courtier

The Greek that is translated in English as “courtier” or “high officials” is translated in Paasaal as “little kings.” (Source: Fabian N. Dapila in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 415ff.)

complete verse (Revelation 18:23)

Following are a number of back-translations of Revelation 18:23:

  • Uma: “There is no longer anyone who lights lamps. There are no longer any wedding feasts. The merchants of the village of Babel, their name is big in the world. With their sorcery the villagers of Babel fooled/deceived all the people in the world.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “The light of lamps will not be seen there anymore. The merry-making of people at a wedding will not be heard there. The traders there, they were the most powerful/influential in the whole world. And all the people of the world were deceived by the sorcerers (mangahinang-ngahinang sawe’de) there.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “This city will never be illuminated again by any kind of lamp. The talking of a man and woman who were just married will never again be heard in this city. The seekers of wealth here have become very famous over all the earth, and by means of the sorceries of the shamans there, people in all the kingdoms have been deceived.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “There-will-be-no lamps lit again and no one will-have-weddings. Those will be the punishments of Babilonia, because those who sell there, their minds are arrogant saying that they are the richest on the earth, and the inhabitants there moreover, they have led-astray the collective-people on the earth with their lies.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Really not even one lamp will give light there any more. There will no more be heard the celebration of a marriage-feast. For those people from Babilonia will be punished because the merchants elevated themselves there. They really were the famous and powerful ones of the whole world. And they misled all the nations, that’s why all the people caused themselves to be involved in the evil which is the secret-supernatural-skills of the people from there.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “No longer will there be seen the lights of lamps. Now longer will it be seen that there are the voices of the people at where there is a wedding. The city will be finished off, even though those who had businesses in the city were like bosses. And concerning the witchcraft which was carried on in it, it deceived all the people all over the world.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

2nd person pronoun with low register (Japanese)

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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 choice of a second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.

In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also first person pronoun with low register and third person pronoun with low register.

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.

Translation commentary on Revelation 18:23

The angel continues, saying that no lamps will ever be lit in Babylon again (for lamp see comments on “lampstand” in 1.12), nor will there be any more weddings, because there will be no one in the city to light a lamp or to get married; the city will be deserted. One may also translate “Never again will people see the light of a lamp shining in you; never again will they hear the voices of a man and woman getting married.”

Thy merchants were the great men of the earth: this and what follows in this verse is an explanation given by the angel to Babylon, telling her why she will be destroyed. Babylon (Rome) was the most powerful financial center in the world, and the businessmen were the richest and most powerful. For merchants see 18.3.

All nations were deceived by thy sorcery: for deceived see comments on “beguiling” in 2.20. For sorcery (or, “magic”) see 9.21. There is no justification for Good News Translation “false (magic).”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .