The Greek that is translated with “moved with compassion (or: pity)” in English is translated as “to see someone with sorrow” in Piro, “to suffer with someone” in Huastec, or “one’s mind to be as it were out of one” in Balinese (source: Bratcher / Nida).
The English translation by Michael Pakaluk (2019) uses “was keenly affected” in Mark 1:41.
The Greek that is translated as “touch” in English is translated in the German translation by Fridolin Stier (1989) as “(touch and) hold on to” (festhalten).
The Hebrew and Greek pesach/pascha that is typically translated in English as “Passover” (see below) is translated in a variety of descriptive ways of various aspects of the Jewish festival. (Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):
Umiray Dumaget Agta: “the celebration of the day of their being brought out of bondage”
(source for this and above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
Obolo: ijọk Iraraka — “Festival of Passing” (source: Enene Enene)
Yakan: “The festival of the Isra’il tribe which they call For-Remembering” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
Wolof: “Festival of the day of Salvation” (“the term ‘pass over’ brings up the image of a person’s crossing over a chasm after death”) (source: Marilyn Escher)
Bura-Pabir: vir kucelir fəlɓəla kəi — “time-of happiness-of jumping-over house”
Sabaot: Saakweetaab Keeytaayeet — “Festival of Passing-by” (source: Iver Larsen)
Language spoken in India and Bangladesh: “Festival of avoidance”
Vlax Romani: o ghes o baro le Nakhimasko — “the Day of the Passing”
Saint Lucian Creole: Fèt Délivwans — “Feast of Deliverance” (source: David Frank)
Finnish: pääsiäinen (“The term is very probably coined during the NT translation process around 1520-1530. It is connected to a multivalent verb päästä and as such refers either to the Exodus (päästä meaning “to get away [from Egypt]”) or to the end of the Lent [päästä referring to get relieved from the limitations in diet]. The later explanation being far more probable than the first.”)
Northern Sami: beas’sážat (“Coined following the model in Finnish. The Sami verb is beassat and behaves partly like the Finnish one. Many Christian key terms are either borrowed from Finnish or coined following the Finnish example.”)
Estonian: ülestõusmispüha — “holiday/Sunday of the resurrection” — or lihavõttepüha — “holiday/Sunday of returning of meat”
Karelian: äijüpäivü — “the great day” (“Here one can hear the influence of the Eastern Christianity, but not directly Russian as language, because the Russian term is Пасха/Pasha or Воскресение Христово/Voskresenie Hristovo, ‘[the day of] the resurrection of Christ,’ but the week before Easter is called as the great week.”) (Source for this and three above: Seppo Sipilä)
Russian (for Russian speaking Muslims): праздник Освобождения/prazdnik Osvobozhdeniya — “Festival of-liberation” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Kono: laaŋumɛ̃ɛ̃ or “skip over the person” (provisional term). Alesha Hagemeyer explains in this blog post that laaŋumɛ̃ɛ̃ is a play on the term laaɲámɛ̃ɛ̃ or “to skip over the water” which is traditionally used for the sacrifice of a sheep or a goat after the death of a family member. That term literally means “to skip over the water” so that “their loved one will pass over the water and enter the presence of God”
English: Passover (term coined by William Tyndale that both replicates the sound of the Hebrew original pesah — פסח as well as part of the meaning: “passing over” the houses of the Israelites in Egypt) — oddly, the English Authorized Version (King James Version) translates the occurrence in Acts 12:4 as Easter
Many Romance languages follow the tradition from Latin that has one term for both “Easter” and “Passover” (pascha). Portuguese uses Páscoa for both, Italian uses Pascha, and French has Pâque for “Passover” and the identically pronounced Pâques for “Easter.”
In languages in francophone and lusophone (Portuguese speaking) Africa, indigenous languages typically use the Romance word for “Easter” as a loanword and often transliterate pesach/pascha. In Kinyarwanda and RundiPasika is used, in Swahili and Congo SwahiliPasaka, and in LingalaPasika. In some cases, the transliteration of “Passover” is derived from the European language, such as Umbundu’sPascoa (from Portuguese) and Bulu’sPak (from French). In languages that use Pak or similar for both “Passover” and “Easter” (such as Adioukrou), the identical spelling “serves to reinforce the idea that this is one celebration, not two distinct ones” (source: Hill 2006).
As John Ellingworth (in The Bible Translator 1980, p 445f. ) points out “in most contexts only the presence or absence of the definite article distinguishes them [in French la pâque for Passover and Pâques for Easter]. Since most African languages do not have definite articles, there remains no way to distinguish between the two terms where the general population has borrowed the word for Easter and the Bible translators have borrowed the word for Passover to use in their translation. Some even consider the references to [Passover] before the death of Christ as prophetic!”
Retrotraducciones en español (haga clic o pulse aquí)
Un hombre cuyo cuerpo estaba todo enfermo con llagas vio a Jesús y se acercó, se arrodilló y dijo: “Sé que tú me puedes sanar si tu quieres.”
Jesús sintió compasión y puso las manos sobre él (diciendo): “Sí quiero, tú seas sanado, limpio” y el hombre vio que su cuerpo se había aliviado, estaba sano.
Jesús dijo: “No digas nada a la gente, guarda silencio, es un secreto. Ahorita acercate a los sacerdotes a que te vean y examinen que todo tu cuerpo está bien y limpio, para que los sacerdotes sean testigos.
Sabes que la ley de Moisés dice que tú des un animal al sacerdote y él haga una ofrenda y entonces Dios ve que tu cuerpo está bien y limpio. Vete.”
El hombre se levantó y caminó y cuando vio la gente dijo: “Hace un rato mi cuerpo estaba enfermo con llagas pero hoy Jesús me sanó, ¡huy!” y empezó a advertirlo y contarlo y lo difundió por todos lados.
Jesus (pensó): Ay, él sí lo ha difundido, ahora no me puedo ir a los pueblos, entonces Jesús dejó (el pueblo) y se fue a otro lugar desierto pero de todos modos la gente iba a él.
A man whose whole body was ill with sores saw Jesus and approached him, he knelt down and said: “I know that you can heal me if you want.”
Jesus felt compassion, lay his hands on him (and said): “Yes, I want to, be healed, cleaned” and the man saw that his body had healed and he was well.
Jesus said: “Don’t say anything to the people, be silent, keep it a secret. Now go to the priests, that they see you and examine that your whole body is well and clean, so that the priests are your witnesses.
“You know that the law of Moses says that you have to give an animal to the priest and he makes a sacrifice and then God will see that your body is well and clean. Go now.”
The man got up and walked away and when he saw people he said: “Just now my body was ill with sores but today Jesus healed me, wow!” and he began to let people know and tell them and it spread all over the place.
Jesus thought: Oh no, he did spread it, now I can’t go to the villages anymore, so Jesus left and went to another place, a desert place, but still the people went to him.
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 1:41:
Uma: “Yesus’ love welled up seeing him. That is why he touched him and said to him: ‘[You] certainly may. I heal you (sing.)!'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Isa had really pity on him. He stretched-out his hand and he touched the leper and said, ‘I really want to. You are now healed.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Jesus took pity on him and placed his hand on him and said, ‘It is very good to my breath. Be healed.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Jesus felt-pity and extended his hand/arm to place it on that man. Then he said, ‘I want to, be cleaned.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Jesus truly did pity him. He touched that person, speaking at the same time, saying, ‘I really want to. Right now, you will now get better!'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Shipibo-Conibo: “Then pitying him he extended his hand. Having extended it, he touched him. He said: I want to. Be arranged, he said.” (Source: James Lauriault in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 32ff. )
Balinese: “In His pity His mind was as it were taken out of Him, and then He stretched forth His hand, touched him and said: ‘So is my wish. Let your stain be taken away.'” (Source: J.L. Swellengrebel in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 75ff. )
English translation by Michael Pakaluk (2019): “Well, Jesus was keenly affected, and, reaching out his hand, touched him. So he says to him, ‘I do so will. Be clean.'”
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 Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
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 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, iw-are-ru (言われる) or “say” is used.
Barclay Newman, a translator on the teams for both the Good News Bible and the Contemporary English Version, translated passages of the New Testament into English and published them in 2014, “in a publication brief enough to be non-threatening, yet long enough to be taken seriously, and interesting enough to appeal to believers and un-believers alike.” The following is the translation of Mark 1:40-45:
A man with leprosy came and knelt down to Jesus,
begging, “Your power can make me well,
if only you are willing.”
Jesus felt sorrow for the man.
So he placed his hand on him and said,
“I’m willing—now you are well.”
At once the leprosy disappeared!
Jesus sent the man away with a warning,
“Don’t tell anyone except those you must
to be pronounced free of leprosy.
Then do what the Bible teaches
by offering a gift at the temple,
so everyone else will know you’re well.”
But the man instead told everyone he met —
so many that Jesus had to stay away from the towns.
But crowds still flocked to him in the desert.
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