family / clan / house

The Hebrew terms that are translated as “family” or “clan” or “house” or similar in English are all translated in Kwere as ng’holo or “clan.” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

In the English translation by Goldingay (2018) it is translated as “kin-group.”

See also tribe.

says the LORD / says the Lord GOD

The English that is translated as “says the Lord” or “says the Lord God” is translated in some influential French translations as oracle de Yahvé (La Bible de Jérusalem) oracle du Seigneur (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible), and oracle de l’Éternel (Nouvelle Version Segond Révisée 1978) or “oracle (authoritative statement) of YHWH (or: the Lord).”

Timothy Lloyd Wilt (in The Bible Translator 1999, p. 301ff. ) describes the Hebrew ne’um (adonay) YHWH (quoting S. Meier, 1992) as “a highly marked expression (…) Hebrew does not characteristically repunctuate quoted discourse with reminders of the quote’s source, making this particle’s function quite distinctive and certainly unique in its frequency and distribution.”

The French translations above are emulating this with their distinct wording containing the French oracle.

Similarly, the French translation by Chouraqui uses harangue de or “harangue (or: ‘sermon’) of YHWH” and the English translation by Fox uses Utterance of YHWH. Both of these translations are Jewish translations that attempt to emulate the Hebraic nature of the original text. (Source: Drew Maust) Likewise, the translation by Goldingay (2018) has Yahweh’s declaration, typically set in parentheses: (Yahweh’s declaration).

The translation into Kera marks this by using the equivalent of “the words of me, YHWH” (source: Jackie Hainaut) and a language in West Africa, belonging to the Mande language family, uses a honorific form of “say,” that is only used for speech from God or his prophets. Both of these languages are spoken in francophone Africa.

See also Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD.” and tetragrammaton (YHWH).

cardinal directions

According to Anne Garber Kompaoré (in Le Sycomore 3/2009, p. 34ff. ), there are 4 ways to identify cardinal directions:

1. celestial bodies, especially the sun and certain stars
2. geographical landmarks, for example a mountain, sea, or river (depending on its position or the direction in which the water flows) etc.
3. climatic phenomena, such as the wind and the direction from which rain comes
4. bodily reference points, especially front, back, left, and right, in relation to celestial bodies or geographical landmarks

Following are examples of how these are practically implemented by various languages: (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight)

Celestial Bodies

East and west are often translated by the rising and the setting of the sun (note that the origin of English and other Indo-European languages is “dawn” for “east” and “evening” [i.e. sun-down] for “west”):

  • Maan: “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down” (source: Don Slager)
  • Kankanaey: “from the coming-out of the sun “and “going-away of the sun” (source: Kankanaey back-translation)
  • Northern Emberá: “from where the sun comes up” and “from where the sun falls” (source: Charles Mortensen)
  • Ejamat “the side where the sun comes from” and “the side where it sets” (source: David Frank in this blog post )
  • Tzeltal: “where the sun pours-out” (west) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Mono (DRC): “of-hole-sun” (west)
  • Belanda Bor: “place morning” and “place evening”
  • Shambala: “side sink sun” (south)
  • Northern Ngbandi: “the sun behind the chief’s house” (east — the chief lives traditionally at the eastern side of the village, therefore he does not get the sunlight into his eyes) and “under the sun” (west)
  • Northwestern Dinka: “earth behind” (east — the place behind the earth, i.e. the area where the sun rises)
  • Bari: “Morning Star” / “Venus” (east)
  • Chopi: “sky” (north) (source for this and six above: Angelika Mietzner and Helma Pasch in Skase Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 4, 3/2007 )

Geographical Landmarks

  • Kele: “down-river” (west) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Jula: “salt village” (north — because salt comes from the north, from the Sahara Desert) and “kola village” (south — since kola comes from the coastal region to the south) (source: Garber Kompaoré)
  • Matumbi: “toward the beach” (East) (the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas), “north” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
  • Lamba: “to the Aushi country” (north) / kumausi and “to the Lenje country” (south) / kumalenje (source C. M. Doke in The Bible Translator 1958, p. 57ff. )
  • Acoli: “right” (of the local White Nile) (north) and “left” (of the White Nile) (south)
  • Zande: “interior (dry) land” (east); “place-inside-country” (north / south) — Zande, like a number of other languages, including Matengo and Hehe, traditionally only has three cardinal directions.
  • Belanda Bor: “lower place” (north) and “higher place” (south)
  • Turkana: “(up)stream” (north) and (down)stream (south)
  • Mono (DRC): “water place” (south) (source for this and five above: Mietzner / Pasch)

Climatic Phenomena

  • Shilluk: “opening westwind” (north) and “opening eastwind” (south)
  • Swahili used to have six directions. In reducing them to four, kusini and kaskazini which used to refer to south-west and north east respectively (the directions from where the two monsoons blow) have become the terms for “south” and north.” (source for this and one above: Mietzner / Pasch)

Bodily Reference Points

  • Nuer / Burun: “face” and “sun face” respectively (both: east)
  • Kalenjin: “eye sun” (east) (this and the one above indicate that the sun is “facing” the spectator from its position in the east:
  • Shilluk: doesn’t use a fixed position of the speaker, instead it has “eye sun morning” for east and “eye sun evening” for west
  • Mono (DRC): “foot-sun” (east — the start of the sun’s journey)
  • Burun: “sun leg” (west — the end of the sun’s journey)
  • Bari: “back” (north — when people are facing south, north is at their back) (source for this and above: Mietzner / Pasch)
  • Northern Emberá “the looking [left] hand” (north) and “the real [right] hand” (south) (source: Charles Mortensen)
  • Morelos Nahuatl: “from above” (north) and “from below” (south) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)

When all four directions are mentioned, translators tend to avoid listing the four, sometimes verbose terms, and chose solutions like “all directions” (such as in Maan or Manya (source: Don Slager). Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) and Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).

The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture. Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”

See also people of the East and three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east.

complete verse (Jeremiah 1:15)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 1:15:

  • Kupsabiny: “I am going to call all the kings of the North. They shall come and encircle the gates of Jerusalem and surround the whole wall and all the cities of Judah.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Listen! I will-send the soldiers of the kingdoms from the north to attack Jerusalem. Their kings will-place their thrones at the gates/entrances of Jerusalem. They will-attack the stoned-walls around it and still the other towns of Juda.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Listen to what I say:
    I am summoning the armies of kingdoms that will come from the north of Judah to Jerusalem.
    Their kings will set up their thrones at the gates of this city to indicate that they are now the kings of Judah.
    Their armies will attack and break down the walls of this city, and they will do the same thing to all the other towns in Judah.” (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 Jeremiah 1:15

For, lo represents an emphatic transitional marker that Luther 1984 translates “For look.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch combines this transitional marker with says the LORD and renders “Listen to what I am saying to you.” Good News Translation makes clear the relation between the previous verse and what is said here by rendering the expression as “because.” New Revised Standard Version has “For now,” thereby eliminating the archaic word lo.

Here calling does not mean calling out to, but rather “summoning.” Since the meaning is not that he is actually calling as he speaks, “I am about to summon” will be better in some languages.

The tribes of the kingdoms is best interpreted to mean “the nations and their kings.” Kingdoms apparently has the meaning of “kings,” which it does in other contexts as well. Thus it is not necessary to follow the Septuagint (so also New American Bible), which omits the tribes of. Moreover, it is quite possible that the Septuagint translators understood the tribes as a parallel expression to the kingdoms or else that the double expression was understood in the manner suggested above. In any case, on translational grounds it is possible to reduce the double structure to “the nations” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), without resorting to textual alterations. Thus all the tribes of the kingdoms … they … every one may be translated “all the nations … Their kings” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

For says the LORD, see the discussion at verse 8. Here it occurs virtually in the middle of a sentence, and Good News Translation and others have found it more natural to drop it.

And they shall come …: Most translators accept that in the context, they refers to the kings, not to the nations or peoples, and make that clear. See New English Bible, for example, “Their kings shall come and each shall set up….” But others do something similar to Bible en français courant: “They [the people] will come set up the thrones of their kings in front of the gates of Jerusalem.” Certainly either is acceptable.

Every one shall set his throne: Thrones are the signs of the power exercised by the kings who attacked from the north. If in a language set his throne could only be understood literally, then it would be better to use an expression such as “established his [royal] authority.”

The gates of an ancient city were of great significance. As a rule there were two gates, an inner gate and an outer gate, which added to the defensive capabilities of the city. Above the gate was an enclosed room, and above that was a roof that served as a lookout post. The space immediately inside the gates served for various functions, but especially as a place where the leaders of the city or kings might sit to make official decisions or to pass judgment. Thus when the other kings set their thrones at the gates of Jerusalem, this means that they were in fact replacing the royal authority of Judah with their own. This information could be indicated in a footnote. It was possible also to use gate as a figure of speech for a city itself (“within your gates” of Deut 12.12, 15, 17, 21 means “within your towns”). Thus it is that Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch can reduce at the entrance of the gates … and against all the cities of Judah to “around the walls of Jerusalem and the walls of all other cities in Judah.” Note that Jerusalem is one of the cities of Judah, so Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has the word “other.”

New International Version makes it clear that these kings are attacking Jerusalem with “they will come against all her surrounding walls,” which certainly is clearer than the more literal setting of thrones against all its walls round about. Bible en français courant on the other hand has “They will encircle its walls, they will attack all the cities of Judah.”

The walls of the cities may be a problem, if this concept is completely unknown, or if in a culture people will think only of the fences that they put around their villages to keep out marauding animals and keep in their livestock at night. In such cases translators might have to say “walls to protect them from their enemies [or, from attack].”

The Bassa (Liberia) translation reorders this verse to give a natural sequence:

• Behold, I am gathering all the nations in the north to come. The kings of the nations will defeat Jerusalem and all the other cities of Judah, and they will set up their thrones at the gates of Jerusalem.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .