Language-specific Insights

tradition

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The Greek that is translated as “tradition” in English is translated in these ways:

  • Kekchí: “the old root-trunk” (in which the life of a people is likened to a tree)
  • Central Tarahumara: “to live as the ancients did”
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun: “sayings passed down from long-ago times”
  • Navajo (Dinė): “what their fathers of old told them to follow”
  • Toraja-Sa’dan: “the ordinance maintained by the forefathers”
  • Tzeltal: “the word that has been kept from the ancients” (source for this and all above Bratcher / Nida)
  • Gumuz: “the life of your fathers” (source: Loren Bliese)
  • Obolo: “the deeds of the ground” (orọmijọn̄) (source: Enene Enene)
  • Mairiasi: “the old things that are being held-onto” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “handed-down customs” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)

contrary to nature

The Greek in Romans 11:24 that is translated as “contrary to nature” or similar in English is translated as “where you didn’t spring up” in Isthmus Zapotec, as “contrary to what you belong to” in Highland Totonac, and as “which is contrary to your normal way in that you are not the good branches of the good tree” in North Alaskan Inupiatun. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

rooster

The Greek that is translated in English as “rooster crowed” or “cock crowed” is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun as “the bird called.” (Source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)

See also chicken / rooster / chick.

in spirit and truth

The Greek that is translated as “in spirit and truth” in English is translated in Aguaruna as “praising in his heart, thinking truly” and in North Alaskan Inupiatun as “not merely by outward habits, but by spirit and by truth.” (Source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125)

big fish

The Hebrew that is translated in English as “big fish,” “large fish,” or “great fish” is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun as “whale.”

Steve Berneking tells this story (see here ):

“In the whaling community of the Inupiat in northern Alaska, the whale is all but revered and respected as one of God’s creatures which bring life and sustenance. I was recently with our Inupiatun Bible Translation Team, working on the Book of Jonah. In popular culture, as we all know, the ‘big fish’ in this tale is often equated with what we know as the whale; Sunday school curriculum teaches it; art recreates it; collective memory recalls it. Therefore, they wanted an illustration of a white whale in their publication of the Book of Jonah.

“As a biblical scholar, I know this is erroneous and irresponsible. A biblical scholar assumes a ‘big fish’ is simply to be taken as a ‘big fish.’ The identity of this fish is not necessary to understand the tale: that God provided it is the point. As a Bible translator, hopefully a culturally sensitive one, however, I was quickly reminded in that moment that this Inupiatun community ‘needed’ that ‘Jonah’s big fish’ to be nothing other than a whale.

“This made the tale of Jonah even more meaningful because they ‘read’ the source of God’s deliverance of Jonah as the same source of God’s provision of food and sustenance to them.”

In the majority of Arabic translations, hut (حوت) or “whale” is used. This could be due to the influence of the Quran that uses hut (حُوت) in its story of Jonah (Yunus) or to the influence of the Ancient Greek Septuagint which uses kítos (κῆτος). Kítos could either mean “sea-monster” or “whale.” (Source: Sameh Hanna)

The term for “dolphin” in Turkish is yunus baliğı — “Jonah’s fish” or simply yunus (“Jonah”). (The term used in the Turkish translation of Jonah, however, is büyük balık or “big fish.”)

See also Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, Joppa, and this devotion on YouVersion .