Pitjantjatjara

kiss

The Hebrew and the Greek that is usually directly translated as “kiss” in English is translated more indirectly in other languages because kissing is deemed as inappropriate, is not a custom at all, or is not customary in the particular context (see the English translation of J.B. Phillips [publ. 1960] in Rom. 16:16: “Give each other a hearty handshake”). Here are some examples:

Pökoot: “greet warmly” (“kissing in public, certainly between men, is absolutely unacceptable in Pökoot.”) (Source: Gerrit van Steenbergen)
Chamula Tzotzil, Ixcatlán Mazatec, Tojolabal: “greet each other warmly” or “hug with feeling” (source: Robert Bascom)
Afar: gaba tittal ucuya — “give hands to each other” (Afar kiss each other’s hands in greeting) (source: Loren Bliese)
Roviana: “welcome one another joyfully”
Cheke Holo: “love each other in the way-joined-together that is holy” (esp. in Rom. 16:16) or “greet with love” (esp. 1Thess. 5:26 and 1Pet. 5.14)
Pitjantjatjara: “when you meet/join up with others of Jesus’ relatives hug and kiss them [footnote], for you are each a relative of the other through Jesus.” Footnote: “This was their custom in that place to hug and kiss one another in happiness. Maybe when we see another relative of Jesus we shake hands and rejoice.” (esp. Rom. 16:16) (source for this and two above: Carl Gross)
Balanta-Kentohe and Mandinka: “touch cheek” or “cheek-touching” (“sumbu” in Malinka)
Mende: “embrace” (“greet one another with the kiss of love”: “greet one another and embrace one another to show that you love one another”) (source for this and two above: Rob Koops)
Gen: “embrace affectionately” (source: John Ellington)
Kachin: “holy and pure customary greetings” (source: Gam Seng Shae)
Kahua: “smell” (source: David Clark) (also in Ekari and Kekchí, source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
San Blas Kuna: “smell the face” (source: Claudio and Marvel Iglesias in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 85ff.)
Chichewa: “suck” (“habit and term a novelty amongst the young and more or less westernized people, the traditional term for greeting a friend after a long absence being, ‘clap in the hands and laugh happily'”)
Medumba: “suck the cheek” (“a novelty, the traditional term being ‘to embrace.'”)
Shona (version of 1966) / Vidunda: “hug”
Balinese: “caress” (source for this and three above: Reiling / Swellengrebel; Vidunda: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Tsafiki: earlier version: “greet in a friendly way,” later revision: “kiss on the face” (Bruce Moore [in: Notes on Translation 1/1992), p. 1ff.] explains: “Formerly, kissing had presented a problem. Because of the Tsáchilas’ [speakers of Tsafiki] limited exposure to Hispanic culture they understood the kiss only in the eros context. Accordingly, the original translation had rendered ‘kiss’ in a greeting sense as ‘greet in a friendly way’. The actual word ‘kiss’ was not used. Today ‘kiss’ is still an awkward term, but the team’s judgment was that it could be used as long as long as it was qualified. So ‘kiss’ (in greeting) is now ‘kiss on the face’ (that is, not on the lips).)
Kwere / Kutu: “show true friendship” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

character, experience

The Greek that is translated as “character” or “experience” in English is translated into Pitjantjatjara as “we become with strength and don’t fall, and God seeing us is pleased.” (Source: Carl Gross)

In Hopi it is translated as “maturity,” in Isthmus Zapotec as “standing firm,” in Central Tarahumara as “being called as doers of good,” in Miahuatlán Zapotec as “showing people we really believe in Christ,” and inCentral Mazahua as “knowing that we passed well.” (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

desolate wilderness

In the Pitjantjatjara translation, the Hebrew that is translated as “desolate wilderness” or “desert waste” in English was translated with “totally destroyed.”

Translation consultant Sam Freney (in this article) explains: “I noticed they captured the lush ‘before’ picture like the garden of Eden, but they didn’t talk about the aftermath as a ‘desert.’ Instead, they said it was ‘totally destroyed.’ When I asked the team about this, it turned out that there’s not really a good word for ‘desert’ they could use here. I found this fascinating –- after all, Pitjantjatjara is a ‘Western Desert Language’, and traditional Pitjantjatjara lands are in the central Australian desert around and to the south of Uluru.

“But this is a case where trying to come up with an ‘accurate’ term for the word ‘desert’ would result in a less accurate translation. For a start, there’s no obvious word to choose so it’s going to end up sounding at least a bit unnatural. But the communicative effect of choosing a word that reflects the kind of land the Pitjantjatjara people live in would knock the impact of this verse down a whole lot. You can imagine the response: ‘Before, the land was beautiful and very green, but after this enormous destructive army came through it was just like the landscape where we’ve lived for thousands of years.’”