Painting by Nalini Jayasuriya (1927 – 2014), used with permission by the Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) at Princeton Theological Seminary. You can purchase this and many other artworks by artists in residence at the OSMC in high resolution and without a watermark via the OSMC website .
“Nalini M. Jayasuriya was an internationally known artist from Sri Lanka, who exhibited her soul-stirring paintings in Manila, London, Bangkok, Paris, Toronto, Tokyo, Jerusalem and New York. (…) While growing up in Sri Lanka, Nalini never took an art course. As an eight-year old assigned to draw a still life in drawing class, she ended up erasing a hole in her paper, and was told to take her books and leave. She spent the rest of the year’s drawing class time in the library. Her real talent was music; from about age four, she could play almost any piece of music that she heard. At about age fifteen, she wrote a number of poems that were published, and later wrote a secondary-level reader consisting of letters from her cat, Ingy.
“The direction of Nalini’s life changed when, as a young ESL teacher, she was offered an unsolicited British Council grant to study in England. She saw this as one of the many miracles in her life. For three years in London, she experienced a whole new world. She added evening classes to her schedule, including coursework in stained glass and enamel on metal, thinking that she would never again have such an opportunity. Later, she received seven scholarships and fellowships, (none of which she applied for) and she went on to live in thirty-six different countries.
“’I come from a land of rich, ancient, and diverse cultures and traditions. While I carry the enriching influences of both West and East, I express myself through an Asian and Christian consciousness with respect for all confessions of religious faith.’ Nalini Jayasuriya)” (Source )
Following are a number of back-translations of Revelation 21:13:
Uma: “That fort had four sides, and in each side are three doors: three in the east, three in the north, three in the south, and three in the west.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “There were three doors in the wall towards east, three towards west, and across the place on each side there were also three doors.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “The wall of the city has four sides, and in each wall there are three gates. On the side of the east there are three gates. On the side of the west, three also. On the side of downstream there are three also, and on the side of upstream, three gates also.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “There were three-entrances -each on the facing-sides–on the east (lit. coming-out of the sun) and west (lit. going-out-of-sight of the sun), the side-toward the north and side-toward the south.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “The gates were in threes on each side. Three were toward the east and three toward the west. Three were toward the south and three also were toward the north.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “At the side of the city where the sun rises there were three gates. On the side of the city on the north there were three gates. At the side of the city on the south there were three gates. At the side of the city where the sun sets, there were three gates.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
According to Anne Garber Kompaoré (in Le Sycomore 3/2009, p. 34ff. ), there are 4 ways to identify cardinal directions:
1. celestial bodies, especially the sun and certain stars
2. geographical landmarks, for example a mountain, sea, or river (depending on its position or the direction in which the water flows) etc.
3. climatic phenomena, such as the wind and the direction from which rain comes
4. bodily reference points, especially front, back, left, and right, in relation to celestial bodies or geographical landmarks
Following are examples of how these are practically implemented by various languages: (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight)
Celestial Bodies
East and west are often translated by the rising and the setting of the sun (note that the origin of English and other Indo-European languages is “dawn” for “east” and “evening” [i.e. sun-down] for “west”):
Maan: “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down” (source: Don Slager)
Kankanaey: “from the coming-out of the sun “and “going-away of the sun” (source: Kankanaey back-translation)
Northern Emberá: “from where the sun comes up” and “from where the sun falls” (source: Charles Mortensen)
Ejamat “the side where the sun comes from” and “the side where it sets” (source: David Frank in this blog post )
Tzeltal: “where the sun pours-out” (west) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
Northern Ngbandi: “the sun behind the chief’s house” (east — the chief lives traditionally at the eastern side of the village, therefore he does not get the sunlight into his eyes) and “under the sun” (west)
Northwestern Dinka: “earth behind” (east — the place behind the earth, i.e. the area where the sun rises)
Jula: “salt village” (north — because salt comes from the north, from the Sahara Desert) and “kola village” (south — since kola comes from the coastal region to the south) (source: Garber Kompaoré)
Matumbi: “toward the beach” (East) (the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas), “north” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Acoli: “right” (of the local White Nile) (north) and “left” (of the White Nile) (south)
Zande: “interior (dry) land” (east); “place-inside-country” (north / south) — Zande, like a number of other languages, including Matengo and Hehe, traditionally only has three cardinal directions.
Belanda Bor: “lower place” (north) and “higher place” (south)
Turkana: “(up)stream” (north) and (down)stream (south)
Mono (DRC): “water place” (south) (source for this and five above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Climatic Phenomena
Shilluk: “opening westwind” (north) and “opening eastwind” (south)
Swahili used to have six directions. In reducing them to four, kusini and kaskazini which used to refer to south-west and north east respectively (the directions from where the two monsoons blow) have become the terms for “south” and north.” (source for this and one above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Bodily Reference Points
Nuer / Burun: “face” and “sun face” respectively (both: east)
Kalenjin: “eye sun” (east) (this and the one above indicate that the sun is “facing” the spectator from its position in the east:
Shilluk: doesn’t use a fixed position of the speaker, instead it has “eye sun morning” for east and “eye sun evening” for west
Mono (DRC): “foot-sun” (east — the start of the sun’s journey)
Burun: “sun leg” (west — the end of the sun’s journey)
Bari: “back” (north — when people are facing south, north is at their back) (source for this and above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Northern Emberá “the looking [left] hand” (north) and “the real [right] hand” (south) (source: Charles Mortensen)
Morelos Nahuatl: “from above” (north) and “from below” (south) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
When all four directions are mentioned, translators tend to avoid listing the four, sometimes verbose terms, and chose solutions like “all directions” (such as in Maan or Manya (source: Don Slager). Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) and Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).
The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture. Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”
A great, high wall: this can be translated “a very high wall” or “a strong, high wall.” It may be necessary to say “It had a very high wall around it.” In many cultures high wall will be expressed as “high fence.”
Twelve gates … twelve angels … the names of the twelve tribes: it should be clear in the translation that there was one angel standing guard at each of the twelve gates, and one name on each gate. In many languages it will be necessary to say “at each of the gates there was an angel on guard (or, watching it).”
The twelve tribes of the sons of Israel: this can be more simply said “the twelve tribes of Israel.” The whole sentence may be expressed as “On the gates they had written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, one name on each gate.”
Commentators note the rather unusual sequence of the points of the compass: east, north, south, west (as in Ezek 42.16-19). In Ezek 48.30-34 the order is north, east, south, west, and in 1 Chr 9.24 it is east, west, north, south. Some try to find a hidden meaning in the order followed; if there is such a meaning, it is not obvious to the reader. Some languages have a fixed sequence that is followed, such as English “north, south, east, and west.” A translator should feel free to follow such a sequence in the language into which the translation is being done.
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 .
There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west: The Greek words are literally “from the east three gates, from the north three gates, from the south three gates, and from the west three gates.” The city wall surrounded the city in the shape of a square. Each part of the wall had three gates in it. For example:
on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates (Revised Standard Version)
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