לָ֤מָּה לָנֶ֨צַח֙ תִּשְׁכָּחֵ֔נוּ תַּֽעַזְבֵ֖נוּ לְאֹ֥רֶךְ יָמִֽים׃
20Why have you forgotten us completely?
Why have you forsaken us these many days?
In Gbaya, the notion of a long period of time (“forever,” “from generation to generation,” etc.) or its negation (“no longer”) in the associated verses is emphasized with the ideophone sɔ̧i̧i̧ that expresses the idea of going far, without stopping; an endless action or a long period of time.
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many Central African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
The Hebrew, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “forget” in English is translated in Noongar as dwangka-anbangbat, lit. “ear-lose.” (Source: Portions of the Holy Bible in the Nyunga language of Australia, 2018).
See also remember and forget (Japanese honorifics).
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 Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun.
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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017.
The Hebrew that is translated as “forget” in English is translated in the Shinkaiyaku Bible as o-wasure (お忘れ), combining “forget” (wasure) with the respectful prefix o-. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
See also forget.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Lamentations 5:20:
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 Translator 2002, 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.”
In Dutch, Afrikaans, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
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 are (され) 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, ok-are-ru (おかれる) or “leave in the state of” is used.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Having expressed his faith in God’s eternal rule, the poet now questions God’s faithfulness. Each half of verse 20 consists of a “Why?” question. The first asks God the reason for his failure to remember his people, as though to repeat the appeal made in 5.1. The thought that God was capable of forgetting is expressed elsewhere in the Old Testament. For example, the psalmist asks in Psalm 13.1 “How long, O LORD? Wilt thou forget me for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?” In Psalm 42.9 we read “Why hast thou forgotten me?” and in Psalm 74.1 “O God, why dost thou cast us off for ever?” The poet is afraid that God’s forgetfulness will last indefinitely, so in the agony of his lament he pursues these two parallel questions. Translators will note that Good News Translation has switched the two verbs. Although this is not necessary in English, the Good News Translation wording in the second half gives a greater sense of being forgotten.
Forget us for ever: forget has the sense of neglecting, putting out of mind, ceasing to think about, and so, ceasing to care for. For ever refers to an indefinite future. So long in the second half-line translates “length of days” and refers to a long period of time. Here the reference is most likely to the years of suffering experienced by the people of Jerusalem, and so Moffatt translates “all these years.” Forsake here has the sense of God deserting someone (Israel) who has been formerly under his care and protection, and in some languages this may be translated “Why have you left us like orphaned children?” or “Why have you gone away and left us behind?”
In some languages the first line of Revised Standard Version may be rendered “Why do you go on and on forgetting us?” and the second line as “Why do you go on and on abandoning us?” Since these are so closely parallel, the verse may also be translated “Why do you go on and on forgetting and abandoning us?”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on Lamentations. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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