“In Turkana, a woman removes her normal everyday skin clothes and ornaments and wears rather poor skins during the time of mourning. The whole custom is known as ngiboro. It is very difficult to translate putting on sackcloth because even material like sacking is unfamiliar. The Haya, on the other hand, have a mourning cloth made out of the bark of a tree; and the use of this cloth is similar to the Jewish use of sackcloth. It was found that in both the Turkana and Ruhaya common language translations, their traditional mourning ceremonies were used.” (Source: Rachel Konyoro in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 221ff. )
Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing what a sackcloth looked like in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)
The Greek that is translated as “is acceptable” or “is welcome” in English is translated as “well received” (Sinhala), “to be considered-good” (Tae’), “to be liked” (Sundanese), “to be cherished” (Chuukese), “to be popular” (Pohnpeian), “to be believed with respect” (Kele), or “to be listened to” (Tboli).
The Greek that is translated as “remarkable things” or “strange things” in English is translated as “what will be-denied by those who hear it” in Tae’ (version of 1933), “what never yet has happened” in Batak Toba, “things we don’t understand”in Ekari, and “things causing-surprise” in Pohnpeian.
The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “showbread,” “bread of the presence,” or “consecrated bread” in English is translated as “bread set before the face of God” (Luvale), “loaves which are laid before the face (of God)” (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida), “bread to-do-homage” (Tae’), “holy bread” (Pohnpeian, Chuukese), “placed bread” (Ekari), “church-bread” (Sranan Tongo) (source for this and three above: Reiling / Swellengrebel), mikate yoperekedwa kwa Mulungu or “loaves offered to God” (interconfessional Chichewa translation; source: Wendland 1998, p. 110) and “bread that was sitting on the altar” (Low German) (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006).
The Greek that is often translates as “glutton” in English is translated with figurative expressions or descriptive phrases such as “one who has just stomach” (Navajo), “a stomach-for food” (Pohnpeian), “one who eats-much” (Chuukese), or “one who thinks only of eating” (Ekari).
The Greek that is translated as “acknowledge” or “confess” in English is rendered as “say openly … that they have believed” (Tzeltal), “approves” (Chichewa), “declares/mentions (my) name” (Kekchí, Sranan Tongo), “talks (my) good name” (Northern Grebo), “testifies to (me)” (Zarma, Pohnpeian), “takes (my) side” (Shona, translation of 1966), or “speaks for (me)” (Ekari).
The Greek that is translated as “trap him by what he said” or “catch him in some statement” in English is translated in Chuukese and Pohnpeian as “to catch-him-like-a-fish with-reference-to his words,” in Sranan Tongo as “to spy on him till he would miss his mouth (i.e. make a mistake in speaking),” and in Tzeltal as “that they would be able to find his sin if his words became bad.”
