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)

cubit

The Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek that is translated as “cubit” or into a metric or imperial measurement in English is translated in Kutu, Kwere, and Nyamwezi as makono or “armlength.” Since a cubit is the measurement from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, one armlength (measured from the center of the chest to the fingertips) equals two cubits or roughly 1 meter. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

Similarly, in Akoose, the translation is “arm distance.” (Source: Joseph Nkwelle Ngome and Marlie van Rooyen & Jacobus A. Naudé in Communicatio 2009, p. 251ff.)

In Klao it is converted into “hand spans” (app. 6 inches or 12 cm) and “finger spans” (app. 1 inch or 2 cm) (source: Don Slager) and in Bariai into leoa or “fathom,” which comprises the distance from a person’s fingertip to fingertip with arms outstretched, app. 6 feet (source: Bariai Back Translation).

distance (long / wide / high)

The concepts of distance that are translated in English with “long,” “wide,” and “high/tall” are translated in Kwere with one word: utali. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

complete verse (Exodus 38:18)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 38:18:

  • Kupsabiny: “And/But for the gate of the compound a very expensive curtain was arranged/prepared. It was decorated with threads which were blue, purple and red. That curtain was nine meters wide and two meters high like the curtains of all the sides of that courtyard.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “They made twenty cubits long curtain of blue, purple, red fine linen with embroidered.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The curtain of-the entrance of-the yard/courtyard (was) fine linen which has blue, purple and red yarn. And it was-embroidered very good/well. The length of-this was-about 30 feet and the hight was-about seven and one half feet, just like the height of-the curtains around the yard/courtyard.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “And they made a good cloth for the opening of the fence. Its length amounted to five fathoms. And his height amounted to one fathom and an extra part extending to the bending of our (incl.) elbow, the same as the fence’s other cloths. And a man of artwork decorated those cloths with needle thread which was red and somewhat red and blue.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “And clothes which they hang at door inside of fence, they make it with thread be good which be green/blue, and that which be purple, and that which red, like wise people for thread sewing do it. Its width be joint of hand which be 20, and its length be joint of hand five like cloth of fence other.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “For the entrance of the courtyard, they made a curtain from fine white linen, and a skilled weaver embroidered it with blue, purple, and red yarn/thread. The curtain was 30 feet/9 meters long and 7-1/2 feet/2.3 meters high, just like the other curtains around the courtyard.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 38:18

This verse follows the instructions given in 27.16 and 18, but there are differences in the word order. The screen, of course, should be distinguished from the “veil,” as explained at 26.36. Embroidered with needlework is also discussed at 26.36. (For the materials and the colors, see the comments at 26.1 and 25.4.)

Five cubits high in its breadth, literally “and height in breadth five cubits,” is an awkward expression. It refers to the entire piece of material for the screen, which was twenty by five cubits, or “10 yards” by “2½ yards” (Good News Translation). (In the British edition it is “9 metres long and 2 metres high.”) But when it was hung the breadth of the material would become the height of the “curtain” (Good News Translation). Corresponding to the hangings of the court refers to 27.18, which specifies that the hangings all around the entire “enclosure” (Good News Translation) were to be five cubits in height. The word for corresponding means “just like,” or “in keeping with” (New American Bible).

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 .