The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin that is translated as “soul” in English is translated in Chol with a term that refers to the invisible aspects of human beings (source: Robert Bascom).
The Mandarin Chineselínghún (靈魂 / 灵魂), literally “spirit-soul,” is often used for “soul” (along with xīn [心] or “heart”). This is a term that was adopted from Buddhist sources into early Catholic writings and later also by Protestant translators. (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 32, see also Clara Ho-yan Chan in this article )
The name that is transliterated as “Mary” in English is translated in Spanish Sign Language with arms folded over chest which is the typical pose of Mary in statues and artwork. (Source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff.)
In American Sign Language it is translated with a sign for the letter M and the sign for “virgin,” which could also be interpreted as “head covering,” referring to the way that Mary is usually portrayed in art works. (Source: RuthAnna Spooner, Ron Lawer)
“Mary” in American Sign Language, source: Deaf Harbor
In the BurmeseCommon Language Version (publ. 2005), Mary is described as a king’s mother by using the royal noun suffix taw / တော် with the word “mother” in Matthew 1:16 and Luke 2:33. This is done to highlight the status of Jesus as a king or the divine Son. Othjer passages where taht is used include Matthew 2:11, 13, 14, 20, and 21. (Source: Gam Seng Shae, The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff.) See also Jesus’ human vs. divine nature in modern Burmese translation.
The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) was transferred into the traditional style of Busa praise song by Mallam Salihu Bata, praise singer in Kaiama, Kwara State, Nigeria (and back-translated into English) as this:
I praise the Lord God in my heart
I praise the Lord God in my heart
I praise the Lord God and my liver is pleased
My Lord God saves, he frees my head
My Lord God saves, he frees my head
He has mercy upon me
He has intently remembered all my concerns
He has intently remembered the concerns of his pitiable slave
Today and in the future everybody calls me the blessed one
all tribes call me the blessed one
God the mighty King has done great things for me
God the mighty King has done great things for me
God the mighty King has a bright and supreme name
God the mighty King has mercy
for people who fear him and
for their children and
for their grandchildren
He showed his hand of awful power
He scattered proud people
and their proud plans
He scattered great chiefs
from their positions
He lifted up the pitiable
He filled the hungry with food
He sent off the moneymen with empty hands
He helped his slave Israel
as he had covenanted with their forefathers
He has intently remembered Ibrahim’s matters
and his grandchildren
and his grandchildren’s grandchildren
The Hebrew adonai in the Old Testament typically refers to God. The shorter adon (and in two cases in the book of Daniel the Aramaic mare [מָרֵא]) is also used to refer to God but more often for concepts like “master,” “owner,” etc. In English Bible translations all of those are translated with “Lord” if they refer to God.
In English Old Testament translations, as in Old Testament translations in many other languages, the use of Lord (or an equivalent term in other languages) is not to be confused with Lord (or the equivalent term with a different typographical display for other languages). While the former translates adonai, adon and mare, the latter is a translation for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) or the Name of God. See tetragrammaton (YHWH) and the article by Andy Warren-Rothlin in Noss / Houser, p. 618ff. for more information.
In the New Testament, the Greek term kurios has at least four different kinds of use:
referring to “God,” especially in Old Testament quotations,
meaning “master” or “owner,” especially in parables, etc.,
as a form of address (see for instance John 4:11: “Sir, you have no bucket”),
or, most often, referring to Jesus
In the first and fourth case, it is also translated as “Lord” in English.
Most languages naturally don’t have one word that covers all these meanings. According to Bratcher / Nida, “the alternatives are usually (1) a term which is an honorific title of respect for a high-ranking person and (2) a word meaning ‘boss’, ‘master’, or ‘chief.’ (…) and on the whole it has generally seemed better to employ a word of the second category, in order to emphasize the immediate personal relationship, and then by context to build into the word the prestigeful character, since its very association with Jesus Christ will tend to accomplish this purpose.”
When looking at the following list of back-translations of the terms that translators in the different languages have used for both kurios and adonai to refer to God and Jesus respectively, it might be helpful for English readers to recall the etymology of the English “Lord.” While this term might have gained an exalted meaning in the understanding of many, it actually comes from hlaford or “loaf-ward,” referring to the lord of the castle who was the keeper of the bread (source: Rosin 1956, p. 121).
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Following are some of the solutions that don’t rely on a different typographical display (see above):
Iyansi: Mwol. Mwol is traditionally used for the “chief of a group of communities and villages” with legal, temporal, and spiritual authority (versus the “mfum [the term used in other Bantu languages] which is used for the chief of one community of people in one village”). Mwol is also used for twins who are “treated as special children, highly honored, and taken care of like kings and queens.” (Source: Kividi Kikama in Greed / Kruger, p. 396ff.)
Binumarien: Karaambaia: “fight-leader” (Source: Oates 1995, p. 255)
Warlpiri: Warlaljamarri (owner or possessor of something — for more information tap or click here)
We have come to rely on another term which emphasizes God’s essential nature as YHWH, namely jukurrarnu (see tetragrammaton (YHWH)). This word is built on the same root jukurr– as is jukurrpa, ‘dreaming.’ Its basic meaning is ‘timelessness’ and it is used to describe physical features of the land which are viewed as always being there. Some speakers view jukurrarnu in terms of ‘history.’ In all Genesis references to YHWH we have used Kaatu Jukurrarnu. In all Mark passages where kurios refers to God and not specifically to Christ we have also used Kaatu Jukurrarnu.
New Testament references to Christ as kurios are handled differently. At one stage we experimented with the term Watirirririrri which refers to a ceremonial boss of highest rank who has the authority to instigate ceremonies. While adequately conveying the sense of Christ’s authority, there remained potential negative connotations relating to Warlpiri ceremonial life of which we might be unaware.
Here it is that the Holy Spirit led us to make a chance discovery. Transcribing the personal testimony of the local Warlpiri pastor, I noticed that he described how ‘my Warlaljamarri called and embraced me (to the faith)’. Warlaljamarri is based on the root warlalja which means variously ‘family, possessions, belongingness’. A warlaljamarri is the ‘owner’ or ‘possessor’ of something. While previously being aware of the ‘ownership’ aspect of warlaljamarri, this was the first time I had heard it applied spontaneously and naturally in a fashion which did justice to the entire concept of ‘Lordship’. Thus references to Christ as kurios are now being handled by Warlaljamarri.” (Source: Stephen Swartz, The Bible Translator 1985, p. 415ff. )
Mairasi: Onggoao Nem (“Throated One” — “Leader,” “Elder”) or Enggavot Nan (“Above-One”) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Obolo: Okaan̄-ene (“Owner of person(s)”) (source: Enene Enene)
Lotha Naga: Opvui (“owner of house / field / cattle”) — since both “Lord” and YHWH are translated as Opvui there is an understanding that “Opvui Jesus is the same as the Opvui of the Old Testament”
Seediq: Tholang, loan word from Min Nan Chinese (the majority language in Taiwan) thâu-lâng (頭儂): “Master” (source: Covell 1998, p. 248)
Thai: phra’ phu pen cao (พระผู้เป็นเจ้า) (divine person who is lord) or ong(kh) cao nay (องค์เจ้านาย) (<divine classifier>-lord-boss) (source: Stephen Pattemore)
Arabic often uses different terms for adonai or kurios referring to God (al-rabb الرب) and kurios referring to Jesus (al-sayyid الـسـيـد). Al-rabb is also the term traditionally used in Arabic Christian-idiom translations for YHWH, and al-sayyid is an honorary term, similar to English “lord” or “sir” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin).
Tamil also uses different terms for adonai/kurios when referring to God and kurios when referring to Jesus. The former is Karttar கர்த்தர், a Sanskrit-derived term with the original meaning of “creator,” and the latter in Āṇṭavar ஆண்டவர், a Tamil term originally meaning “govern” or “reign” (source: Natarajan Subramani).
Burunge: Looimoo: “owner who owns everything” (in the Burunge Bible translation, this term is only used as a reference to Jesus and was originally used to refer to the traditional highest deity — source: Michael Endl in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 48)
Aguacateco: Ajcaw ske’j: “the one to whom we belong and who is above us” (source: Rita Peterson in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 49)
Konkomba: Tidindaan: “He who is the owner of the land and reigns over the people” (source: Lidorio 2007, p. 66)
Law (2013, p. 97) writes about how the Ancient GreekSeptuagint‘s translation of the Hebrew adonai was used by the New Testament writers as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments: “Another case is the use of kurios referring to Jesus. For Yahweh (in English Bibles: ‘the Lord‘), the Septuagint uses kurios. Although the term kurios usually has to do with one’s authority over others, when the New Testament authors use this word from the Septuagint to refer to Jesus, they are making an extraordinary claim: Jesus of Nazareth is to be identified with Yahweh.”
megalunō (also v. 58) lit. ‘to make large,’ here used in the figurative sense, cf. “extols” (The Modern Speech New Testament), “exalts” (Twentieth Century New Testament).
hē psuchē mou ‘my soul.’
psuchē ‘soul,’ ‘life,’ is here used in the sense of the seat of the inner life of man, his feelings and emotions, and is parallel with pneuma (v. 47).
(V. 47) kai ēgalliasen to pneuma mou ‘and my spirit rejoices’; the aorist tense after the present tense of megalunei is probably due to the influence of Hebrew poetry and need not affect the tense of the translation.
agalliaō ‘to be overjoyed,’ ‘to exult,’ always has a religious connotation: a joy or rejoicing due to the Holy Spirit or brought forth by an act of God (as here).
pneuma ‘spirit.’ As to a differentiation of psuchē and pneuma, psuchē (in v. 46) expresses what is man’s own inner nature and pneuma the self that is not so much his own as given to him from God.
epi tō theō tō sōtēri mou ‘in God my saviour’; epi followed by dative denotes here God as the origin of the rejoicing.
sōtēr (also 2.11) lit. ‘he who saves’ (from sōzō ‘to save’), here of God, and therefore, in accordance with Old Testament usage, less a title than an agent noun.
Translation:
Languages differ in the entities regarded as centre of emotions, and in any one language not all emotions are associated with the same centre. For some renderings used see on v. 47. In several cases it is better to use a simple reference to the first person, cf. ‘Great my praising the Lord’ (Tboli), or to say something like, ‘I … in my soul’ (Kituba), ‘I … with (all) my heart.’
Magnifies is often rendered by a declarative verbal derivation of ‘great/high/excellent,’ such as ‘tells-about-the-greatness-of’ (Navajo, Apache), ‘considers … great/noble’ (Marathi). Other possible renderings are, ‘honours’ (Kituba), ‘glorifies’ (Malay, the same term as renders Gr. doxazō, e.g. in 5.25).
(V. 47) My spirit. The variation of the pair “soul”—“spirit” has primarily stylistic function here, forming an important feature of the parallelistic verse structure. One should, therefore, preferably use two synonymous terms for a person’s emotional centre, cf. e.g. the following renderings of the pair, “heart” – “spirit” (An American Translation, similarly Kituba), “heart” – “soul” (Good News Translation, similarly Tae’ 1933), ‘soul’ – ‘insides’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘that-which-stands-within’ – ‘the spirit-(lit. air)-which-stands-within’ (Navajo), ‘heart’ – ‘that-which-stands-within’ (Apache), ‘breath/wind-of-life’ – ‘spirit’ (Kannada, Telugu). In some languages, however, it proves impossible to differentiate.
Rejoices in God my Saviour. The preposition “in” rendered literally, may easily be misunderstood; the relationship is better expressed by ‘over,’ ‘because of,’ or by shifting to a construction like, ‘God my Saviour gives me joy (or, makes me glad).’ God my Saviour, or, ‘God who saves me.’ The agent noun occurs also in 2.11. The verb ‘to save’ (also occurring in 1.71; 6.9; 7.50; 8.12; 9.24; 13.23; 18.26; 19.10; 23.35, 37, 39; and cf. “salvation” in 1.69, 77; 2.30; 3.6; 19.9) basically means ‘to preserve or deliver from harm,’ such as danger, illness, death. Especially in the perfective and passive forms the focus may shift from the process to its positive result, a state of safety and well-being. In figurative extension of meaning the verb is used to indicate the preservation from (the cause of) eternal death, or positively, the grant of eternal life and the ensuing blessedness. Used in this meaning the explicit or implicit agent is God, Jesus, or faith (in God or Jesus). The receptor language rarely has one term covering the various meanings discussed. In some languages there is a danger that ‘God’ (here) and ‘Lord’ (v. 46) are understood as referring to two different entities; hence in Tboli one has to render the clause by, ‘my breath/spirit is-happy in his (i.e. the Lord’s) causing-to-have-life me.’
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
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