The interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) uses the ideophone bata to describe complete quietness. (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 105)
Philip Noss (in The Bible Translator 1976, p. 100ff. ) explains the function of an ideophone: “The ideophone may be identified with onomatopoeia and other sound words frequently seen in French and English comic strips, but in [many] African languages it comprises a class of words with a very wide range of meaning and usage. They may function verbally, substantively, or in a modifying role similar to adverbs and adjectives. They describe anything that may be experienced: action, sound, color, quality, smell, or emotion. In oral literature they are used not only with great frequency but also with great creativity.”
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Adamawa Fulfulde translation uses the exclusive pronoun, excluding Jonah.
The Jarai translation differentiates between the first occurrence of the pronoun (“What shall we do to you” in English) which they translate as exclusive and the second occurrence (“that the sea may quiet for us” in English) where Jonah is being included.
The various Greek, Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew terms that are translated as “sea,” “ocean,” or “lake” in English are all translated in Chichewa with one term: nyanja. Malawi, where Chichewa is spoken, has a lot of lakes but does not share a border with the ocean. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Here again, in this verse Good News Translation substitutes the historical order for the Hebrew narrative order to give the background to the situation before introducing the words of the sailors. New English Bible retains the Hebrew order, and as in the previous verse introduces the last sentence with an explanatory “for.” Knox gains the same effect by a parenthesis “(Even as they spoke, the waves grew more angry yet).” The description of the storm may, in fact, be a continuation of the words of the sailors, “for the storm is getting worse and worse.” Against this, however, is the fact that precisely the same words occur in verse 13, where they cannot be a part of a speech. The sailors, having learned not only that Jonah was the person who was to blame for the storm, but also that he had done something to arouse God’s anger, now ask how the situation can be saved. In other words, since he knew what had happened to cause the storm, that ought to qualify him to suggest a remedy.
The Revised Standard Version shows a clearer understanding than King James Version of the Hebrew idiom used here: “more and more tempestuous.” In other words, the two verbs used in the Hebrew do not refer to different actions but to the progressive intensification of one action. As against the storm of Good News Translation and New English Bible, some others follow the Hebrew more closely by referring to the “sea”; for example, Revised Standard Version, Jerusalem Bible, An American Translation, Moffatt. In neither Good News Translation nor New English Bible is there any mention of the relation of the storm to the sailors themselves, as in the Hebrew, with its “from upon us.” (Compare Revised Standard Version, Luther 1984, New American Bible, “for us.”)
The question What should we do to you to stop the storm? must often be expressed as a causative; for example, “What should we do to you in order to cause the storm to cease?” or “… cause the wind no longer to blow?”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Now the sea was growing worse and worse: All the time the sailors were talking to Jonah the sea grew rougher. The Hebrew idiom used here has the sense of “more and more,” that is, “the sea continued to get rougher.”
1:11b
What must we do to you to calm this sea for us?: Now that the sailors knew that the storm had happened because Jonah had disobeyed the LORD, they asked Jonah what they should do to him to make it stop. They felt that they needed to punish him so they could be rescued from the storm.
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