soul

The Hebrew, Greek, Ge’ez, and Latin that is translated as “soul” in English is translated in Chol with a term that refers to the invisible aspects of human beings (source: Robert Bascom), in Yagaria with oune or “shadow, reflection” (source: Renck, p. 81), and in Elhomwe as “heart” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).

The Mandarin Chinese línghún (靈魂 / 灵魂), literally “spirit-soul,” is often used for “soul” (along with xīn [心] or “heart”). This is a term that was adopted from Buddhist sources into early Catholic writings and later also by Protestant translators. (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 32, see also Clara Ho-yan Chan in this article )

In Chichewa, moyo means both “soul” and “life.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also heart, soul, mind.

asking God for mercy in Lakota

When biblical writers ask God for mercy, Lakota translators can add a female grammatical deferential marker to translate the passages in a culturally appropriate manner.

Steve Berneking (in Beerle-Moor / Voinov, p. 119f.) explains:

“The Bible of our Judeo-Christian tradition is filled with examples in which God is described in and granted human attributes. Anthropomorphically, God sees, walks, talks, fights. Further, God is said to demonstrate human emotions: love, hate, jealousy, anger. And, quite remarkably, humans can communicate to God the entire range of human feelings: love, fear, doubt, anger. Humans can argue with, command, remind, negotiate with, and even ignore God in our biblical tradition.

“Few places in the biblical canon are as filled with the joy and angst of this human/God encounter as the book of Psalms. Even the traditional genres or categories of the psalms reflect such a range of emotion: praise, lament, complaint, thanksgiving. It is precisely this open and frank dialogue between human and God that troubles the Lakota translators when working with the psalms. Because Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka [see God] is not engaged anthropomorphically as the Christian ‘God’ is in the Psalms, the translators have a difficult time getting into Psalms. . . almost to the point of despair and abandoning the translation of Psalms. My examples are from two places in the Psalter (both cited according to the New Jewish Publication Society’s translation):

Psalm 57:1
Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in You I seek refuge.

Psalm 90:13, 14
Turn, O Lord! How long? Show mercy to Your servants. Satisfy us at daybreak with your steadfast love that we may sing for joy all our days.

“How is it, the Lakota translators ask, that humans can demand anything from God, especially mercy? No Lakota, they noted, would or even could speak to Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka with such boldness. In their translation of the Psalms into Lakota, they needed a transcultural and translingual alternative, so they employed the female deferential command enclitic [= closely connected in pronunciation with the preceding word] marker ye in these and other psalms. That positioned the psalmist in these psalms as a female, thereby softening the rhetoric from a blatant command addressed to Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka to an earnest, heartfelt plea of desperation. Here are these examples from the Lakota translation, along with word-for-word renderings plus the enclitic markers.

Psalm 57:1
Uŋṡimala ye, Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka, uŋṡimala ye. Inakijiŋyaŋ el ċiu welo.
Have pity [female deferential command], Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka, have pity [female deferential command]. [Defense] for I come to you [male statement].

Psalm 90:13,14
Tohaŋyaŋ niċaŋzekiŋ kta hwo?
How long are you angry [potential] [male question]
Niṫawowaṡi ki lena uŋṡiuŋlapi ye.
Your workers the these be kind to us [female deferential command]
Ihihanŋi iyohila wouŋṡila uŋṡiuŋlapi ye.
Morning each one mercy show/give [female deferential command]
Heċel wiyuṡkiqiŋyaŋ uŋlowaŋpi na ċaŋte waṡteya niuŋk’uŋpi ktelo.
So that happily sing and heart in a good way live [potential].

“Their solution, I would argue, shows a particular theology of their spirituality, interpreting and translating these texts in their own way, thereby ‘making them their own.’”

complete verse (Psalm 57:1)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 57:1:

  • Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
    “Do me mercy, You God do me mercy,
    for in You my life takes refuge.
    I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
    until destruction is gone.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
  • Newari:
    “have mercy on me, O God!
    have mercy on me!
    I have come to your refuge.
    Until this trouble moves away
    I will be taking refuge
    in the shadow of your wing.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon:
    “O God, have-mercy on me, for in you (sing.) I ask-for protection
    like newly-hatched-chick birds hiding under the wings of their mother.
    I will-ask-for protection from you (sing.) until the disasters/dangers have-passed-away/[lit. finished/done].” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Laarim:
    “God, have mercy on me, have mercy,
    because my spirit is hiding from you.
    I will be hiding on shade of your wing,
    until bad matter is finished.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
  • Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
    “Ee Mungu, unihurumie, unihurumie mimi,
    nakimbilia kwako kujificha.
    Katika kivuli cha mabawa yako ndimo nitaponea,
    kufikia ambapo mangamizo yamepita.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
  • English:
    “God, be merciful to me!
    Act mercifully toward me because I come to you to protect me.
    I ask you to protect me like little birds are protected under their mother’s wings until the storm/danger is ended.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

wings (of God) (Japanese honorifics)

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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 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. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) can be used, as in mi-te (御翼) or “wings (of God)” in the referenced verses. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

addressing God

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 Translator 2002, 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 Dutch, Afrikaans, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.

See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.

David

The name that is transliterated as “David” in English means “beloved.” (Source: Cornwall / Smith 1997 )

In Spanish Sign Language it is translated with the sign signifying king and a sling (referring to 1 Samuel 17:49 and 2 Samuel 5:4). (Source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff. )


“Elizabeth” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España

In German Sign Language it is only the sling. (See here ).


“David” in German Sign Language (source )

For more information on translations of proper names with sign language see Sign Language Bible Translations Have Something to Say to Hearing Christians .

The (Protestant) Mandarin Chinese transliteration of “David” is 大卫 (衛) / Dàwèi which carries an additional meaning of “Great Protector.”

Click or tap here to see a short video clip about David (source: Bible Lands 2012)

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: David .

Japanese benefactives (awarende)

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 benefactive construction as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017.

Here, awarende (あわれんで) or “have mercy/compassion” is used in combination with kudasaru (くださる), a respectful form of the benefactive kureru (くれる). A benefactive reflects the good will of the giver or the gratitude of a recipient of the favor. To convey this connotation, English translation needs to employ a phrase such as “for me (my sake)” or “for you (your sake).” (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )