complete verse (Leviticus 26:29)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Leviticus 26:29:

  • Kupsabiny: “That famine will be very fierce so that it makes you eat your children.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “You will have to eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “I will-cause- you (plur.) -to-get-hungry and you (plur.) will-be-forced to eat your (plur.) own children.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “You will be extremely hungry, with the result that you will kill your sons and daughters and eat their flesh.” (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 Leviticus 26:29

Eat the flesh of your sons … daughters: Good News Translation makes explicit the reason for this act of cannibalism with “Your hunger will be so great….” Another way of doing this is to add at the end of the verse “… because of the famine.” And it also translates the separate clauses concerning sons and daughters by a single clause with “children.” This will serve as a good model in a number of other languages.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .