The term that is translated as “lamb” in English is typically translated as “offspring of a sheep” in Ixcatlán Mazatec since there is no specific word for “lamb.” Since this could distract readers with thoughts of God being the sheep when the “lamb” refers to Jesus the translation into Ixcatlán Mazatec chose “little (individual) sheep” for those cases. (Source: Robert Bascom)

In Dëne Súline the native term for “lamb” directly translated as “the young one of an evil little caribou.” To avoid the negative connotation, a loan word from the neighboring South Slavey was used. (Source: NCEM, p. 70)

In Nenets it is translated as xu’ suyu or “young reindeer made of sheep.” Andrei S. Desnitsky explains (in: The Bible Translator 2018, p. 233ff. ): “For Arctic people, the usual sacrificial animal is a reindeer. Their whole life depends on breeding them, so they have many words for reindeer, depending on their age, gender, or function. For the Lamb, the Nenets translators (a Samoyed language spoken in northern Russia) have chosen the word suyu, which typically designates a young male reindeer, the most obvious choice for a sacrifice. Nevertheless, they did not want to break completely with the Russian tradition (Russian being the second if not the first language for most ethnic Nenets). So they added the word xu’, which normally qualifies sheep skin or some other product made from these animals. The expression xu’ suyu ‘young reindeer made of sheep’ looks biologically impossible, but it is quite plausible in the given context, since the first word indicates the exact species and the second one the age and the role of the animal. Thus it could be argued that ‘reindeer’ is not a necessary component of meaning for suyu, at least in this expression where it refers to a young animal suitable for a sacrifice.”

For the Kasua translation, it took a long process to find the right term. Rachel Greco (in The PNG Experience ) tells this story:

“To the Kasua people of Western Province, every four-legged animal is a pig. They call a horse a pig-horse, a cow, a pig-cow, and a sheep, a pig-sheep, because all of these animals have four legs, which is kopolo, or pig, in their language.

“When the translation team would translate the word, ‘sheep’ in the New Testament, they would translate it as ‘pig-sheep’. So when Jesus is referred to as the ‘Lamb,’ (John 1:29; Rev. 12:11; Rev. 17:14), they translated as ‘pig-sheep’ so that in John 1:29 it would read: ‘Behold, the pig-sheep of God.’

“When some members of the translation team attended the Translators Training Course, they had the opportunity to observe and study sheep for the first time. As they watched and learned more about the animals’ behavior, their understanding of these creatures—and God’s Word—rotated on its axis.

“Once during the course, Logan and Konni — the translation team’s helpers — were driving with the team to a Bible dedication when Amos, one of the team members, said passionately, ‘We can’t use the word kopolo in front of the word, ‘sheep’! Pigs know when they’re about to die and squeal and scream.’ The team had often watched villagers tie up pigs so they wouldn’t escape.

“’But,’ Amos said, ‘Jesus didn’t do that.’ The team had learned that sheep are quiet and still when death walks toward them. They had observed, as they translated the New Testament, the words of Isaiah 53 fulfilled: ‘Like a lamb led to the slaughter, he did not open his mouth.’ And now they understood what it meant. For this reason, the team decided not to put pig-sheep in the New Testament for the word ‘sheep,’ but used sheep-animal or, in their language, a:pele sipi.

“The Kasua translation team also chose to discard the word ‘pig’ before sheep because pigs are unclean animals to the Jews. The team knew that Jesus was called the ‘Lamb of God’ in the New Testament to show that he is unblemished and clean. Hopefully the Lord will open up the Kasua villagers’ eyes to these same truths about Jesus as they read of Him in their own language.”

See also The Paschal Lamb, sheep, and sheep / lamb.