14But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master, and he shouted insults at them.
Low German translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006: “steppe”
Yakan: “the lonely place” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “a land where no people lived” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “the place with no inhabitants” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Matumbi uses various term: lubele (desert, sandy place without water) — used in John 11:54, lupu’ngu’ti (a place where no people live, can be a scrub land, a forest, or a savanna) — used in Mark 1:3 et al.), and mwitu (a forest, a place where wild animals live) — used in Mark 1:13 et al.) (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Chichewa Contemporary translation (2002/2016): chipululu: a place uninhabited by people with thick forest and bush (source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Note that in Luke 15:4, usually a term is used that denotes pastoral land, such as “eating/grazing-place” in Tagbanwa (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation).
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “messenger” in English is translated in Noongar as moort yana-waangki or “person walk-talk” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun, excluding Abigail.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 1 Samuel 25:14:
Kupsabiny: “Then a certain servant from Nabal told Abigail that, ‘You should know that David sent his servants from the wilderness to come and greet our master, but the master abused them.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “One of Nabal’s servants said to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, "David humbly sent his men to speak salutations to our master in the desert.’ But he scoffed at them.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Now, one of the servants of Nabal said to Abigail the wife of Nabal, ‘David sent messengers here from the desolate-place, and they greeted Nabal our (excl.) master, but he only insulted them.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “One of Nabal’s servants found out what David and his men were planning to do, so he went to Nabal’s wife Abigail and said to her, ‘David sent some messengers from the desert to greet our master Nabal, but Nabal only yelled at them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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 of appropriate suffix title referred to as keishō (敬称) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017 by using the formal title –sama. This is distinct from nominal titles such as “master.” This is evident from the forms such as go-shujin-sama (ご主人様) “master” or “lord” which is the combination of the nominal title shujin “master” with the honorific prefix go- and the suffix title –sama.
In some cases, it can also be used as go-shujin (ご主人), i.e. with the honorific prefix go- but without the suffix title –sama. You can find that in Genesis 23:6, 23:11, 23:15, 24:51, 39:8, 39:9, 44:8, 44:9; 1 Samuel 25:17; and 2 Kings 2:16 and 4:26.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.