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 36:37)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 36:37:

  • Kupsabiny: “After that, (they) prepared/made a very expensive curtain for covering the entrance to this Tent of God and that curtain was decorated with threads that were blue, purple and red.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “They made the embroidered curtain of blue, purple and red fine linen to hang at the entrance of the tent.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “They still made one curtain for the entrance to the Tent. They used fine linen with blue, purple, and red yarn. And the embroidery is very well-done.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “And he made another good cloth to be for blocking the opening of God’s shelter. And he decorated that cloth with needle thread which was red and somewhat red and blue. And a man of artwork sewed good decorations onto it.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “And they made cloth of door one for door of tent with thread be good which be purple, with that which red, with that which be green/blue. They sewed it, adorned it [body].” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “They made a curtain to cover the entrance of the Sacred Tent. They made it from fine linen, and a skilled weaver embroidered it with blue, purple, and red yarn/thread.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 36:37

This verse is identical with 26.36, with the only difference in the verb He also made. As explained above, this is better rendered as “they made,” in order to include the other skilled workers who assisted Bezalel. (See verse 8.) The definite article is not used here as it is for “the veil” in verse 35, but it may be used in translation. This is the screen mentioned in 26.36, which is a different Hebrew word from that used for the “veil.”

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 .