Choosing your Words
Getting it write?
What does warm-hearted mean to you?
Most of us would say a warm-hearted person is kind, while a cold-hearted person is lacking in compassion. To us, these meanings are obvious, but unfortunately these expressions don’t necessarily mean the same thing in other languages. To a language community in Mali, for instance, describing a person as hot-hearted means he or she is likely to get angry easily, while having a cold heart means to be at peace.
Choosing your Words
Forgiveness was new to us, but not to our language
In Bible translation, it’s not always obvious how something should be expressed in the local language.
Sometimes the word you need doesn’t exist. The local language may, for instance, have seven different words for potato, but no word for glory. So, what to do? Sometimes you can expand the meaning of a word that’s already part of the language, sometimes you need to introduce a new word, and at other times God has something else in mind and it’s been right under everyone’s nose all along.
New formats for old cultures
Camilla Lloyd reflects on getting the Bible across in the world of the 21st century
‘We went to church for many years, but it wasn’t until we saw the Jesus Film in our own language that we understood that Jesus died for our sins.
