songs of Moses and Miriam

Following is a translation of the songs of Moses and Miriam from Exodus 15 into dance and a song presented in the traditional Fang troubadour style (mvét oyeng) by the group Nkuwalong as part of a project by Bethany and Andrew Case. (Note that you can activate English and French subtitles.)

complete verse (Exodus 15:10)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 15:10:

  • Kupsabiny: “But God, you blew using your breath,
    the water returned with power and totally covered them all!
    Those people sank like metals
    that are thrown in deep water.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “You blew them with your breath
    and the sea covered them.
    They sank as lead
    in the mighty waters.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “But in just one of your (sing.) blowing they were-drowned in the sea.
    They sank to the depths like lead.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “But you blew your breath once,
    and right then the ocean covered them.
    They sank down to the interior of the deep ocean like a stone.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “But, you God, you made wind blow, and water covered them head.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “But you blew on them with your breath,
    and then the sea covered them.
    They sank like lead/rocks in the big waves.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("make it blow")

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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 usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, fukase-rare-ru (吹かせられる) or “make it blow” is used.

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

sea / lake

The various Greek, Aramaic, Ge’ez, and Latin and Hebrew terms that are translated as “sea,” “ocean,” or “lake” in English are all translated in Chichewa with one term: nyanja. Malawi, where Chichewa is spoken, has a lot of lakes but does not share a border with the ocean. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

addressing God

Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.

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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.

In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.

Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”

In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.

Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)

In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”

In Dutch, Afrikaans, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.

See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.

Translation commentary on Exod 15:10

Thou didst blow with thy wind repeats the idea in verse 8, suggesting that Yahweh blew on the sea. The word for wind also means “breath,” which may be intended here. Good News Translation suggests that it took only “one breath” to cause the divided waters to return. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh removes the anthropomorphism with “You made your wind blow” (similarly Translator’s Old Testament). Translators will need to decide whether to employ the anthropomorphism here or not. If it will sound unnatural or strange in a receptor language, then a translation like New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh’s will be possible. Another way to express this is to combine the idea of “anger” and “wind” by saying “You were furious and caused your wind to blow.” Good News Translation adds “LORD” for better style, but it is not in the Hebrew. The sea covered them uses the same verb as in verse 5. The word them, of course, refers to the Egyptians.

They sank as lead uses a verb found only here, but its meaning is suggested by lead, the heavy metal used even today for weights. If lead is unknown, one may say, for example, “sank like a rock.” In the mighty waters may be thought of as “terrible waters” (New Jerusalem Bible) or “swelling waves” (Revised English Bible). Waters is simply the plural of “water” as in verse 8, but with the adjective mighty, the unruly primeval ocean is meant as in verse 5. Contemporary English Version combines the clause the sea covered them and the phrase the mighty waters as “swallowed by ocean waves.”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .