“know something is true because of seeing it” in Teutila Cuicatec (source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
“ones who will confirm that these-things that you have seen are true” in Kankanaey (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
“ones who are to testify about these things, because it all happened before your eyes” in Tagbanwa (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
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 Translator2002, 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.”
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 10:17:
Kupsabiny: “You will not miss to tell me bad words about me and be angry with me again and again. You prepare yourself every day to fight me.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “You bring new witnesses against me, and your anger advances toward me. Your army comes to my place like a flood [lit. a whirlpool].” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You (sing.) continually accuse me, and your (sing.) anger against me increases more and more/[lit. increases linker increases]. There is no stopping your (sing.) attacking me.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “You constantly find more witnesses to testify that I have done what is wrong,
and you continually become more angry/perturbed with me.
It is as though you are always bringing new troops to attack me.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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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, kurushime-rare-ru (苦しめられる) or “suffer” is used.
Thou dost renew thy witnesses against me: scholars differ regarding the meaning of the word translated witnesses. Some hold that these refer to Job’s sufferings which testify (give evidence) to his guilt. Dhorme and others read the Hebrew word with different vowels and get “your hostility,” which serves as a parallel for thy vexation in the following line. It does not seem necessary, however, to change the Hebrew just for the sake of parallelism. The line may sometimes be translated, for example, “You make new attacks on me,” “You attack me again in order to make me suffer.”
And increase thy vexation toward me: vexation translates a word meaning “to be angry, to be irritated.” According to Eliphaz it is anger which causes the downfall of the fool in 5.2. Job says that God’s anger toward him increases, or, as Good News Translation translates, “grows and grows.” The line may be rendered “and you become more and more angry with me” or “your anger against me gets greater all the time.”
Thou dost bring fresh hosts against me translates the Hebrew “changes and hosts with me.” See Revised Standard Version footnote. The word translated fresh refers to military reliefs, troops who are sent in to relieve (take over from) combat-weary soldiers, and so are said to be rested or fresh. Job pictures himself pitted against an unending supply of fresh troops, a picture which is far more vivid than the abstraction of Good News Translation, “You always plan some new attack.” Bible en français courant translates “and you throw troops who are always fresh against me.” This line may also be translated, for example, “You send troubles on me like rested soldiers ready for battle.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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