The Greek (originally quotes from the Hebrew in Isaiah) that is translated as “(make ready the way of the Lord,) make His paths straight” or something similar in English is translated in Sa’a as “You, tidy up well the paths that are dirty.” Carl Gross reports: “The Sa’a people have a practice which beautifully captures the idea expressed in the Isaianic quote. One line of this was rendered ‘You, tidy up well the paths that are dirty.’ This may conjure up the idea of an anti-litter campaign, but assurances were given that, before a feast when other villages would come to visit, or when an important person was about to come, the whole village would go out and tidy up the road, removing stones, branches, and other obstacles, as well as litter. It is a road maintenance exercise, as well as a way of welcoming honored visitors.” (Source: Carl Gross)
In Chol it says “Make straight the way of the Lord: Go, clean up the path of our Lord” (source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125), in Teutila Cuicatec “prepare your hearts; straighten out your thoughts, so that you will be ready to receive our Lord,” in Michoacán Nahuatl “prepare your hearts for our Lord as you would prepare a road for a person you would honor” and in Highland Oaxaca Chontal “when a great man arrives you sweep the road; you make it nice. Well, our master will arrive. For this reason make your minds good” (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.).
The Greek that is translated in English as “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” is translated in Una as Ni uram erbinkwandanyi bira ninyi kun kum ai aryi kurandiryi, uram dobkwande: “As for this person who will speak my words, while he will be in a place where people usually do not live, he will shout words.” (Source: Kroneman 2004, p. 408)
In Isthmus Mixe this is translated as “the messenger will cry out in the wilderness.” (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
Yakan: “the lonely place” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “a land where no people lived” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “the place with no inhabitants” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Note that in Luke 15:4, usually a term is used that denotes pastoral land, such as “eating/grazing-place” in Tagbanwa (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation).
Now I am going to tell you the good news about Jesus, the Son of God. God chose Him to come from Heaven to us.
A long time ago there was a man called Isaiah. He was a prophet and had a relationship with God. Everything that God spoke to him, Isaiah wrote down. Isaiah said that in the future in a wilderness land God would choose a man and that man would be a messenger. That man will call all people to be ready to meet God. He would call all people to prepare their heart. That’s the way it was written down.
Many, many years have passed and it has definitely come true.
In Israel, in the wilderness, near the Jordan River, there walked a man, a messenger, named John. He dressed in a camel skin garment covered with fur and wore a leather belt. He would take locusts and honey and eat them. He went all over Judea. People came to him from different places, and many people from the city of Jerusalem came to him. John called to them and said to them many times:
— You are sinners! You are doing evil deeds! Change yourselves! Stop committing sins and evil deeds! Become one with God! Repent of your sins and evil deeds, dip yourself in this water, and then God will forgive your sins and bad deeds.
People listened, thinking:
— We are sinful, but God will forgive our sins.
And many people came to him, dipped in the water and repented.
John said to everyone:
— There is a man, he is coming very soon. He is much greater than I am and much more powerful. I am insignificant compared to him, I am lower than him. I am dipping you in water, but He is different. Only He will cleanse your hearts forever with the Holy Spirit.
Original Russian back-translation (click or tap here):
Сейчас я расскажу хорошую новость об Иисусе, сыне Божьем. Бог избрал Его, чтобы Он пришел с небес к нам.
Давно-давно был один человек по имени Исайя. Он был пророк и имел связь с Богом. Все, что Бог говорил ему, Исайя записывал. Исайя говорил, что в будущем на земле пустынной Бог изберет человека и тот человек будет вестником. Этот человек будет призывать всех людей, чтобы они были готовы к встрече с Богом. Он будет призывать всех людей, чтобы они приготовили свое сердце. Так было записано.
Прошло много-много лет, и все точно сбылось.
В Израиле, в пустыне, рядом с рекой Иордан, ходил человек, вестник, по имени Иоанн. Он одевался в одежду из кожи верблюда, покрытой шерстью, и надевал кожаный пояс. Он брал саранчу и мед и ел их. Он ходил по всей Иудее. Из разных мест приходили к нему люди, и множество людей из города Иерусалима приходили к нему. Иоанн призывал их и много раз говорил им:
— Вы грешники! Вы совершаете злые дела! Изменитесь! Перестаньте совершать грехи и злые дела! Соединитесь с Богом! Покайтесь в грехах и злых делах, погрузитесь в эту воду, и тогда Бог простит вам ваши грехи и плохие дела.
Люди слушали, думали:
— Мы грешные, но Бог простит наши грехи.
И многие люди приходили к нему, окунались в воду и каялись.
Иоанн всем говорил:
— Есть человек, он очень скоро придет. Он гораздо выше меня и гораздо могущественнее. Я незначителен по сравнению с ним, я ниже Его. Я окунаю вас в воду, но Он совсем другой. Только Он Святым Духом навсегда очистит ваши сердца.
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 1:3:
Uma: “‘He calls in the wilderness [lit., empty field], he says: ‘The Lord is almost come! Prepare ahead-of-time for him his road. Make-flat ahead-of-time the road that he will pass on.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “There is a person calling in the lonely place (wilderness). This is what he says: ‘Soon the Lord/Leader will come/arrive. Make the way smooth where he will pass! Make the way straight which he will follow!'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “He will be in the land where people do not live. And there he will be heard by people who come out to meet him; he will say, ‘The Lord will soon arrive. Clear out the way he will go; straighten out the path he will walk on, which is to say get ready for his coming.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “He will shout/speak-in-a-loud-voice in the place that has no inhabitants saying, ‘Prepare where-the Lord who is coming -will-walk so that the path he-will-walk-on will be good.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “‘There is one calling out in the wilderness (lit. place where-one-could-starve), saying, ‘You (pl.) make a trail for the Lord/Chief. Make-direct and improve/make-properly this which he will walk on.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Shipibo-Conibo: “This is the word of one calling where no house is: Arrange Owner God’s [Lord’s] path for him. Straighten his little paths.” (Source: James Lauriault in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 32ff. )
Balinese: “there is the voice of a man crying in the
barren field thus: ‘Open up a way where the Lord will go, make straight his paths,'” (Source: J.L. Swellengrebel in The Bible Translator 1950 p. 75ff. )
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff.) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal ta (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential ta (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff.)
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible, but most translations, especially those published in the 21st century, do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
See also this chapter in the World Atlas of Language Structures on different approaches to personal pronouns.
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).
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight
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.”
The quotation from Isa. 40.3, does not reproduce the Hebrew text word for word.
Exegesis:
phōnē boōntos ‘(the) voice of one shouting.’ There is no article before phōnē ‘voice’: the participle boōntos ‘shouting,’ however, makes ‘voice’ definite. The sense, however, can be expressed in English by the absence of any article, definite or indefinite: ‘Voice of one who shouts….’
boaō (15.34) ‘cry aloud,’ ‘shout.’ The present participle here could be masculine or neuter; the context clearly shows it to be masculine, i.e. ‘someone (is) shouting,’ ‘someone is calling in the desert!’ The Revised Standard Versioncrying should not be understood in the sense of ‘weeping.’
en tē erēmō ‘in the desert’: this clause is connected in the Septuagint with the preceding phrase, although the Hebrew text connects it to the following verb ‘prepare.’ If necessary, a complete sentence may be constructed: ‘It is the voice of one who in the wilderness shouts….’
erēmos (1.4, 12, 13, 35, 45; 6.31, 32, 35) ‘wilderness,’ ‘wild country.’ The word does not necessarily stand for an arid desert, such as exists in Africa or Asia: it means an uninhabited territory, ‘wild open country’ (Grant), in contrast with the cultivated and inhabited sections of the land: cf. American “Bad Lands.”
hetoimasate (10.40; 14.12, 15, 16; 15.1) ‘prepare,’ ‘keep in readiness.’ Moulton & Milligan give examples of the word used almost as a technical term for preparations in view of an approaching visit. The aorist imperative of the verb carries overtones of urgency: ‘Prepare now!’ The plural shows that the order is directed not to an individual but to a group, to the people or nation to whom the Lord is about to come.
tēn hodon kuriou ‘the road of the Lord,’ i.e. ‘the road over which the Lord shall come.’
kurios ‘Lord’: the word appears 18 times in Mark, with the following meanings: (1) ‘the Lord’ meaning ‘God’ in 5.19; 13.20 and in the quotations from the O.T. in 11.9; 12.11; 12.29-30 and 12.36-37 (in the last passage there are two different “Lords,” one of whom is God and the other the Messiah – cf. Exegesis of the passage); (2) ‘master,’ ‘owner’ in 2.28; 11.3; 12.9; 13.35; (3) in the vocative, ‘sir’ in 7.28; and (4) ‘the Lord’ referring to Jesus in 16.19-20. In the present instance, in the original O.T. passage ‘the Lord’ refers, of course, to Yahweh: here in Mark, however, the term probably refers to (the Lord) Jesus (cf. Lagrange who points out that in the next clause the Septuagint ‘of our God’ has been substituted, in Mark, by ‘his’ – i.e. the Lord’s; Black: “The Lord is Jesus, announced as Christ, the Son of God, and it is His paths that John the Forerunner summons men to make straight”).
eutheias poieite tas tribous autou ‘make ye his paths straight.’
eutheias ‘straight’: the thought is not simply that of eliminating curves, but of doing everything necessary to make travel easy and rapid (cf. Lk. 3.4-5 where the quotation from Isaiah is continued). Cf. Le Nouveau Testament. Version Synodaleaplanissez.
tribos (only here in Mark) ‘a beaten track,’ ‘path’: from the verb tribō ‘to beat.’
Translation:
Perhaps the most difficult problem in this verse is the use of the expression ‘voice of one crying …’ introducing direct discourse. In most languages it is quite easy to say, ‘a man cries out with his voice…’ (note this is the ‘crying out’ of shouting, not the ‘crying’ of weeping), but to say that ‘a voice cries out…’ may involve complications for the reader. Where, of course, one can reproduce the Semitic expression intact, one should do so; if not, one may employ a kind of indirect equivalent ‘there is the voice of a man crying in…’ (Balinese) or ‘he is the person whose voice is rising in…’ (Kpelle); ‘the voice of a man (someone), who cries’ (Toraja-Sa’dan, Pamona, Indonesian).
The wilderness was essentially an uninhabited place. It is also true that it was lacking in vegetation, but this was a secondary feature and in many instances must not be introduced if one is to make sense. For example, if in some languages spoken in tropical areas of the world one translates ‘a place without vegetation,’ almost the only meaning it can have is ‘a recently prepared field’ or ‘the open space in the middle of the village.’ In Shipibo-Conibo the equivalent of wilderness is ‘where no house is,’ in Bandi the term is literally ‘grasslands’ (no one lives there), in Indonesian ‘the uninhabited land in between the inhabited areas,’ and in Kpelle it is ‘rocky region.’ One must, however, be sure not to introduce some contradictory term at this point. For example, one can often use ‘where no one is’ (or ‘exists’) as an equivalent of wilderness (Mark 1.12), but in this verse ‘to shout where there was no one’ would not make much sense.
In Greek the terms translated ‘prepare’ in verses 2 and 3 are different, but the meaning is essentially the same: ‘to make ready,’ ‘fix up’ (not ‘to construct a new road’).
The expression way of the Lord involves a subtle ambiguity, for if translated literally into some languages, e.g. Pohnpeian, it would mean ‘the path on his land,’ obviously not what the prophet was talking about. This must be the ‘path which the Lord is to use’ or ‘the way for the Lord.’
Though Lord in the O.T. source of this verse refers to Jehovah (Yahweh), it is necessary here to use a term which identifies the Lord Jesus Christ. N.T. translations should preserve a calculated ambiguity at this point, for this was precisely what the N.T. writers did.
There are few terms more difficult to render adequately than Lord. The Greek term kurios had a range of meaning in secular usage all the way from a title for the emperor to a polite ‘sir,’ used in speaking to one of higher social rank. In the Septuagint kurios translates Hebrew Adonai and Yahweh, and this same usage comes into the N.T., with additional specific application of kurios to Jesus Christ. In translating into another language it is generally quite impossible to find an exact equivalent for this entire range of meaning. 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.’ There are certain inherent dangers in either of these types of terms. In the first place, a word which is primarily a title for a highly prestigeful person will deprive the Scriptures of the emphasis on a man’s immediate loyalty to and dependence upon a ‘master’ or ‘chief’; and as a result the ‘Lord’ will imply a distant, impersonal relationship. On the other hand, a word which denotes essentially a ‘boss’ or ‘chief’ may have connotations of resistance and disfavor. On the whole, however, 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. If, however, a word of the first category is employed, it is sometimes impossible to teach the personal relationship, for the cultural overtones of the word place too much distance between the ‘lord’ and the people. The following terms, as indicated in the literal translations (and explanations where necessary) indicate certain of the major types of solutions to this problem of finding an adequate term for Lord: ‘the one who has charge’ (Navajo), ‘person-owner,’ a term which may be applied to a chief (Kpelle), ‘the one who commands’ (Guerrero Amuzgo), ‘the big one,’ used commonly of one in authority (Piro), ‘the one who has the head’ in other words, ‘the leader’ (More), ‘chief’ (Uduk), ‘the one who owns us’ (or ‘commands us’) (Central Pame), and ‘the great one over all’ (San Blas Kuna).
One additional problem is involved in the choice of a term for Lord, namely the fact that in many languages it is always possessed. That is to say, a person who is a chief or leader is always related to a particular group, and hence in speaking of such an individual, the grammatical structure requires that one specify whether this person is ‘our chief,’ ‘their chief,’ ‘his chief,’ etc. In this particular context one would need to use ‘our chief’ (inclusive, if the inclusive-exclusive contrast should exist in the language) but in each context the appropriate form would need to be selected.
Note: Many languages possess for the first person plural two forms: (1) the inclusive ‘we’ meaning the speaker and those spoken to, and (2) the exclusive ‘we’ identifying only the speaker and certain others, but specifically excluding the audience. Failure to recognize these problems adequately has led to numerous serious mistakes in translating (see Bible Translating, p. 256).
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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