Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 80:12:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“Why have you brought down its walls
that all who are passing pluck its vines?” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“Yet why have You broken down the wall around us?
Now anyone coming in here, can steal grapes and take them away.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“But why have- you (sing.) -broken, O God, the stone-wall of this plant?
So all who pass-by steal its fruit.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“Why did you destroy its fence,
so that people came to pick the grapes?” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Ee BWANA, mbona umebomoa wigo?
Wasafiri wanaweza kuchuma matunda ya mizabibu.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“So why have you abandoned us
and allowed our enemies to tear down our walls?
You are like someone who tears down the fences around his vineyard,
with the result that all the people who pass by can steal the grapes,” (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, s-are-ru (される) or “do/make” 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.”
After expending so much care and attention on his grapevine, why did God abandon it and let it be destroyed? He broke down “the fences” (made of stone, not wood or wire) that protected it, and now any passerby can pluck its fruit, that is, “steal its grapes,” and the wild animals are busy destroying it–a figure of the enemies of Israel invading the land and looting and destroying.
In verse 13a boar (Good News Translation “hogs”) translates the word for swine, pig; only here are “wild hogs” (boar from the forest) referred to in the Old Testament. The Hebrew singular for boar represents pigs in general. The verb translated ravages occurs only here in the Old Testament; it means “cut in pieces,” either by eating (so most translations) or by trampling on the vine (Briggs, Good News Translation; see Biblia Dios Habla Hoy). If the parallelism with the next line is purely synonymous, the meaning “consume, eat up” seems more likely; New Jerusalem Bible and New English Bible have “gnaws”; another possible version is “tears at.” Something like ravages (Revised Standard Version, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible en français courant, New International Version) expresses well the idea of the destruction caused by a wild animal. But it is more likely that the two verbs describe the devastation caused by wild hogs, or boars, as they trample down and devour the vegetation.
Good News Translation “wild animals” in verse 13b translates “what moves in the field” (see Revised Standard Version), a word that occurs only here and in 50.11b; New English Bible translates here “swarming insects from the fields,” which seems unlikely.
Due to the poetic extension of the vine, it is likely that many readers will have lost or forgotten the original reference to the vine in verse 8, and particularly to the symbolism of the vine as representing Israel. Therefore it may be necessary to repeat the referent; for example, “Why did you break down the fences around your vine which is the people of Israel?” or simply “Why did you break down the fences around your vine?” If the analogy with the vine has to be sacrificed in translation for the clarity of meaning, the translator may say something like:
• 12 Why did you let Israel’s enemies invade her land?
Now foreigners go through the land
looting and destroying it.
13 Like wild pigs they trample it,
and like wild animals they destroy it.
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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