extreme dryness

In Gbaya, the notion of extreme dryness is emphasized in the referenced verses with kpaa-kpaa, an ideophone that expresses complete or thorough dryness with brittleness because of dry weather or fire.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Num 11:6)

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, the Jarai translation uses the exclusive pronoun. The Adamawa Fulfulde translation uses the inclusive pronoun, including everyone.

complete verse (Numbers 11:6)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Numbers 11:6:

  • Kupsabiny: “We are becoming weak and there is nothing at all available except this food called manna only.’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Now our strenth is gone. Here nothing but manna is to be seen."” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “But here we (incl.) do- not -have- appetite to eat; what we (incl.) eat (are) just pure ‘manna’.’” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “We remember the fish that we ate while we were in Egypt, fish that was given to us without cost/asking us to pay for it. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that we wanted. But now we do not have any desire to eat, because all we have to eat is this manna!’” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Numbers 11:6

But now our strength is dried up: But now introduces a strong contrast between the Israelites’ life in Egypt and their present situation. Our strength is dried up is literally “our throats are dry” (Levine), which is an idiomatic reference to dehydration. Strength renders the Hebrew word nefesh, which refers to the interior of the thorax here. We encourage translators to use an idiom for dehydration that is natural in the target language; for example, Chewa says “in our necks it has dried out.”

And there is nothing at all but this manna to look at is literally “there is nothing at all except the manna [before] our eyes.” The people complain they have only manna to eat. This is the first time manna is mentioned in Numbers, but the reader is clearly expected to know about it already. Manna was the food that God provided for the Israelites to eat during the forty years that they were in the wilderness. The biblical text introduces it for the first time in Exo 16.14-35, and this cross reference may be given here in a footnote. Good News Translation expresses well the frustrated, disgusted attitude of the people here by saying “There is nothing at all to eat—nothing but this manna day after day!” The target language will undoubtedly have a way of expressing this same connotation.

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .