broken up

In Gbaya, the notion of being broken up into small pieces is emphasized with the ideophone ndúkú-ndúkú.

In Habakkuk 3:16 “rottenness enters into my bones” is translated as “my bones have decomposed and broken up,” emphasized by ndúkú-ndúkú.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

complete verse (Deuteronomy 32:26)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Deuteronomy 32:26:

  • Kupsabiny: “I wanted to destroy them completely,
    to make them get lost never to be remembered any other place/time.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “I said – I will scatter them everywhere (distant places). Among people I will wipe out even every memory of them.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “I said that I will-scatter them until they will- no-longer -be- remembered in the world.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “I wanted to scatter the Israeli people to distant countries
    in order that no one would ever remember them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 32:26

Verses 26-27 are a turning point in the song; from his threats to destroy the people, the LORD turns to a promise to forgive and restore them.

Here Yahweh quotes himself, and this is in a song that Moses is reciting. In verse 20 Moses starts quoting Yahweh—a quotation that goes to the end of verse 42. Here in verse 26 it may be awkward and most unnatural to try to imitate the Hebrew structure, and the translator may choose to bypass the quotation, as Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version do; see also New Revised Standard Version. So verse 26 can begin, with Yahweh as speaker, “I thought I would scatter them…, 27 but I feared provocation….” New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “I might have….” Contemporary English Version has “I wanted to scatter you.”

I would have said: as the context shows, the consequence of his possible declaration keeps Yahweh from saying this; so the meaning is, “I could have said … but I didn’t, because….” See in 9.25-29, where Moses makes the same kind of plea to God. In some languages it will be necessary to state clearly that Yahweh is speaking; for example: Yahweh says, “I might have said, ‘I will scatter…,’ ” or “Yahweh says, ‘I might have scattered….’ ”

I will scatter them afar: there is some doubt about the form of the Hebrew text, but the sense of dispersion is what the Septuagint has (see the same verb in 4.27), and this is what most translations say. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “reduced them to naught,” New Jerusalem Bible has “crush them to dust,” and Good News Translation “destroyed them completely,” the sense of which more closely parallels the next line. It is recommended that translators follow this model.

I will make the remembrance of them cease from among men: see the similar statement in 25.19; see also Num 14.12. God would have destroyed them so completely that in the future people would not even remember that they had existed.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .