The phrase that is translated into English as “a colt that has never been ridden” can be translated in Kalmyk much more succinctly than even the original Greek text since Kalmyk as arkhlata (архлата) a specific word for an unbroken colt. (source: David Clark)
In the Arhuaco translation of Luke 19:35 (in the English translation: “after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.”) the co-translator knew how unruly unbroken colts are so they translated “they held the donkey steady so that Jesus could get on it.” (source: Paul Lundquist in The Bible Translator 1992, p. 246 .)
In Purari society everyone marries, so the question was raised why in Acts 21:9 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.
The Greek proverb in Acts 26:14 which is translated directly by some English versions as “kick against the goads (=a spiked stick used for driving cattle)” and refers to “pointless fighting” became “throw chaff into the wind” in the Khmer Standard Version translation of 2005 (the translators also considered “spit vertically upwards”). (Source David Clark)
In Lalana Chinantec it is translated as “as a bull which kicks a sharp stick which his owner holds so do you,” in Teutila Cuicatec as “you are doing the same as an ox that is hurting itself, kicking the sharp stick that people drive it with,” in Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac as “like a horse when it kicks the stick with which it is driven” (source for this and two above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), and in Elhomwe as “because you are against me, you are hurting yourself” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).
In Russian, the phrase Трудно тебе идти против рожна (Trudno tebe idti protiv rozhna) or “kick against the goads” is widely used as an idiom in every-day life, with the meaning of undertaking a risky action against constraint imposed by tradition or authority. The wording of the quote originated in the Russian Synodal Bible (publ. 1876). (Source: Reznikov 2020, p. 63f.)
The phrase in 1 John 3:18 that is rendered as “our love should not be just words and talk” in some English versions is translated into Shan with a phrase that says “empty-mouth meaningless-words.”
The Greek in Revelation 6:8 that is translated as “pale green” or “pale” in English is translated in Tsafiki as “sickly yellow” which is used related to health. (Source: Bruce Moore in: Notes on Translation 1/1992, p. 1ff.)
“The real problem is the word chlōros in Rev 6.8. Its basic meaning is ‘green,’ and it is used to describe grass in Mark 6.39 and also in Rev 8.7. It is also used to describe vegetation in general in Rev 9.4. Does this mean that in Rev 6.8, we have a green horse? The absurdity of this has been recognized by translations from the Vulgate onwards. There the translation is pallidus, which means ‘pale.’ The Greek word chlōros can carry this meaning in some contexts, though it does not occur in this sense anywhere else in the New Testament. This is, however, the sense that came into the King James Bible in English (‘a pale horse’), and has been remarkably persistent. The problem is that this appears to be describing the horse’s health rather than its color, and to be saying that the horse is not feeling very well. This is ridiculous enough, but some more recent English versions have translated as ‘pale green’, which if anything sounds even more absurd.
“Why has this word proved such a problem to translators? I suspect that it is because they have failed to grasp the simple fact mentioned at the beginning of this article that different languages divide up the spectrum differently. Thus a word whose central meaning is ‘green (like grass)’ may also cover parts of the spectrum described by other words in other languages. In classical Greek, chlōros is used of such things as honey and egg yolk, which would never be called ‘green’ in English (unless perhaps the egg were bad!). Horses are certainly not the same color as egg yolk, but chlōros is also, and more significantly for our purposes, used to describe a mist: for this the natural color term in English would be ‘grey.’ We may therefore suggest that the part of the spectrum covered by chlōros in Greek includes what we would call ‘grey’ in English. This would not only be clear and natural, but would also strengthen the echo of the colors of the horses in Zechariah.
“In a recent conversation with a friend who is a native speaker of Welsh, I was interested to learn that Welsh divides up the spectrum in a way similar to that which I am supposing for Greek. My friend later wrote to me as follows: ‘The ‘pale horse’ in Rev 6.8 is described by the word glas (also meaning ‘blue’ in Welsh) in my older Bible, but interestingly by llwyd in a newer version. On reflection llwyd was the word 1 would have used in my boyhood for ‘grey,’ not glas. For example, my Sunday-best suit would have been llwyd.’ It seems that the old Welsh translation first published in 1588, earlier that is than the King James in English, had a more realistic approach to the color of the horse in Rev 6.8 than most English versions. And so does the newer Welsh version.
“In recent years I have also worked with two NT projects in southern Siberia — Khakas and Tuvan — where the people are interested in horses, and very familiar with them. It was an encouragement to me to study this matter further when 1 discovered that in both projects, the translator instinctively translated chlōros in Rev 6.8 by words meaning ‘grey.’ And this happened without any prompting from me!”
The Hebrew in Genesis 49:4 that is translated as “unstable as water” or “turbulent as water” in English is not a natural Falam Chin comparison and is conveyed as “like a mountain stream rising and falling.”
