Mazahua: “writer of holy words”
  • Indonesian: “expert in the Torah”
  • Pamona: “man skilled in the ordinances” (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Sinhala: “bearer-of-the-law”
  • Marathi: “one-learned-in-the-Scriptures”
  • Shona (1966): “expert of the law”
  • Balinese: “expert of the books of Torah”
  • Ekari: “one knowing paper/book”
  • Tboli: “one who taught the law God before caused Moses to write” (or “one who taught the law of Moses”) (source for this and 5 above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Noongar: Mammarapa-Warrinyang or “law man” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Mairasi: “one who writes and explains Great Above One’s (=God’s) prohibitions” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Chichewa: “teacher of Laws” (source: Ernst Wendland)
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun: “teachers of law”
  • Huehuetla Tepehua: “writer”
  • Yatzachi Zapotec: “person who teaches the law which Moses wrote”
  • Alekano: “man who knows wisdom” (source for this and four above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
  • Saint Lucian Creole French: titcha lwa sé Jwif-la (“teacher of the law of the Jews”) (source: David Frank in Lexical Challenges in the St. Lucian Creole Bible Translation Project, 1998)
  • Chichimeca-Jonaz: “one who teaches the holy writings”
  • Atatláhuca Mixtec: “teacher of the words of the law”
  • Coatlán Mixe: “teacher of the religious law”
  • Lalana Chinantec: “one who is a teacher of the law which God gave to Moses back then”
  • Tepeuxila Cuicatec: “one who know well the law” (Source for this and four above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
  • Huixtán Tzotzil: “one who mistakenly thought he was teaching God’s commandments”(Huixtán Tzotzil frequently uses the verb -cuy to express “to mistakenly think something” from the point of view of the speaker; source: Marion M. Cowan in Notes on Translation 20/1966, pp. 6ff.)
  • Sumau: “law-knowing men” (source: this blog post by Todd Owen)
  • German das Buch translation by Roland Werner (publ. 2009-2022): “theologian” and the 1998 translation by Walter Jens: “interpreter of scriptures” (Schriftausleger)
  • English translation by Scot McKnight (The Second Testament, publ. 2023): Covenant Code scholar

In British Sign Language it is translated with a sign that combines the signs for “expert” and “law.” (Source: Anna Smith)


“Scribe” in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL , used with permission)

with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind

The phrase that is translated as “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” in English versions is rendered in Kahua with a term for belly/chest as the seat of the emotions.

The same phrase is translated into Kuy as “with all your heart-liver”to show the totality of one’s being. (Source: David Clark)

Similar to that, in Laka one must love with the liver, in Western Kanjobal with the “abdomen,” and in Marshallese with the throat.

What is translated as “soul” in English is translated as “life” in Yaka, Chuukese, and in Ixcatlán Mazatec, “that which stands inside of one” in Navajo (Dinė), and “spirit” in Kele.

The Greek that is translated in English as “strength” is translated in Yao as “animation” and in Chuukese as “ability.”

The Greek that is translated in English as “mind” is translated in Kele as “thinking,” in Chuukese as “thought(s),” and in Marathi as “intelligence.”

The whole phrase is translated in Tboli as “cause it to start from the very beginning of your stomach your loving God, for he is your place of holding.”

In Poqomchi’ (as in many other Mayan languages), the term “heart” covers both “heart” and “mind.”

(Sources: Bratcher / Nida, Reiling / Swellengrebel, and Bob Bascom [Ixcatlán Mazatec and Poqomchi’])

See also translations with a Hebraic voice (Deuteronomy 6:5), implanted / in one’s heart and complete verse (Mark 12:30), and see Seat of the Mind for traditional views of “ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling.”

For a detailed look at the relationships between the Deuteronomy 6:5 quote, its Septuagint translation and the quotations in the synoptic gospels, see Adaptable for Translation: Deuteronomy 6.5 in the Synoptic Gospels and Beyond by Robert Bascom .