The phrase that is translated in English versions as “in travail” or “in the pain of childbirth” is rendered in Kahua as “like a woman whose back is cracking.”
travel through the whole island
In Kahua, unsurprisingly for an island language, there is a basic contrast in verbs of motion between travel by land and travel by sea. In Acts 13:4 it was explicit that Barnabas and Saul “sailed” to Cyprus, but once on the island, did they travel around by sea or by land? The translators assumed that the statement that is translated into English as “traveled through the whole island” implied travel by land, and used the appropriate verb.
pillar
The term that is translated in English as “pillar” is translated as the “central upright poles of a house” in Hakha Chin. Hakha Chin speakers are mountain people who build houses with bamboo and palm thatch, not stone.
smooth talk and flattery
The phrase that is translated in many English versions as “smooth talk and flattery” is translated into Hakha Chin with an appropriate idiom: “good lip and mouth, and skill in singing.”
See also smooth and smooth words.
death has come to everyone, death spread to all men
The phrase that is translated as “death spread to all men” or “death has come to everyone” in English versions has been rendered in Hakha Chin with an idiom: “death soaked all men.”
unstable as water
The phrase that is translated as “unstable as water” or “turbulent as water” is not a natural Falam Chin comparison and is conveyed as “like a mountain stream rising and falling.”
honorific (Gen. 12:11), vocative (Gen. 12:11)
The phrase that is translated as “he said to Sarai his wife” into English presented a problem in Falam Chin. Hebrew contains no vocative (a case used in addressing or invoking a person or thing), but Falam requires one for politeness, and its absence is rude. The normal way for a husband to address his wife is “mother of X” but Sarai is childless. The Falam Chin translation ended with a sort of vocative substitute: “Let me tell you what is in my heart.”
faint from fear
The Greek that is translated in some English versions as “people will faint from fear” in rendered in Kalmyk as “people’s hearts will be in their heels.”