The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “adultery” in English (here etymologically meaning “to alter”) is typically understood as “marital infidelity.” It is (back-) translated in the following ways:
- Highland Totonac: “to do something together”
- Yucateco: “pair-sin”
- Ngäbere: “robbing another’s half self-possession” (compare “fornication” which is “robbing self-possession,” that is, to rob what belongs to a person)
- Kaqchikel, Chol: “to act like a dog”
- Toraja-Sa’dan: “to measure the depth of the river of (another’s) marriage”
- North Alaskan Inupiatun: “married people using what is not theirs” (compare “fornication” which is “unmarried people using what is not theirs”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
- Purari: “play hands with” or “play eyes with”
- Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “talk secretly with spouses of our fellows”
- Isthmus Zapotec: “go in with other people’s spouses”
- Tzeltal: “practice illicit relationship with women”
- Huehuetla Tepehua: “live with some one who isn’t your wife”
- Central Tarahumara: “sleep with a strange partner”
- Hopi: “tamper with marriage” (source for this and seven above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
- German: Ehebrecher or “marriage breaker” / Ehe brechen or “breaking of marriage” (source: Zetzsche)
- In Falam Chin the term for “adultery” is the phrase for “to share breast” which relates to adultery by either sex. (Source for this and three above: David Clark)
- In Ixcatlán Mazatec a specification needs to be made to include both genders. (Source: Robert Bascom)
See also adultery, adulterer, adulteress, and you shall not commit adultery.