The Greek that is often rendered in English as “to be converted” or “to turn around” is (back-) translated in a number of ways:
- North Alaskan Inupiatun: “change completely”
- Purepecha: “turn around”
- Highland Totonac: “have one’s life changed”
- Huautla Mazatec: “make pass over bounds within”
- San Blas Kuna: “turn the heart toward God”
- Chol: “the heart turns itself back”
- Highland Puebla Nahuatl: “self-heart change”
- Pamona: “turn away from, unlearn something”
- Tepeuxila Cuicatec: “turn around from the breast”
- Luvale: “return”
- Balinese: “put on a new behavior” (compare “repentance“: “to put on a new mind”)
- Tzeltal: “cause one’s heart to return to God” (compare “repentance”: “to cause one’s heart to return because of one’s sin”)
- Pedi: “retrace one’s step” (compare “repentance”: “to become untwisted”)
- Uab Meto: “return” (compare “repentance”: “to turn the heart upside down”)
- Northwestern Dinka: “turn oneself” (compare “repentance”: “to turn the heart”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
- Central Mazahua: “change the heart” (compare “repentance”: “turn back the heart”) (source: Nida 1952, p. 40)
- In Elhomwe, the same term is used for “conversion” and “repentance” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
- Western Kanjobal: “molt” (like a butterfly) (source: Nida 1952, p. 136)
- Latvian: atgriezties (verb) / atgriešanās (noun) (“turn around / return”) which is also the same term being used for “repentance” (source: Katie Roth)
- Isthmus Mixe: “look away from the teaching of one’s ancestors and follow the teachings of God”
- Highland Popoluca: “leave one’s old beliefs to believe in Jesus” (source for thsi and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
- German: bekehren, lit. “turn around”