harden heart

The Hebrew that is translated into English as forms of “(to not) harden heart” is translated into other languages with their own vivid idioms; for example, Thai uses “black-hearted” (source: Bratcher / Hattoon, p. 272), Pökoot uses makany kwoghïghitu mötöwekwo: “do not let become hard your heads” (source: Gerrit van Steenbergen), Anuak has “make liver strong” (source: Loren Bliese), and The Hebrew that is translated as “divination” or similar in English is translated in Elhomwe has “dried heart” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).

See also hardness of heart, harden, and see Seat of the Mind for traditional views of “ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling.”

compassion

The Hebrew, Greek, Ge’ez, and Latin that is typically as “compassion” in English (“compassion” comes from the Latin compatior and means suffering with) is translated in various ways:

  • Shilluk´: “cries in the soul” (source: Nida, 1952, p. 132)
  • Q’anjob’al: “crying in one’s stomach” (source: Newberry and Kittie Cox in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. )
  • Aari: “has a good stomach” (=”sympathetic”) (source: Loren Bliese)
  • Una: “has a big liver” (source: Kroneman 2004, p. 471)
  • Uma: “heart is moved (lit., far-away)” (source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Chitonga: “to have the intestines twisting in compassion/sorrow for someone” (kumyongwa) (source: Wendland 1987, p. 128f.)

See also pain-love, moved with compassion (pity), and Seat of the Mind for traditional views of “ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling.”

preach

Click here to view graphically

The Greek terms that are translated into English as “preach” or “proclaim” are regularly rendered into Aari as “speaking the word of salvation.” (Source: Loren Bliese)

Other languages (back-) translate it in the following manner:

  • Mandarin Chinese: chuándào/傳道 or “hand down the Way [or: the Logos]”)
  • Kekchí: “declare the word”
  • Kpelle: “speak God’s word”
  • Tzeltal: “he explains, they hear” (“the goal of all preachers”)
  • Copainalá Zoque: “a preacher is ‘one who speaks-scatters'” (a figure based on the scattering of seed in the process of sowing) (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Shilluk: “declare the word of of God” (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning:

  • For Acts 9:20, 10:42: nakotnohora: “talk about” (“The generic term for preaching.”)
  • For Acts 8:4, 8:5, 8:25: rodkiota-ralde’etnohora — “bring words, give news about.” (“This term is used when the preacher is moving from place to place to preach.”)

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

tradition

Click here to view graphically

The Greek that is translated as “tradition” in English is translated in these ways:

  • Kekchí: “the old root-trunk” (in which the life of a people is likened to a tree)
  • Central Tarahumara: “to live as the ancients did”
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun: “sayings passed down from long-ago times”
  • Navajo (Dinė): “what their fathers of old told them to follow”
  • Toraja-Sa’dan: “the ordinance maintained by the forefathers”
  • Tzeltal: “the word that has been kept from the ancients” (source for this and all above Bratcher / Nida)
  • Gumuz: “the life of your fathers” (source: Loren Bliese)
  • Obolo: “the deeds of the ground” (orọmijọn̄) (source: Enene Enene)
  • Mairiasi: “the old things that are being held-onto” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “handed-down customs” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)

the prophets are nothing but wind

The phrase in Jeremiah 5:13 that is rendered “the prophets are nothing but wind” in English versions is translated into Afar as “The prophets are equivalent to big, leather milk containers (karbat) blown up with air, and are useless.”

conscience

Click here to view graphically

The Hebrew and Greek that is rendered in English as “conscience” is translated into Aari as “our thoughts speak to us,” in Nuer it is “the knowledge of their heart” (source: Jan Sterk), in Cheke Holo “to know what is straight and what is wrong” (source: Carl Gross), in Chokwe “law of the heart” (source D.B. Long in The Bible Translator 1953, p. 135ff. ), in Toraja-Sa’dan penaa ma’pakilala or “the admonishing within” (source: H. van der Veen in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 21 ff. ), in Yatzachi Zapotec as “head-hearts,” in Tzeltal as “hearts” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), in Enlhet as “innermost,” in Northern Emberá as “thinking” (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1975, p. 201ff. ), and in Elhomwe as “what reminds the heart” or “whole heart” (“since the idea of conscience is something that reminds the heart”) (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).

In Warao it is translated with obojona, a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions” (source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. ). See other occurrences of Obojona in the Warao New Testament.

In Mbudum it is translated as “the heart that does not leap.” (Source: Ervais Fotso Noumsi in Le Sycomore, 16/1, 2022 )

See also conscience seared and perfect conscience / clear conscience, clear conscience towards God and all people, and brothers, up to this day I have lived my life with a clear conscience before God.