purple

The Greek and Hebrew hat is translated as “purple” in English is translated as “blue-red” in Ojitlán Chinantec (source: M. Larson in Notes on Translation 1970, p. 1ff.) and in Elhomwe (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext). In Silimo it is translated with a local reference: “the colour of the wipegen berry” (source: Buzz and Myrna Maxey ).

In Kasua was a little bit more involved, as Rachel Greco recalls (in The PNG Experience ):

“The Kasua people of Western Province have no word for the color purple. They have words for many other colors: black, red, white, yellow, green, and blue, but not for the color of royalty.

“About nine New Testament passages mention people placing a purple robe on Jesus. The Kasua translation team always wanted to use the word ‘red,’ or keyalo, to describe the robe. Tommy, one of the translation team helpers, disagreed because this is not historically accurate or signifies the royalty of Jesus.

“One of the main rules of translation is that the team must stick to the historical facts when they translate a passage. If they don’t, then how can the readers trust what they’re reading is true? Other questions about truth could bubble in the reader’s minds about the Scriptures. For this reason, Tommy was not willing to change the word purple. So the team hung up the problem, hoping to revisit it later with more inspiration.

“God did not disappoint.

“Years later, Tommy hiked with some of the men near their village. They saw a tree that possessed bulbous growths growing on the side of it like fruit. These growths were ‘the most beautiful color of purple I’d ever seen,’ explained Tommy.

“’What is the name of this tree?’ Tommy asked the men.

“’This is an Okani tree,’ they replied.

“Tommy suggested, ‘Why don’t you, in those passages where we’ve been struggling to translate the color purple, use ‘they put a robe on Jesus the color of the fruit of the Okani tree’?

“’Yeah. We know exactly what color that is,’ the men said enthusiastically.

“Everyone in their village would also visualize this phrase accurately, as the Okani tree is the only tree in that area that produces this kind of purple growth. So now, among the Kasua people, in his royal purple robe, Jesus is shown to be the king that he is.”

In Numbers 4:13, Gbaya uses the ideophone soi-soi to emphasize the purple color. Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation and soi-soi designates something that has a red or purple color, or a thing with a clear or clean appearance. (Source: Philip Noss)

complete verse (Exodus 35:25)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 35:25:

  • Kupsabiny: “Every wise woman brought threads which were woven and were blue and purple and red and curtains which they had woven.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “The skillful women brought the blue, purple, red thread and fine linen spurned by their own hands.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The women that has ability to make cloth(s) brought blue, purple and red yarn, and fine linen.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “And some of the women had great knowledge in rolling needle thread. They brought their needle thread which was red and somewhat red and blue, and their good cloths.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “And women who be wise for thread spinning, they took thread good which they spun which be green/blue, with that which be purple, with red ones.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “All the women who were skilled to make cloth brought fine linen thread and blue, purple, or red yarn/thread that they had made/spun.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 35:25 - 35:26

And all the women who had ability, literally “And every woman wise of heart,” means “All the skilled women” (Good News Translation), or “The women who were good at weaving cloth” (Contemporary English Version). The same expression is used in 28.3 without specifying either men or women. (See the comment there.) Spun with their hands, literally “by her hands they spun,” refers to the ancient skill of spinning thread or yarn from animal or vegetable fibers. In some modern cultures spinning is still done by hand, so spun with their hands should be retained. But since the spinning was obviously done with their hands, some translations omit these words (Revised English Bible, Translator’s Old Testament). Good News Translation even omits the word spun and assumes it is understood with the word “made.” So and brought what they had spun may be understood as “they brought the thread [or, yarn] which they had made.”

In blue and purple and scarlet stuff is the same formula first used in 25.4. (See the comment there.) And fine twined linen is simply “and the linen,” which probably refers to the “fine linen thread” (Good News Translation) before it was woven into cloth.

All the women whose hearts were moved with ability is literally “and all the women who their heart lifted them up in wisdom.” This may be another way of referring to the same women as in verse 25, but it may also refer to women who specialized in spinning goats’ hair, assuming it took special skill. Good News Translation takes the former view and simply has “They” in reference to those mentioned in verse 25. But New Revised Standard Version has “all the women whose hearts moved them to use their skill,” and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “all the women who excelled in that skill.” Goats’ hair is literally “goats,” but the hair is understood. (See the comment at 25.4.)

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 .