The Lord’s Prayer was translated into Nyulnyul (and back-translated into English) by the German missionary Hermann Nekes in 1939.
It reads:
Our Father on top sky.
Thy name be feared.
Thou art our boss.
Men-women will listen to Thee this place earth
as the good souls of men-women listen to Thee on top sky.
Give us tucker till this sun goes down.
We did wrong; make us good.
We have good hearts to them who did us wrong.
Watch us against bad place.
Thy hands be stretched out to guard us from bad.
Our Father, high in your Holy Place,
your name is holy.
Let the day come
when you reign as King in our land.
We want you to become Boss of our land,
the same way you are Boss of your Holy Land.
Give us the food we eat every day.
Forgive our wrong-doing
the same way we forgive the wrong-doing people do to us.
And do not take us to the hard place of testing.
But hold us so the Devil cannot get us.
You hold the land.
You hold the power.
You hold the light.
For ever and for ever.
Amen.
Source: Bardip Ruth-Ang 2020
The following is a version of the Lord’s Prayer set to Tibetan music:
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 God).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
This story of the translation of a new version of the Bible in Kwara’ae illustrates the importance and the problem of this, especially in this verse: “It is necessary to distinguish in Melanesian languages between the inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronoun. For example in, ‘We must go soon or we will lose the tide,’ ‘we’ here includes the persons addressed. But in, ‘Wait, and we will be with you soon,’ ‘we’ here excludes the persons addressed. Two different pronouns are used. Early missionaries, not knowing this, used the inclusive form in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Forgive us our trespasses (yours and ours).’ This, of course, had to be corrected.” (Source: Norman Deck in The Bible Translator 1963, 34 ff. ).
Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “cover over” (a figure of speech which is also employed in Hebrew, but which in many languages is not acceptable, because it implies “hiding” or “concealment”)
Warao: “not being concerned with him clean your obonja.” Obonja is a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions” (source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. See other occurrences of Obojona in the Warao New Testament.)
Martu Wangka: “throw out badness” (source: Carl Gross)
Kyaka: “burn the jaw bones” — This goes back to the pre-Christian custom of hanging the jaw bones of murdered relatives on ones door frame until the time of revenge. Christians symbolically burned those bones to show forgiveness which in turn became the word for “forgiveness” (source: Eugene Nida, according to this blog )
Koonzime: “remove the bad deed-counters” (“The Koonzime lay out the deeds symbolically — usually strips of banana leaf — and rehearse their grievances with the person addressed.”) (Source: Keith and Mary Beavon in Notes on Translation 3/1996, p. 16)
Ngbaka: ele: “forgive and forget” (Margaret Hill [in Holzhausen & Ridere 2010, p. 8f.] recalls that originally there were two different words used in Ngbaka, one for God (ɛlɛ) and one for people (mbɔkɔ — excuse something) since it was felt that people might well forgive but, unlike God, can’t forget. See also this lectionary in The Christian Century.
Amahuaca: “erase” / “smooth over” (“It was an expression the people used for smoothing over dirt when marks or drawings had been made in it. It meant wiping off dust in which marks had been made, or wiping off writing on the blackboard. To wipe off the slate, to erase, to take completely away — it has a very wide meaning and applies very well to God’s wiping away sins, removing them from the record, taking them away.”) (Source: Robert Russel, quoted in Walls / Bennett 1959, p. 193)
Gonja / Dangme: “lend / loan” (in the words of one Dangme scholar: “When you sin and you are forgiven, you forget that you have been forgiven, and continue to sin. But when you see the forgiveness as a debt/loan which you will pay for, you do not continue to sin, else you have more debts to pay” — quoted in Jonathan E.T. Kuwornu-Adjaottor in Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 17/2 2010, p. 67ff. )
Kwere: kulekelela, meaning literally “to allow for.” Derived from the root leka which means “to leave.” In other words, forgiveness is leaving behind the offense in relationship to the person. It is also used in contexts of setting someone free. (Source: Megan Barton)
Merina Malagasy: mamela or “leave / let go (of sin / mistakes)” (source: Brigitte Rabarijaona)
Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 6:12:
Uma: “Forgive our wrongs, like we also forgive the wrongs of our companions,” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Forgive our sins as we also forgive those who sin against us.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Forgive us our sins like our forgiving the one who sins against us.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Forgive our (excl.) sins, because we (excl.) also have forgiven those who sinned against us (excl.).” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Forgive, too, our sins, the same as we do as we forgive those who sin against us.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “And forgive our sins, like we also forgive those who do bad to us.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Chichewa (interconfessional translation, 1999): “Forgive us our sins, even as we ourselves forgive those who wrong us.” (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 157)
Martu Wangka: “When another person does wrong to me, I should not in return do wrong to them — I should go and talk about being reconciled together. When I talk like that, to that person, then following that, I am asking you, you throw out my badness.” (Source: Carl Gross)
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®).
Forgive has proved remarkably difficult to translate in many languages in which there is no one word that can be used. However, there is usually an idiom or some figure of speech that can express the concept of forgiveness. “Forget the wrong,” “no longer see the wrong,” “put the wrong behind one’s back,” “lift the wrong from between us”—these are just a few ways we have seen “forgiveness” expressed.
Debts (so most translations) represents a literal rendering of the Greek word. However, commentators note that the word is here used figuratively for “sins,” and one standard lexicon gives the meaning “sin” (in this passage the plural form “sins” is used). Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch renders “Forgive us our guilt as we also pardon each one who has done us wrong.” The translator must not translate Luke in place of Matthew; however, it may be worth noting that in the parallel passage Luke uses the word for “sins.” Both New English Bible and New American Bible have “wrongs,” as does Good News Translation. If translators render debts literally, it is entirely likely readers will think of debts we owe people, what we have to pay back because we borrowed something. Therefore “sins” or “wrongs” will be much better.
These are wrongs against God, and some translations have had to make this clear, as in “forgive our wrongs against you.” (Of course, if translators use “sins,” it may not be necessary to add “against you,” since in many languages sins are by definition wrongs against God.) It may be necessary to expand “wrongs” to “wrongs we have done,” as Good News Translation has done. Other languages might say “our wrong actions.”
In the clause As we also have forgiven, the pronoun we is emphatic. The verb have forgiven represents an aorist indicative in Greek. A number of translations give it an habitual or timeless force (Good News Translation “as we forgive”). Others specify that the action is past in reference to the petition for God to forgive (see Revised Standard Version). But the function of the aorist indicative is not simply to indicate past action. And so it may then be used here as a means of emphasizing that the act of forgiveness is an accomplished fact. This means translators do have the choice between “as we have already forgiven” and “as we generally (or, habitually) forgive.”
The word as is important. Some translators have taken it to mean “because” or “since.” But it is better to have “in the same way” or “just as.” That is, we ask God to forgive us in the same manner we forgive others.
Note, also, that we forgive others for their wrongs against us. They are our debtors. This can be expressed “for the wrongs they have done to us,” “for the bad things they have done to us,” or “for the wrongs against us they have committed.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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