The Greek that is translated as “daughter” in English and serves as a general form for addressing women is translated in Batak Toba with the vocative form “you mother,” which can even be used in speaking to a young girl. (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
In Lamba as “(non-gendered) child,” wemwana wanji. This is the idiomatic way of referring to children and while it’s possible to specify “female child,” it was felt to be unidiomatic and therefore to be avoided. (Source C. M. Doke in The Bible Translator 1958, p. 57ff.)
See also son.
The Greek that is transliterated as “abyss” or translated as “bottomless pit” in English is translated as “unfathomably deep place” or “land below” in Indonesian, “land below” in Batak Toba, or “the deep where the earth opens its mouth” in Sranan Tongo (a term well-known from folk tales).
The Greek that is translated as “firstborn” in English is translated “he/she that opens the gown” in Batak Toba (because formerly a woman stopped wearing a gown and started using a bodice after the birth of her first child) and “he/she that damages the stalk (i.e. the body)” in Uab Meto. (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
In Bawm Chin, the term can imply the existence of younger siblings, so a translation is needed that brings out the fact that Jesus is superior to all else, not just the first of a series. (Source: David Clark)
In Mezquital Otomi it is “the oldest son of all” and in Isthmus Zapotec “oldest child.” (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
See also only begotten son / (one and) only son.
The Greek that is translated as “(his) own city” in English is translated in Batak Toba as “his clan-origin” or literally “the trunk of his nangka-tree” (the strong, but slow growing nangka, or Jack-fruit, tree is being used metaphorically of the compound of a well-to-do family which remained in the same village for generations).
The Greek that is often translated in English as “leap (or: leaped)” is translated with appropriate idioms as “trampled” (Javanese), “shook-itself” (Kituba), “wriggled” (Thai), “danced” (Taroko), “stirred” (Toraja-Sa’dan), “sprawled” (Batak Toba), “played” (Shipibo-Conibo). In Dan the clause has to be “her stomach moved” since “leaping” sounded vulgar. (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
Bill Michell (in Omanson 2001, p. 431) explains why in Cusco Quechua the women on the translation team had to intervene to correct a translation that was too literal:
“In the [Cusco Quechua] project in Peru the first draft of Luke’s Gospel was done by a man. In the case of Luke 1:41 his translation was quite literal. He had the unborn child physically jumping, unhampered and unhindered. This was met with some laughter from the women on the team. They suggested an onomatopoeic expression to communicate the sensation of a sudden movement in the womb: wawaqa ‘wat’ak’ nirqan — ‘the child said, ‘Wat’ak!” The child didn’t jump, it ‘spoke’! This times there were smiles instead of laughter as the women recognized something that was authentically their own.”
The Greek that is translated as “she wondered” or “she considered (in her mind)” is translated as “her heart said” in Batak Toba or as “she puzzled forth and puzzled back” in Sranan Tongo.
In Mairasi, the translation is “she asked in her thought-place (=in her private thoughts)” (source: Enggavorter 2004).
The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that are translated as “(become) pregnant” in English is rendered as “got belly” (Sranan Tongo and Kituba) as “having two bodies” (Indonesian), as “be-of-womb” (Sinhala), as “heavy” (Balinese), and as “in-a-fortunate-state” (Batak Toba). (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
In Kafa it is translated as “having two lives” (source: Loren Bliese), in Southern Birifor as tara pʊɔ or “to have stomach,” in Kamba as “be-heavy” (source for this and above: Andy Warren-Rothlin), and in the Swabian 2007 translation by Rudolf Paul as kommt en andere Omständ, lit. “be in different circumstances.”
In Mairasi it is translated as “have a soul [ghost].” (Source: Enggavoter, 2004)
