wine

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that are translated as “wine” in English is translated into Pass Valley Yali as “grape juice pressed long ago (= fermented)” or “strong water” (source: Daud Soesilo). In Guhu-Samane it is also translated as “strong water” (source: Ernest L. Richert in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 198ff. ), in Noongar as “liquor” (verbatim: “strong water”) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang), in Hausa as ruwan inabi or “water of grapes” (with no indication whether it’s alcoholic or not — source: Mark A. Gaddis), in sar as kasə nduú or “grape drink” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin), or in Papantla Totonac and Coyutla Totonac as “a drink like Pulque” (for “Pulque,” see here ) (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1971, p. 169ff. ).

In Swahili, Bible translations try to avoid local words for alcoholic drinks, because “drinking of any alcohol at all was one of the sins most denounced by early missionaries. Hence translators are uncomfortable by the occurrences of wine in the Bible. Some of the established churches which use wine prefer to see church wine as holy, and would not refer to it by the local names used for alcoholic drinks. Instead church wine is often referred to by terms borrowed from other languages, divai (from German, der Wein) or vini/mvinyo (from ltalian/Latin vino/vinum). Several translations done by Protestants have adapted the Swahili divai for ‘wine,’ while those done by Catholics use vini or mvinyo.” (Source: Rachel Konyoro in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 221ff. )

The Swahili divai was in turn borrowed by Sabaot and was turned into tifaayiik and is used as such in the Bible. Kupsabiny, on the other hand, borrowed mvinyo from Swahili and turned it into Finyonik. (Source: Iver Larsen)

In Nyamwezi, two terms are used. Malwa ga muzabibu is a kind of alcohol that people specifically use to get drunk (such as in Genesis 9:21) and ki’neneko is used for a wine made from grapes (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext).

In some Hindi translations (such as the Common Language version, publ. 2015 ), one term (dākharasa दाखरस — grape juice) is used when that particular drink is in the focus (such as in John 2) and another term (madirā मदिरा — “alcohol” or “liquor”) when drunkenness is in the focus (such as in Eph. 5:18).

In Mandarin Chinese, the generic term jiǔ (酒) or “alcohol(ic drink)” is typically used. Exceptions are Leviticus 10:9, Numbers 6:3, Deuteronomy 29:6, Judges 13:4 et al., 1 Samuel 1:15, and Luke 1:15 where a differentiation between weak and strong alcohol is needed. The Mandarin Chinese Union Version (2010) translates that as qīngjiǔ lièjiǔ (清酒烈酒) and dànjiǔ lièjiǔ (淡酒烈酒), both in the form of a Chinese proverb and meaning “light alcohol and strong drink.” (Source: Zetzsche)

Click or tap here to see a short video clip about wine in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)

See also proceeds from the vine / anything that comes from the grapevine, wine (Japanese honorifics), filled with new wine, and wine (Gen 27:28).

complete verse (Joel 1:5)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Joel 1:5:

  • Kupsabiny: “Wake up and cry oh, you drunkards.
    Let those who are drinking wine shout loudly.
    Shout (plur.) on account of the sweet wine
    because those vine plants the wine was made from are finished.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Hey you drunkards, wake up and cry out loud!
    All you who drink wine wail!
    Because from now on the wine will not reach your mouth.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “You (plur.) who (are) drunkards, [you (plur.)] rise-up and cry loudly! For you (plur.) have-nothing to-drink now; no more grapes to be-made into new wine.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Wake-up/Get-up you drunkards! Cry, because the grapes that they would have used to make new alcoholic-beverage (wine, beer, or commercial liquor; the word for rice-wine does not collocate with grapes) have already been ruined.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

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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 choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Joel 1:5

Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine: The prophet calls on drunkards to awake from their drunken sleep and to weep. These two lines are parallel, repeating the same message in different words, adding only the phrase of wine at the end. The subject of wine is then carried over to the next line.

Drunkards are people who habitually become drunk. The drinkers of wine are not necessarily drunkards, but the two expressions combine to indicate that everyone will be without wine, whether they drink it to excess or not.

Weep and wail are two aspects of the same activity. To weep involves shedding tears of sorrow, while to wail involves using your voice to cry out in a lament or an expression of sorrow, as many people are accustomed to doing at a funeral.

Wine is a fermented drink made from grape juice. Grapes are fruits about 1 to 2.5 centimeters (½ to 1 inch) in diameter, growing in clusters on a vine; they may be light green, red, blue, or purple when ripe, depending on the variety. A thin skin covers the juicy sweet interior of the fruit. The word wine can cause problems for translators in areas of the world where it is not known. Many languages have borrowed a term for it from international or trade languages that have prestige in their area. However, such a borrowed term may not be readily known at the level of common language, which many teams focus on in their work. In such situations a glossary item on wine may be helpful. In some languages translators have resorted to a descriptive phrase for it, sometimes combined with a generic term or classifier; for example, “a fermented drink made from fruits.” If the generic concept of “fermented drink” is difficult to express, a comparison can be made with a local liquor; for example, “a kind of … made from fruits.”

In spite of the possible different emphases, many of the modern common-language translations have shortened and combined the first two lines of this verse into one, since they are very similar; for example, “You, wine drinkers [or, drunkards], wake up and mourn.”

Because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth: The loss of the sweet wine is the cause of the lament for the drunkards. As a result of the locust plague, there is nothing left to eat or drink. Sweet wine, or “new wine” (Good News Translation), is the grape juice as it comes fresh from the wine press (the place where the juice is squeezed from the grapes). The juice has not fermented, or has only started to ferment. By referring to the fresh grape juice, the prophet is emphasizing that the very source of the drunkards’ supply of wine has been destroyed. Sweet wine may be rendered “fresh wine,” “new wine,” or “newly made wine.”

It is cut off from your mouth renders a Hebrew idiom that means they can no longer drink sweet wine because it is no longer available. Good News Translation recognizes that the locusts did not attack and destroy the sweet wine itself, but the grapes for making it, so for the last two lines it has “the grapes for making new wine have been destroyed.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch simply states “because there will be no new wine!” The French common language version (Bible en français courant) explicitly translates “due to lack of grapes, you are deprived of new wine.”

Quoted with permission from de Blois, Kees & Dorn, Louis. A Handbook on Joel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2020. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .