The phrase that is rendered in English versions as “land flowing with milk and honey” (“milk and syrup” in Goldingay [2018]) is translated into Afar as niqmatak tan baaxoy buqre kee lacah meqehiyya: “a blessed land good for fields and cattle.” (Source: Loren Bliese)
In the interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) it is translated with the existing proverb dziko lamwanaalirenji or “a land of what (type of food) can the child cry for?” (i.e. there is more than enough to eat). (Source: Ernst Wendland in The Bible Translator 1981, p. 107 )
In Kwere it is “good/fertile land.” (Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The Hebrew word for “honey”, devash, is also used for syrup extracted from figs, dates, and grapes, or from certain types of palm tree. The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” refers to a land that is fertile and thus rich in pasture, fruit, and the grain and flowers from which bees make honey. (Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators) )
In Russian, the phrase молоко и мед (moloko i med) or “milk and honey” is widely used as an idiom in every-day life. (Source: Reznikov 2020, p. 67)
The Hebrew and Greek that is often translated as “your blood be on your own heads” or similar in English is translated as
“you have the guilt if you don’t receive eternal life” in Highland Popoluca
“you are to blame if you lose your own souls” in Coatlán Mixe
“you will be to blame yourselves when you do not go to a good place” in Isthmus Mixe
“you will be lost but you are at fault yourselves” in Morelos Nahuatl
“you are the ones who are guilty that you will be lost” in Lalana Chinantec (source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
“if you die in your bad deeds, it’s your own bad fault” in Bariai (source: Bariai Back Translation)
“let your own blood alone eat you” in Kupsabiny (source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
“You have killed yourselves with your own heart” in Chichewa (source: Wendland 1987, p. 28)
“your blood will be to you” (existing idiom) in Kwere (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) uses the ideophones neng’a and chezichezi in Song of Songs 7:5. Neng’a is used to emphasize something perfectly shaped with refined poise (“your head is nobly poised”) and chezichezi describes a light, continuous wave with a cascading motion (“your long hair flows and shimmers downward”). (Source: Ernst Wendland)
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
The Hebrew in Psalm 68:9 that is translated as “rain in abundance” or similar in English is translated in the Contemporary Chichewa translation (2002/2016) with mivumbi the plural form of “mvumbi, a type of rain that falls for a very long time continuously for not less than 12 hours. This type of rain comes when the rains are at the peak when crops are at a crucial stage of needing a lot of rains. Due to lack of a better English word, this translation has rendered it as “continuous rains” to capture the idea of continuity. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
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.”)
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)
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “interest” (as in payments for a loan) in English is translated in the Contemporary Chichewa translation (2002/2016) as chiwongoladzanja which literary means something that stretches the hand. The understanding is that an interest is paid to thank the hand that was stretched out in the process of giving a loan. Since a person gets a loan to be helped from their problems, thanking the hand that has given (stretched out in giving) is considered to be an important way of expressing one’s gratitude. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
The interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) uses the ideophone tolotolo in Song of Songs 3:6 to describe billowing curls of smoke. Tolotolo is generally used for a swirling and spiraling upward motion and evokes curling incense smoke and visual and olfactory richness. (Source: Ernst Wendland)
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
Nkumbi / Mbangala / Songo: “bread that has gone no yeast” — “this is an application of a common construction in Angolan Bantu languages for speaking about the ingredients in some foods: ‘there is salt in the soup’ is rendered literally, ‘the soup has gone salt.’ (Source: Riikka Halme-Berneking in The Bible Translator 2014, p. 353ff. )
