pray / prayer

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “pray” (or “prayer”) in English is often translated as “talking with God” (Central Pame, Tzeltal, Chol, Chimborazo Highland Quichua, Shipibo-Conibo, Kaqchikel, Tepeuxila Cuicatec, Copainalá Zoque, Central Tarahumara).

Other solutions include:

  • “beg” or “ask,” (full expression: “ask with one’s heart coming out,” which leaves out selfish praying, for asking with the heart out leaves no place for self to hide) (Tzotzil)
  • “cause God to know” (Huichol)
  • “raise up one’s words to God” (implying an element of worship, as well as communication) (Miskito, Lacandon) (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • “speak to God” (Shilluk) (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
  • “talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
  • “call to one’s Father” (San Blas Kuna) (source: Claudio and Marvel Iglesias in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 85ff. )
  • “beg” (waan) (Ik). Terrill Schrock (in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 93) explains (click or tap here to read more):

    What do begging and praying have to do with each other? Do you beg when you pray? Do I?

    “The Ik word for ‘visitor’ is waanam, which means ‘begging person.’ Do you beg when you go visiting? The Ik do. Maybe you don’t beg, but maybe when you visit someone, you are looking for something. Maybe it’s just a listening ear.

    When the Ik hear that [my wife] Amber and I are planning trip to this or that place for a certain amount of time, the letters and lists start coming. As the days dwindle before our departure, the little stack of guests grows. ‘Please, sir, remember me for the allowing: shoes, jacket (rainproof), watch, box, trousers, pens, and money for the children. Thank you, sir, for your assistance.’

    “A few people come by just to greet us or spend bit of time with us. Another precious few will occasionally confide in us about their problems without asking for anything more than a listening ear. I love that.

    “The other day I was in our spare bedroom praying my list of requests to God — a nice list covering most areas of my life, certainly all the points of anxiety. Then it hit me: Does God want my list, or does he want my relationship?

    “I decided to try something. Instead of reading off my list of requests to God, I just talk to him about my issues without any expectation of how he should respond. I make it more about our relationship than my list, because if our personhood is like God’s personhood, then maybe God prefers our confidence and time to our lists, letters, and enumerations.”

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning (click or tap here to read more):

  • For Acts 1:14, 20:36, 21:5: kola ttieru-yawur nehla — “hold the waist and hug the neck.” (“This is the more general term for prayer and often refers to worship in prayer as opposed to petition. The Luang people spend the majority of their prayers worshiping rather than petitioning, which explains why this term often is used generically for prayer.”)
  • For Acts 28:9: sumbiani — “pray.” (“This term is also used generically for ‘prayer’. When praying is referred to several times in close proximity, it serves as a variation for kola ttieru-yawur nehla, in keeping with Luang discourse style. It is also used when a prayer is made up of many requests.”)
  • For Acts 8:15, 12:5: polu-waka — “call-ask.” (“This is a term for petition that is used especially when the need is very intense.”)

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

See also Nehemiah’s prayer (image).

complete verse (1 Samuel 1:27)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 1 Samuel 1:27:

  • Kupsabiny: “That woman told Eli that, ‘Please, truly, I was the one who prayed to God here that day to give me a child who was a boy, now he has given me.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “It was for this son that I prayed, and He has given to me in accordance with my request to the LORD.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “I asked- the LORD -for this child and he gave my request.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “I prayed that Yahweh would enable me to give birth to a child, and this is the child whom I requested Yahweh to give me.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

request / beg (Japanese honorifics)

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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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The concept of “requesting” is translated in the Shinkaiyaku Bible as o-negai (お願い), combining “request” (negai) with the respectful prefix o (お).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on 1 Samuel 1:27

Verses 27 and 28 contain a play on words that cannot usually be captured in translation. The words my petition (27), I made (27), I have lent him (28), and he is lent (28) all come from the same root, meaning “to ask” or “to request” and, in some forms, “to lend.” Osty-Trinquet attempted to capture the wordplay as follows: “It was for this child that I was praying, and Yahweh granted me the request that I requested of him. For my part, I yield him to [the request of] Yahweh; all the days that he will live, he will be yielded to [the request of] Yahweh.” La Bible Pléiade and Fox have similarly tried to preserve the play on words. Most translators, however, will probably find it best not to try to maintain the wordplay.

The word order of the Hebrew gives prominence to this child. If possible the sense of this emphatic position should be maintained in translation. Certain modern versions seek to do so by saying “It was this boy that I prayed for” (Revised English Bible); “this is the child for which I was praying” (New Jerusalem Bible).

The LORD has granted me my petition is an allusion to the petition that Eli mentions in 1.17. Some translators may render this expression as “the LORD has answered this prayer of mine” or “the LORD has given me what I asked for.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .