The Greek and Hebrew phrases that are often translated as “birds of the air” in English “refer to the undomesticated song birds or wild birds, to be distinguished in a number of languages from domesticated fowl. In Tzeltal these former are ‘field birds’.” (source: Bratcher / Nida)
Q’anjob’al also uses an established term for non-domesticated birds. Newberry and Kittie Cox (in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. ) explain: “Qʼanjobʼal has two distinct terms, one to identify domesticated birds and the other non-domesticated birds. The additional descriptive phrase ‘of the air’ seemed entirely misleading, for Qʼanjobʼal speakers had never heard of such creatures. Actually, of course, all that was necessary was the term for non-domesticated birds, for that is precisely the meaning of the Biblical expression.”
In Elhomwe they are just translated as “birds” or “birds of the bush” (i.e., wild birds) to “not give the impression that these are special type of birds.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
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, Latin and Greek that is translated in English as “wild animal” or similar is translated in Newari as “animal that lives in the jungle.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 9:10:
Kupsabiny: “Then I said, ‘I will cry and mourn for the hills and lament over the grazing areas there in the wilderness, because (they) are completely dried up and desolate so the cows are no longer lowing/mooing there. Birds are flying migrating and also the animals are leaving.’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Jeremias said: I will-cry loudly for the mountains; I will-lament for the grazing-fields. For these are now desolate and no one passes-by. The lowing of the cows can- no longer -be-heard, and the birds and animals have-fled.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “So, I will weep and wail for the people who live in the mountains and in the pastures/places where the livestock eat the grass, because those areas will be desolate, and no one will live there. There will be no cattle there to call to each other, and all the birds and wild animals will have fled to other places.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has a section heading here: “Dirge over Judah and Jerusalem.” Translators who wish to do something similar can have “Lament over Judah and Jerusalem” or “The LORD sings a lament over Judah and Jerusalem.”
As Revised Standard Version indicates, Take up actually translates the Septuagint. The Hebrew has “I will take up,” which is preferred by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project.
Weeping translates the same word first used in 3.21.
Wailing is also used in verses 18-20, as well as in 31.15. In 9.20 and 31.15 Revised Standard Version renders it “lament/lamentation.” Elsewhere in the Old Testament it is found only in Amos 5.16 and Micah 2.4. In the present context weeping and wailing are apparently used with the same meaning, as seems also to be the case with lamentation, which appears again in 9.20 as “dirge” in Revised Standard Version. Its first occurrence in Jeremiah is in 7.29. Both Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translate Take up weeping and wailing by a single verb: “I will mourn for.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates lamentation as “the cry of mourning for the dead,” which is accompanied by a note in the word list. This is a very suitable translation, inasmuch as Jeremiah pictures the land as though it were a dead person that people should mourn for.
Pastures of the wilderness is a set phrase referring to the pastures in the highlands. It is translated “desert pastures” by New Jerusalem Bible and New English Bible. New American Bible has “pasture lands” and Good News Translation “pastures.” If there is no word for pastures in a language, translators can say something like “fields where the animals graze.”
Laid waste is more literally “burned up” (New American Bible; Revised English Bible “scorched”). New Jerusalem Bible translates “they have been burnt,” which is also the meaning represented by Traduction œcuménique de la Bible and La Bible Pléiade. See verse 12. If the language requires that an agent must be indicated, translators can say “they have burned them up.”
No one passes through: See 2.6.
The passive construction the lowing of cattle is not heard may in some languages be better rendered as an active: “No one can hear cattle lowing there” or “There are no cattle lowing there.” Lowing is the sound of cattle calling. Translators may need to say “cattle calling to each other.”
The ruination of the land is so bad that domesticated animals (cattle) and wild animals (birds … beasts) have forsaken it and gone. Birds of the air is a typical Hebrew expression meaning simply “birds” (see 4.25; 7.33).
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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