Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 78:28:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“He brought them to them inside their camps,
surrounding all their tents.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“All the birds landed next to their tents,
inside the area where they were staying.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“He made- these -come-down/land around their tents there in their camp.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“He allowed the birds to enter the place where they stayed,
to fill up around their tents.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Akawangusha katikati katika makao yao,
zikazunguka maskani zao.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“God caused those birds to fall dead in the middle of their camp/the area where the people had put up their tents.
There were dead birds all around their tents.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system, one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and others for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are Twents as well as the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In the latter two languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
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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, otos-are-ru (落とされる) or “drop” is used.
It is possible that the east wind in verse 26a and the south wind in 26b are a poetic way of speaking of the southeast wind (Briggs, Anderson). Numbers 11.31 speaks of “wind from the LORD” which blew in “quails from the sea” (Revised Standard Version), by which is meant the Gulf of Aqaba, which was to the south and east of the camp of the Hebrews. In some languages east wind must be designated by a local directional term; for example, “He caused the wind to blow from the mountainside,” “… from the waterside,” or “… from the side of the rising sun.” Similar terminology also applies to south and other directions. In some languages the direction from which the wind blows is related to the seasons of the year.
In verse 26a Revised Standard Versionin the heavens probably should be “from heaven” (New English Bible, New International Version; see Dahood, Anderson). Biblia Dios Habla Hoy combines the two lines, as follows: “The east wind and the south wind blew in the sky; God brought them with his power!” Good News Translation considers in the heavens to be redundant information and so does not represent it formally. But a translation can do so, either by following New English Bible, or else by translating “He caused the east wind to blow high above the camp; by his power he stirred up the wind from the south.”
“Sent down” in verse 27a translates the same verb used in verse 24a “rained down”; Revised Standard Version uses the same verb rained. The use of flesh here is most inappropriate; “meat” (New Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, etc.) is the right word in English. Good News Translation “birds” combines “meat” in line a and winged birds in line b.
In verse 27 like dust … like the sand of the seas refers to the huge quantity of quails that fell on the Israelite camp.
In verse 28 a translation should not give the impression that the birds fell in two distinct locations, their camp and their habitations; the two refer to the tents of the Hebrews in the camp. “They fell in the camp where the people had their tents” or “they fell around the people’s tents where they were camped.” (It should be noted that in verse 28 Revised Standard Versiontheir … their could mistakenly be taken to refer to winged birds of verse 27b.)
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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