Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 6:8:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“Depart from me you all who do evil,
for Jehovah has heard my cry.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“O [you] devils! Don’t stay around me.
For the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“[You (plur.)] go-away from me, you (plur.) who do wickedness,
because the LORD has-heard my cryings.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Eastern Bru:
“Hey all you wicked people! You get away from me, because God has heard my voice crying already.” (Source: Bru Back Translation)
Laarim:
“You people who do bad matter, leave from where I am staying,
because the LORD heard my crying.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Ondokeni kwangu, enyi watenda mabaya ninyi,
kwa sababu BWANA amesikia kulia kwangu.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“You people who do evil things, get away from me!” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Following is a translation of Psalm 6 into dance and song in Kabiyè by Groupe Ñalɩmɩyɛ. The video is followed by an English back-translation as well as the original Kabiyè text and a French back-translations. The leader (call) part is in standard type, the ensemble (response) is italicized.
Eternal God, your anger is kindled against me, I beg you do not condemn me.
Aawoo, Eternal God, your anger is kindled against me, I beg you do not condemn me.
Aawoo, Eternal God, have mercy on me, aowe, Eternal God have mercy on me.
Aawoo, Eternal God, have mercy on us, aawoo, Eternal God have mercy on us.
Aawoo, Eternal God, have mercy on us oooo, Eternal God have mercy on us. (2 times)
I’m moaning, I’m facing death, ooh my God, ohh my God, come and save me.
Aawoo, I’m moaning, I’m facing death, ooh my God, ohh my God, come and save me.
How long are you going to hold your grudge against me? Aawoo, ooh my God, come and deliver me.
Aawoo, how long are you going to hold your grudge against me? Aawoo, ooh my God, come and deliver me.
Ooh my God come save me, awoo, ooh come save me. (2 times)
Depart from me, my enemies, for God has responded.
Aawee, depart from me my enemies, aawé, for God has responded.
Truly, depart from me my enemies, aawoo, for God has responded.
Truly, oo, depart from me my enemies, aawoo, for God has responded.
Aawoo, my enemies are covered in shame, my God thank you.
Aawoo, my enemies are covered in shame, aawee, my God thank you.
Truly, my enemies are covered in shame, aawee, my God thank you.
Aawoo, my God aawoo, thank you yee, my God thank you.
Truly, my God thank you, aawee, my God thank you.
My God thank you, aawoo, my God thank you.
Aawee my God thank you, aawoo, my God thank you.
Aawoo, Infinite One thank you, my God thank you.
Aawoo, Eternal thank you truly, my God thank you.
Aawee, my God thank you, my God thank you.
Aawee, my God thank you aawoo, my God thank you.
Click or tap here to see the the text in French back-translation
Eternel Dieu, ta colère s’est enflammée contre moi, je te supplie ne me condamne pas.
Aawoo, Eternel Dieu, ta colère s’est enflammée contre moi, je te supplie ne me condamne pas.
Aawoo, Eternel Dieu, aie pitié de moi, aouwé, Eternel Dieu aie pitié de moi.
Aawoo, Eternel Dieu, aie pitié de moi, aawoo, Eternel Dieu aie pitié de moi.
Aawoo, Eternal God, have mercy on us, aawoo, Eternal God have mercy on us.
Aawoo, Eternel Dieu, aie pitié de nous oooo, Eternel Dieu aie pitié de nous. (2 times)
Je gémis, je suis devant la mort, ooh mon Dieu, ohh mon Dieu, viens me sauver.
Aawoo, je gémis, je suis devant la mort, ooh mon Dieu, ohh mon Dieu, viens me sauver.
Tu vas garder rancune contre moi jusqu’à quand ? Aawoo, ooh mon Dieu, viens me délivrer.
Awoo, tu vas garder rancune contre moi jusqu’à quand ? Aawoo, ooh mon Dieu, viens me délivrer.
Ooh mon Dieu viens me sauver, aawoo, ooh viens me sauver. (2 fois)
Eloignez-vous de moi mes ennemis, car Dieu m’a exaucé.
Aawé, eloignez-vous de moi mes ennemis, aawé, car Dieu m’a exaucé.
Véritablement, éloignez-vous de moi mes ennemis, aawoo, car Dieu m’a exaucé.
Véritablement, oo, éloignez-vous de moi mes ennemis, aawoo, car Dieu m’a exaucé.
Aawoo, mes ennemis sont couverts de honte, mon Dieu merci.
Aawoo, mes ennemis sont couverts de honte, aawee, mon Dieu merci.
Véritablement, mes ennemis sont couverts de honte, aawee, mon Dieu merci.
Aawoo, mon Dieu aawoo, merci yee, mon Dieu merci.
Véritablement, mon Dieu merci, aawee, mon Dieu merci.
Mon Dieu merci, aawoo, mon Dieu merci.
Aawee mon Dieu merci, aawoo, mon Dieu merci.
Aawoo, l’Infini merci, mon Dieu merci.
Aawoo, Eternel merci vraiment, mon Dieu merci.
Aawee, mon Dieu merci, mon Dieu merci.
Aawee, Mon Dieu merci aawoo, mon Dieu merci.
Kabiye transcription and translation to French was completed by Mawèdong Amana, checking of Kabiye orthography and French translation was done by Kpatcha Hemou and Essokilina Tchamie, English translation by Sarah Jane Capper. Groupe Ñalɩmɩyɛ members: Ahoumondom Jacob Polonyoni, Louise Bide, Brouwa Adoko, Kodjo Boromna, Meneze Edjadefei, Maniya Pidaman.
The artists in these videos composed these songs by studying Psalms 6, 150 and 118 as well as Kabiye music and dance styles. They participated in a two-week workshop organized by SIL Togo-Benin in Kara, Togo in partnership with the master’s thesis research of Sarah Jane Capper for Dallas International University; the Association pour la Promotion des Saintes-Écritures en Kabiye (APSEK); and Scriptura.
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed. The first example is from a language where God is always addressed distinctly formal whereas the second is one where the opposite choice was made.
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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.
Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”
In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.
Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking (source Philip Noss).
In Dutch and Western Frisian translations, however, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
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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 usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, kik-are-ru (聞かれる) or “hear” is used.
In this last strophe (verses 8-10) the psalmist assures himself of God’s help and denounces his enemies, predicting their punishment.
Depart from me: either “Go away” or “Stay away.”
Workers of evil, like “evildoers” in 5.5, is a very general term for people who are sinful, wicked, bad.
My weeping must often be rendered by a clause such as “the LORD hears me when I cry” or “… when I cry to him for help.”
Line a of verse 9 states the fact, and line b, which parallels it with each word, gives the consequence. Good News Translation expresses the consequence in line b through the use of “and will” in the second line.
Supplication (or “cry for help”) translates a word meaning “request for favor or help” and must often be rendered “ask for help” or “beg for help,” since crying is often restricted to “weeping” and “shouting.”
Accepts translates a verb meaning “receive,” used here in the sense of a favorable response to the psalmist’s pleas. So Good News Translation translates “will answer.”
It is to be noticed that in these two verses Revised Standard Version has translated the verbs in 8b and 9a with the past tense, and in 9b with the present tense; Good News Translation, however, has the present tense in 8b and 9a, and the future tense in 9b. Some use the past tense for all three (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Bible en français courant), and New Jerusalem Bible uses the present tense for all three. A translator should feel free to use the tense appropriate for an expression of complete confidence; the psalmist knows that Yahweh listens to his prayer and will answer it.
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
John Wu Ching-hsiung (1899-1986) was a native of Ningbo, Zhejiang, a renowned jurist who studied in Europe and the United States, and served as a professor of law at Soochow University, as a judge and the Acting President of the Shanghai Provisional Court, and as the Vice President of the Commission for the Drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of China, before becoming the Minister of the Republic of China to the Holy See. Wu has written extensively, not only on law but also on Chinese philosophy, and has also written his autobiography, Beyond East and West, in English. Wu was a devout Catholic and had a personal relationship with Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975). Wu began translating the the Psalms in 1938, and was encouraged by Chiang to translate the entire New Testament, which he corrected in his own handwriting. (…) John Wu Ching-hsiung’s translation of the Psalms (first draft in 1946, revised in 1975) was translated into Literary Chinese in the form of poetic rhyme, with attention paid to the style of writing. According to the content and mood of the different chapters of the original psalm, Wu chose Chinese poetic forms such as tetrameter, pentameter, heptameter [4, 5 or 7 syllables/Chinese characters per stanza], and the [less formal] Sao style, and sometimes more than two poetic forms were used in a single poem. (Source: Simon Wong)
John Wu Ching-hsiung himself talks about his celebrated and much-admired (though difficult-to-understand) translation in his aforementioned autobiography: (Click or tap here to see)
“Nothing could have been farther from my mind than to translate the Bible or any parts of it with a view to publishing it as an authorized version. I had rendered some of the Psalms into Chinese verse, but that was done as a part of my private devotion and as a literary hobby. When I was in Hongkong in 1938, I had come to know Madame H. H. Kung [Soong Ai-ling], and as she was deeply interested in the Bible, I gave her about a dozen pieces of my amateurish work just for her own enjoyment. What was my surprise when, the next time I saw her, she told me, “My sister [Soong Mei-ling] has written to say that the Generalissimo [Chiang Kai-shek] likes your translation of the Psalms very much, especially the first, the fifteenth, and the twenty-third, the Psalm of the Good Shepherd!”
“In the Autumn of 1940, when I was in Chungking, the Generalissimo invited me several times to lunch with him and expressed his appreciation of the few pieces that he had read. So I sent him some more. A few days later I received a letter from Madame Chiang [Soong Mei-ling], dated September 21, 1940, in which she said that they both liked my translation of the few Psalms I had sent them. ‘For many years,’ she wrote, ‘the Generalissimo has been wanting to have a really adequate and readable Wen-li (literary) translation of the Bible. He has never been able to find anyone who could undertake the matter.’ The letter ends up by saying that I should take up the job and that ‘the Generalissimo would gladly finance the undertaking of this work.’
“After some preliminary study of the commentaries, I started my work with the Psalms on January 6, 1943, the Feast of the Epiphany.
“I had three thousand years of Chinese literature to draw upon. The Chinese vocabulary for describing the beauties of nature is so rich that I seldom failed to find a word, a phrase, and sometimes even a whole line to fit the scene. But what makes such Psalms so unique is that they bring an intimate knowledge of the Creator to bear upon a loving observation of things of nature. I think one of the reasons why my translation is so well received by the Chinese scholars is that I have made the Psalms read like native poems written by a Chinese, who happens to be a Christian. Thus to my countrymen they are at once familiar and new — not so familiar as to be jejune, and not so new as to be bizarre. I did not publish it as a literal translation, but only as a paraphrase.
“To my greatest surprise, [my translation of the Psalms] sold like hot dogs. The popularity of that work was beyond my fondest dreams. Numberless papers and periodicals, irrespective of religion, published reviews too good to be true. I was very much tickled when I saw the opening verse of the first Psalm used as a headline on the front page of one of the non-religious dailies.”
A contemporary researcher (Lindblom 2021) mentions this about Wu’s translation: “Wu created a unique and personal work of sacred art that bears the imprint of his own admitted love and devotion, a landmark achievement comparable to Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. Although its use is still somewhat limited today, it continues to attract readers for the aforementioned qualities, and continues to be used in prayers and music by those who desire beauty and an authentic Chinese-sounding text that draws from China’s ancient traditions.”
The translation of Psalm 6 from the 1946 edition is in pentameter with a rhyme scheme based on -ing (the 1946 edition did not have verse numbers either):
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