neighbor

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The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “neighbor” in English is rendered into Babatana as “different man,” i.e. someone who is not one of your relatives. (Source: David Clark)

In North Alaskan Inupiatun, it is rendered as “a person outside of your building,” in Tzeltal as “your back and side” (implying position of the dwellings), in Indonesian and in Tae’ as “your fellow-man,” in Toraja-Sa’dan it is “your fellow earth-dweller,” in Shona (translation of 1966) as “another person like you,” in Kekchí “younger-brother-older-brother” (a compound which means all one’s neighbors in a community) (sources: Bratcher / Nida and Reiling / Swellengrebel), in Mairasi “your people” (source: Enggavoter 2004), in Mezquital Otomi as “fellow being,” in Tzeltal as “companion,” in Isthmus Zapotec as “another,” in Teutila Cuicatec as “all people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), and in most modern German translations as Mitmensch or “fellow human being” (lit. “with + human being”).

In Matt 19:19, Matt 22:39, Mark 12:31, Mark 12:33, Luke 10:27, Luke 10:29 it is translated into Ixcatlán Mazatec with a term that refers to a person who is socially/physically near. Ixcatlán Mazatec also has a another term for “neighbor” that means “fellow humans-outsiders” which was not chosen for these passages. (Source: Robert Bascom)

In Noongar it is translated as moorta-boordak or “people nearby” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

complete verse (Deuteronomy 22:24)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Deuteronomy 22:24:

  • Kupsabiny: “If it is like that, both of these people are to be taken outside the city and stones thrown at them until they die. The girl deserves to be killed, because she did not scream in the city so that she could have been rescued. But for the man he is to be killed, because he has spoiled the woman of another man. Do like that so that you can get rid of sin in your midst.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Taking both of them along to the main gave of the city, they must be stoned to death. That woman must be killed because even though it happened in the city, she did not scream for help. And that man must be killed because of the rape of his Israelite neighbor’s wife. You must remove such kind of evil deeds from among you.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “you (plur.) shall- bring the two of them to the gate of the town and stone (them) until (they) died. The woman shall-be-killed for even-though she was there in the town she did- not -scream asking for help. The man shall- also -be-killed because he had-sexual-intercourse with the woman who is about-to-be-married already. You (plur.) must eradicate/abolish this wickedness from among you (plur.).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “You must take both of them to the gate of/central meeting place in that town. There you must execute them both by throwing stones at them. You must execute the young woman because she did not shout for help even though she was in the town. And the man must be executed because he had sex with someone who was already engaged/promised to be married. By doing that, you will get rid of this evil practice among you.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

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

Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 22:24

The long first sentence in Revised Standard Version may be broken up into at least three shorter ones (see Good News Translation).

You shall bring them both out to the gate of the city: this is where the sentence of death will be pronounced on them by the town’s elders (see 22.15).

You shall stone them to death with stones: the plural you seems to include all the citizens of the town. In actual practice it appears that only the men carried out the death sentence.

Good News Translation takes the text to mean that the actual execution took place outside the town (see also 17.5), not at the gate of the city (Revised Standard Version, Contemporary English Version). We should notice, however, that the execution in verse 21 above takes place inside the town. However, in this verse translators are urged to have either “outside the gates of the town” or simply “outside the town.”

Because she did not cry for help: the reasoning here is that, since this took place in town, the woman would have cried out for help and been rescued if she didn’t agree to have sex with the man. The fact that she didn’t cry out is proof that she agreed to have sex with him.

Violated: the same verb used in 21.14 (see also 22.29).

You shall purge the evil: see 13.5.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .