The Greek in James 1:12 that is translated in English as “crown of life” is translated in Navajo (Dinė) as “the life-way prize” (source: Nida 1964, p. 238) and in Owa as “the wage of your souls” (source: Carl Gross).
In Chichewa (interconfessional translation) translated as mphotho or “prize (of life)”. Ernst Wendland (1987, p. 120) explains: “A Chewa Chief might wear a special sea shell or bracelet as a sort of badge of office, but these would be magically endowed to give him super-natural protection against his enemies. Because of these underlying associations, such terms would not be appropriate here. Instead the word mphotho ‘prize,’ ‘reward’ (for achievement) has been used.”
The phrase in Acts 7:51 that is translated into English as “uncircumcised in heart and ears” is translated into Afar as “You are people who have hearts that refuse God, and ears closed saying we didn’t hear God’s message.” (Source: Loren Bliese)
Other translations for “uncircumcised in heart and ears” include:
Rincón Zapotec: “it doesn’t enter your hearts or your ears. You are like those who don’t even believe”
Morelos Nahuatl: “you have your heart as unbelievers, you do not want to hear God’s word”
Highland Popoluca: “you never wanted to do God’s will, never truly believed”
Teutila Cuicatec: “you are just the same as those who do not believe God’s word because you do not obey”
Huichol: “you have not been marked with God’s sign in your hearts or in your ears” (or: “you are unruly and unsubmissive like an untamed, unbranded bronco”)
Ojitlán Chinantec: “you do not have the word-sign in your hearts. Your ears are clogged”
Isthmus Mixe: “your hearts and minds are not open” (source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
Kaqchikel: “with your hearts unprepared” (source: Nida 1964, p. 220)
Elhomwe: “like people who do not know God” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Chichewa (interconfessional translation) “hard-headed.” (Source: Wendland 1987, p. 130)
Bariai: “You aren’t able to receive knowledge, certainly not. You shut your ears always to Deo’s talk.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Low German 1975 translation by Rudolf Muuß: “Your hearts and ears are no better than those of the heathen”
Uma: “No kidding your stubbornness! No kidding your making yourselves deaf to hearing the Word of the Lord God!” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Your livers are livers not obeying/following God. And how deaf are your ears. You do not listen-to/heed God’s word/message.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
The Greek in Philippians 2:1 that is translated into English as “comfort from love” or “consolation of love” is translated into Navajo (Dinė) as “if by loving your minds can be put to that place of refuge.” (Source: Nida 1964, p. 228)
In Western Highland Purepecha “consolation” in this verse is translated as “God takes sadness from our hearts” and in Aymara as “preparing the heart.” (Source: Nida 1952, p. 131)
The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated as “blind” in English is translated as “(having) eyes dark/night” in Ekari or “having no eyes” in Zarma. (Source: Nida 1964, p. 200)
The Greek in 1 John 4:18 that is translated as “there is no fear in love” in English has been translated in Huautla Mazatec as “he who really loves forgets to be afraid.” “The concepts of love and fear must be expressed by verbs, not nouns, and hence an actor must be expressed. Furthermore, the relationship indicated by the English ‘in’ must be radically altered, for though in can express the relationship of objects to each other in Huautla Mazatec, it does not show the relationship of events, as it does in English.” (Source: Nida 1964, p. 196).
In choosing a word for the Greek that is typically translated as “gospel” in English, a number of languages construct a phrase meaning “good news,” “joyful report” or “happiness-bringing words.” In some instances such a phrase may be slightly expanded in order to convey the proper meaning, e.g. “new good word” (Tzotzil), or it may involve some special local usage:
the Germandas Buch translation by Roland Werner (publ. 2009-2022) translates as “all-transformative good news” (alles verändernde gute Botschaft), also “good news,” and the German translation by Fridolin Stier (1989) as “message of salvation” (Heilsbotschaft)
Vitaly Voinov tells this story about the translation into Rutul (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):
“In Rutul, it was only during the most recent consultant checking session that I realized that the Rutul word for Gospel – Incir (from Arabic إنجيل — Injil) — sounds and looks exactly like the word that means ‘fig’ in Rutul. This is a case of homonymy, in which two completely non-related words from differing historical sources have come to sound exactly alike. Most Rutul speakers know that incir means ‘fig’ because they grow this fruit in their yard or buy it at the market every week. However, because the religious sphere of discourse was heavily disparaged during the Soviet era, most people simply never encountered Incir with the meaning of ‘Gospel.’ This meaning of the word, which Rutuls of the pre-Soviet era knew from the Koran, simply fell into disuse and never had much reason for returning into contemporary Rutul since there is no Christian church established among the people. So if the translator continues to use the term Incir as the rendering for ‘Gospel,’ he runs the risk that most readers will, at best, read the word with a smile because they know that it also means ‘fig,’ and, at worst, will completely misunderstand the word. The seemingly ‘easy’ solution in this case is for the translator to use a Rutul neologism meaning ‘Joyful Message’ or ‘Good News,’ [see above] instead of Incir; but in fact it is not all that easy to make this change if the translator himself insists on using the historical word because at least some Rutuls still understand it as meaning ‘Gospel.’ This is a situation in which the translation team has to gradually grow into the understanding that a fully intelligible translation of Scripture is preferable to one that maintains old words at the cost of alienating much of the readership.”
The Greek in Galatians 5:16 that is translated in English as “walk in the Spirit” or “live by the Spirit” is translated in Uduk as “let the Spirit lead you in the way.” (Source: Nida 1964, p. 238)
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “glorify God” in English is rendered as “wake God up” in Guerrero Amuzgo.
Other translations are “say that God is very great” (Central Tarahumara), “say how good God is” (Tzotzil), “speak about God as good” (Tzeltal), “give God a great name” (Highland Puebla Nahuatl), “give God highness” (Kipsigis), “take God out high” (in the sense of “to exalt”) (Huautla Mazatec), “make great / exalt” (Toraja-Sa’dan, Javanese), “lift up God’s brightness” (Kpelle), “show God to be great” (Central Pame), “make God shine” (Wayuu), “make God’s name big” (Huastec), “make God important” (Isthmus Zapotec) (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida), or “say to God: You are of good heart” (Huichol) (source: Nida 1964, p. 228).
In Waama this is translated as “make God’s name big.” (For the translation into Waama, five categories of verb doxazo and the noun doxa were found that were all translated differently, see glorify (reveal God’s or Jesus’ glory to people)).
In Shipibo-Conibo it is translated as “brag about God” (“This may strike some at first as being an unspiritual approach, but it surely is Pauline, for Paul used the word ‘to brag’ when he declared his confidence in Jesus Christ and in the salvation of the world which God wrought through His Son.”) (Source: Nida 1952, p. 162)
