11And you divided the sea before them, so that they passed through the sea on dry land, but you threw their pursuers into the depths like a stone into mighty waters.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Nehemiah 9:11:
Kupsabiny: “You separated the water of the sea so that your people walk on dry ground. Then you pushed their enemies into the sea to sink/drown.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You (sing.) divided the sea before your (sing.) people so-that they could-pass-through into it walking on a dry land. But you (sing.) drowned their enemies who pursued them. They were like a stone that sank in the mighty/strong water.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “You (sing.) separated the ocean in front of them and where- they -walked dried-up/was-dry. But you (sing.) tossed those who were-pursuing them into the ocean and they were like rocks that sank in the strong water.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
English: “You caused the Red Sea to divide, with the result that your people walked through it on the ground without getting their feet wet. After they were all safely on the other side, you caused the water to come back again, and you hurled into the deep water the soldiers of the Egyptian army that were pursuing our ancestors. Their soldiers sank into the deep sea like stones!” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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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, nagekom-are-ru (投げ込まれる) or “throw in” is used.
The various Greek, Aramaic, Ge’ez, and 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)
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
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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 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.
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 this verse the prayer repeats expressions from the song of victory in Exo 15 that Moses and the Israelites sang after crossing of the Red Sea. The concise description with the climax in the form of a comparison is powerful and dramatic.
Thou didst divide the sea before them: God separated the water of the sea into two parts or sections to make a dry path where the Israelites were able to cross from one side to the other side. God caused the water to separate in two in front of them. The concept of dividing water to create a space in between may be difficult to express. It may be helpful to specify that the water of the sea was separated into two sections. Mandinka says “You split the sea before them.” “You traced a road for them in the sea” may be another way of expressing this.
They went through the midst of the sea on dry land: The prayer shows God’s power by drawing attention to an apparent contradiction. How can there be dry land in the midst of the sea? The prayer simply affirms that God caused the water to divide. This left a path of dry ground for the Israelites to walk across on to the other shore. The idea of dry earth at the bottom of the sea may seem to be impossible, which is perhaps why Jerusalem Bible says that the Israelites crossed “dry-shod.” In some languages this may be expressed with an idiom such as “with dry feet.” The Israelites crossed through the divided sea on dry soil without their feet getting wet.
Thou didst cast their pursuers into the depths: In sharp contrast to the deliverance of the Israelites, the Egyptians who were following them met with sudden disaster. The prayer does not explain exactly how the sea was divided and how the Egyptians perished, but it does give credit to God for throwing the Egyptians into deep water where they drowned (so Good News Translation).
As a stone into mighty waters: The fate of the Egyptian soldiers is compared to throwing a stone into “rushing waters” (Jerusalem Bible), “raging waters” (New Jerusalem Bible) or “turbulent waters” (New English Bible; see Exo 15.5, 10). The comparison with the stone may need to be made more explicit as Good News Translation has done by including the idea of sinking and by specifying that it is in a “raging sea.” Both the Hebrew word for waters and the adjective that is translated as mighty may refer to the water of a sea or river.
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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