The Tigris river , which flows from today’s Turkey through Syria and Iraq was transliterated in many early English translations and most other languages with a long translation history as Hiddekel or similar from the Hebrew Ḥiddéqel before using the current geographic designation of today. An exception is the European Portuguese 2009 edition of the “Good News Bible” (BÍBLIA para todos Edição Comum) that reverted back to Hidéquel, partly because the geographical Portuguese term “Tigre” also means “tiger” (as in the large cat).
A new oral translation into Yao / Ciyawo, spoken in Mozambique, uses Dijlah, a transliteration of the Arabic دِجلَة. Tobias Houston (2025, p. 236) explains: “On a practical level, ḥiddeqel, Tigris, and Tigre are unfamiliar to the Yawo as names of a real river in modern-day Iraq. Although the actual river in Iraq is indeed called Tigre in Portuguese and Tigris in English, this holds little significance for most Yawo people, who are unacquainted with either term. Consequently, to align with the Yawo’s Islamic identity and the reality of influence from the Arabic language, the new Mozambican Ciyawo translation of Genesis has opted for a different approach by using the term Dijlah (دِجلَة), the contemporary Arabic name for this very same river. The name Dijlah appears to derive from earlier etymologies. It bears some resemblance to the Aramaic Diglath (דִּגְלָת)—a form carried over into Greek texts such as Josephus’s Antiquities, also transliterated as Diglath (Διγλἀθ). Given the Yawo people’s predisposition to Arabic influences in their language, and considering that Yawo men, in particular, occasionally travel to the Middle East to study Arabic and Islam, the choice of Dijlah is both logical and practical. Indeed, this translation strategy demonstrates a keen awareness of the Yawo’s existing cultural and religious narrative frames and that their frames are not our frames.”