The Hebrew or Greek which are translated into English as “sackcloth” are rendered into Chamula Tzotzil as “sad-heart clothes.” (Source: Robert Bascom)
Pohnpeian and Chuukese translate it as “clothing-of sadness,” Eastern Highland Otomi uses “clothing that hurts,” Central Mazahua “that which is scratchy,” Tae’ and Zarma “rags” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel), and Tangale as “torn clothes that show contrition on the body” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin). In the English translation by Goldingay (2018), “put on sackcloth” is translated as wrap on sack.
“In Turkana, a woman removes her normal everyday skin clothes and ornaments and wears rather poor skins during the time of mourning. The whole custom is known as ngiboro. It is very difficult to translate putting on sackcloth because even material like sacking is unfamiliar. The Haya, on the other hand, have a mourning cloth made out of the bark of a tree; and the use of this cloth is similar to the Jewish use of sackcloth. It was found that in both the Turkana and Ruhaya common language translations, their traditional mourning ceremonies were used.” (Source: Rachel Konyoro in The Bible Translator1985, p. 221ff. )
Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing what a sackcloth looked like in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)
The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin that is translated as “soul” in English is translated in Chol with a term that refers to the invisible aspects of human beings (source: Robert Bascom), in Yagaria with oune or “shadow, reflection” (source: Renck, p. 81), and in Elhomwe as “heart” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).
The Mandarin Chineselínghún (靈魂 / 灵魂), literally “spirit-soul,” is often used for “soul” (along with xīn [心] or “heart”). This is a term that was adopted from Buddhist sources into early Catholic writings and later also by Protestant translators. (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 32, see also Clara Ho-yan Chan in this article )
In Chichewa, moyo means both “soul” and “life.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
The Hebrew, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “mourn” or similar in English is translated in Newari as “have one’s heart broken” or “have a bursting heart” (source: Newari Back Translation).
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 27:31:
Kupsabiny: “They shall shave their heads in mourning and put on sacks to show that they are grieving. They shall weep over you in much pain.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “They will-shave their heads and cloth with sack while they cry loudly in sadness.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
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 Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.
In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
They make themselves bald for you: For this mourning rite see 7.18. They make themselves bald may be rendered “they cut off their hair” (Revised English Bible) or “They shave their heads” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation, New Century Version).
And gird themselves with sackcloth may be translated “and they put on rough cloth to show they are upset” (New Century Version). See the comments on 7.18.
The sailors from the other ships (that is, the people from the cities around Tyre) do these things to express their sorrow about what happens to Tyre. Many translators will find it helpful for readers if they make it clear why the sailors are behaving in this way; for example, they may render verses 30b-31a as “To show they are in mourning, they throw dust on their heads and roll around in ashes. 31 They shave their heads and put on very rough cloth to show how distressed they are.”
And they weep over you in bitterness of soul, with bitter mourning: Weep may be rendered “cry” (New Century Version). Bitterness of soul is a Hebrew idiom describing very deep sorrow. Soul (nefesh in Hebrew) should not be translated in a way that refers to a person’s immortal soul (see the comments on 3.19). Bitterness and bitter translate the same Hebrew word rendered “bitterly” in verse 30. The repetition of this word shows the extremely deep sorrow that these mourners are expressing over the fall of Tyre. Most languages will have various terms to express the way people cry and show deep sorrow when something bad has happened to them. Translators should choose the strongest terms they can find for this verse. Although the repetition in this verse is effective in stressing the great sorrow being shown, it is acceptable to use a single term if it is very strong; for example, Contemporary English Version renders these two lines as “as they cry in despair.” Another possible model is “They weep over you in deep sorrow. They mourn for you bitterly.”
Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.