The Greek terms that are used for what is translated as “net” in English are translated in languages like Navajo (Dinė) where fishing with nets is not known as “instruments to catch (or: bring out) the fish.” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
“[People living close to lakes] produced further problems for us over fishing terms when we reached the revision of the Gospels. Fishing is practically unknown in the mountain streams and rivers, so there is hardly any vocabulary for it up-country. In Mat. 4:18 we read that Jesus saw two brethren “casting a net into the sea.” The word we used for net (urusenga) is used all over Rundi for a fishing net, whatever it is like, but when I read this to some people who live by the lake they said it was the wrong word, as from the context this happened during the daytime, and urusenga-fishing is only done at night. It appears that the urusenga is something like a shrimping net, and is used on moonless nights, when the fishermen hold flares over the side of the boat and attract a certain variety of very small fish which swim about in shoals. The net they use for day-time fishing is something like a drag-net and is called urukwabu. On enquiry inland, I never discovered a single person who knew this word. It was obviously the right one, technically speaking, but we felt that the few thousand lake-dwellers could not be weighed against almost the entire population of the country, so we had to employ the up-country word, putting an explanatory note in the margin that by the lake this net is called urukwabu.”
Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing net-fishing in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)
The name that is transliterated as “Simon (Peter)” in English is translated in Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) with a sign that combines a reference to “Peter” (see here for the Libras translation of “Peter”) and “son” (of Jonah / John). (Source: Missão Kophós )
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, translators typically select the exclusive form (excluding Jesus).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or 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.
Here, individual or several disciples address Jesus with the formal pronoun, expressing respect. Compare this to how that address changes after the resurrection.
In most Dutch as well as in Western Frisian, Gronings, and Afrikaans translations, the disciples address Jesus before and after the resurrection with the formal pronoun.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 5:5:
Noongar: “‘Lord,’ Simon said. ‘We worked very hard all night and caught no fish. But, if you say, I will drop the nets.’ He dropped the nets and caught many fish so the nets nearly broke.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “Simon said: ‘Teacher, we (excl.) worked all last night, but there was not even one [uses classifier for animals] in our (excl.) nets. But even so, I will still throw it, since you (sing.) commanded us (excl.).'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Simon answered he said, ‘Sir, we have persevered the whole night but we have caught nothing. But because you say it now, we will throw them out.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Simon answered, ‘The whole night we were netting and we didn’t even catch one; but if that’s what you say, we will net again.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “‘Yes, Sir/Lord,’ said Simon, ‘but you-should-realize (self-sympathy particle) that we (excl.) have worked-the-entire night (lit. done-to-the-limit the night) net-fishing and we have gotten emphatically nothing. But if you (sing.) say so, we’ll (excl.) go-ahead-and (lit. even-if we) lower our (excl.) nets anyway.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Simon replied, ‘Master, we wasted-a-lot-of-effort all-last-night, and we didn’t even get one. But because you are the one saying it, we will again drop our net.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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.
In these verses, the Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “word” or “bidding” in English is translated in the Shinkaiyaku Bible as o-kotoba (おことば), combining “word” (kotoba) with the respectful prefix o-. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff.
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.