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This article explores the practice of hand colouring illustrated Luther Bibles in the sixteenth century. It is based on analysis from over 120 copies of various editions of Luther's translation of the Bible. The most well‐known examples are Hans Lufft's editions printed on parchment in 1541 and 1560, illuminated by Lucas Cranach the Younger. However, these copies represent only the very top of the market; the research presented in this article demonstrates that hand colouring was a widespread practice that began with the very first edition of Luther's New Testament in 1522, and continued throughout the sixteenth century and beyond, across the German‐speaking lands, in all formats, and for all levels of the market. This article argues that the hand colouring served an aesthetic purpose, making the complex illustrations more vivacious and legible for the viewer. The colouring also transformed a mass‐produced object into a unique work of art that reflected its spiritual significance, an understudied feature of Lutheran material culture, and one which transcended confessional divides in sixteenth‐century Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Wittgenstein's theory of ordinary language use and Lamin Sanneh's insights into the effects of biblical translations in vernacular languages, this essay examines how the translation process in Niu Tireni (New Zealand/Aotearoa) in the 1830s contextualized or indigenized Christian concepts of the sacred/holy (tapu), the price (utu) paid by Christ for the sin of the world, and God's forgiveness (muru) due to that sacrifice (utu). Through translation, therefore, Christian scripture was changed, or acquired new cultural referents. On the Māori side of the translation process, the result of reapplying fundamental Māori concepts to Christian narratives and theological categories was to re-map the Māori mental universe—so that it, also, was not the same as it was before the translation came into being. Through translating the scriptures into the indigenous tongue, they had become a Māori (native/indigenous) possession. In so doing, however, the original cultural framework had flexed towards—if not become drastically reformed by—a biblical understanding of sacred and redemptive time and the actions of a Supreme Creator/Te Atua acting within human history but neither identical with that history nor with creation itself. Nevertheless, we are also presented with a picture of intersecting but not always corresponding meanings as the result of cross-cultural translation—with creative misunderstandings or an epistemic "middle ground" (following Richard White) of multiple meanings being one of the inevitable results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there has been a plethora of research on formulaic language in contemporary English, conducted with various purposes in mind (descriptive, applied and otherwise), studies of formulaic phrasings in Old English texts are rare. In this paper, we employ selected corpus linguistic methods to identify and explore the use and discoursal functions of recurrent multi-word items that contribute the most to the formulaicity of homilies, chronicles and biblical translations, which are the Old English text types under scrutiny. The findings of this primarily descriptive and exploratory research provide new insights into the pragmatic functions of Old English recurrent phraseological units as well as into the structure and communicative functions of the analysed text varieties. Finally, the results of the study cast some new light on the role those formulaic phrasings play in Old English prose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the publication of the Strasbourg Cantiones in 1539, a collection of Latin-texted sacred motets. The author, Daniel Trocmé-Latter, explores the historical and religious context of Strasbourg during the Protestant Reformation, highlighting the city's radical ecclesiastical changes and the role of music in public worship. Trocmé-Latter also examines the life and career of Peter Schöffer, the printer of the Cantiones, and speculates on the motivations behind the publication. The article concludes by praising Trocmé-Latter's comprehensive study and its contribution to the understanding of early motet anthologies. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, I focus on the puzzling ending of the apostolic letter in Acts 15 in which the addressees are told that if they hold to four "essential" prohibitions, they will "do well" (εὖ πράξετε, v. 29). The question as to how, exactly, can destabilise some understandings of the decree, with alternative translations creating different problems, and particularly so where theological commitments are at play. Following Danker's call for greater attention to this phrase, I undertake a fresh, stratified survey of Greek usage across corpora ranging from the arguably less to the more proximate and bring this into dialogue with the senses given in various literary and social approaches to the decree involving epistolary rhetoric, reciprocity theory, and intertextuality. This reveals how purely linguistic data can stand in tension with compositional arguments in different ways and require a more complex arbitration between possibility, likelihood and coherence when both lexical- and discourse-level constraints are applied. Whilst not solving the problem of the decree outright, observing the impacts of different readings of εὖ πράξετε on the delicate balances involved presses some oblique but productive questions into the interpretive task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the use of two prepositions, "lema'an" and "lean," in the book of Ezekiel. The author analyzes specific verses that contain parallel phrases using these prepositions and investigates why the author chose to use different prepositions in similar phrases. The article suggests that the author's use of different prepositions may be for stylistic purposes and to reflect the impending destruction of the country. The author provides analysis and proposes possible explanations for the use of these prepositions in different contexts. [Extracted from the article]

The author's journey begins with a deep immersion in his traditional Protestant faith, where he was taught to thoroughly know both the Old and the New Testament. As he reflects on his faith, the concept of being a "stranger and sojourner" comes to the forefront, highlighting the feeling of alienation within the secular world. The narrative takes an interesting turn when the author discusses the impact of changing political language on his perspective. The introduction of new political ideas and discourse challenges the previously straightforward worldview, leading to a sense of uncertainty in decision-making. Believers find themselves in a world with a multiplicity of perspectives that require a re-evaluation of what it means to "deny" or to make choices. In a changing social and political context, the narrative continually explores the intricate connection between faith and language. The author's experiences and reflections provide a compelling insight into the complexities of navigating a shifting spiritual landscape while grappling with the ever-evolving meaning of words and beliefs. The second half of the article presents the results of a computer analysis of the vocabulary of two Bible translations that defined the language usage of the Reformed Church in the second half of the 20th century: the 1908 Károli and the 1975 New Translation. The analysis focuses on words that present difficulties in understanding due to their archaic or religious nature. As a point of comparison, it also showcases the vocabulary of the Gospel of John, where a mere 199 word roots constitute 80% of word occurrences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of this study, A statistical test of Biblical books was conducted using the recently discovered probability models for text homogeneity and text change point detection. Accordingly, translations of Biblical books of Tigrigna and Amharic (major languages spoken in Eritrea and Ethiopia) and English were studied. A Zipf-Mandelbrot distribution with a parameter range of 0.55 to 0.88 was obtained in these three Bibles. According to the statistical analysis of the texts' homogeneity, the translation of Bible in each of these three languages was a heterogeneous concatenation of different books or genres. Furthermore, an in-depth examination of the text segmentation of prat of a single genre—the English Bible letters revealed that the Pauline letters are heterogeneous concatenations of two homogeneous segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2023 Bible Society New Zealand's translation of sample biblical passages into the Māori language, He Tīmatanga, caused controversy by incorporating names of Māori gods. Those who objected typically assumed inconsistency with the Bible's purported monotheism. But 'monotheism', in the sense that only one god exists, is not present in the Bible. Moreover, missionary adherence to monotheism in the mid-nineteenth century widely assumed a 'degeneration model' that also promoted European religious, moral, and cultural superiority. This article adopts a hermeneutical strategy to counter monotheistic misreadings of the Bible, and their racist effects, by reading Māori stories of the ancient divine hero Tāwhaki alongside the ancient divine heroes who feature in Gen 6:1–4's account of the Nephilim. First, the comparison provides resources for the translation of Gen 6:1–4 into the Māori language and worldview. Second, the Tāwhaki narratives stimulate a reappraisal of longstanding problems in the interpretation of Gen 6:1–4, especially the meaning of the phrase "the sons of the gods". Supported by analysis also of the Sumerian King List, this article argues that all three major interpretations of "the sons of the gods" are fundamentally consistent: they are gods, elite human rulers, and also Sethites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a scholarly overview of the historical translations and reviews of the Bible from Greek sources. It lists the historical ancient manuscript translations that have become widely accepted canonical models, known as the “Biblical canon” in the translations of the Holy Scriptures. The tradition of these translations is with extremely wide boundaries in chronological and linguistic terms is of interest for understanding the origin and semantics of the modern Synodal translation of the Bible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ludwig Adzaklo was a significant figure in the religious and educational history of former German Togoland (present-day Togo and southeastern Ghana). He played a crucial role as an Ewe Bible translator, contributing to the production of the first full Ewe Bible in 1914. Adzaklo also served as a teacher, catechist, and social activist. While his career reached a high point when he became the first African principal of the teacher seminary in Amedzofe, it took a downturn when he was dismissed as principal due to financial dishonesty. Despite this setback, Adzaklo's contributions cannot be overlooked, and he deserves recognition for his work. [Extracted from the article]

This pedagogical study seeks to address the practical problem of communication in English when composing or providing theological literature for non-first-language readers. This includes materials on important biblical topics, current teaching resources, or Bible translations to be used as a source text. This article identifies some major problem areas that have been identified for composing theological works. It also proposes some strategies for using translational English to deal with them. A translational English text is an original or re-composed text that is not only more understandable in English but also more readily rendered in a non-Western language (e.g., Chichewa). At the end of the article, the reader has a chance to apply these principles and procedures. They are supplied with a short sample text from a recent popular missiological book, intended for translation in Malawi, to critique. The aim is to foster a frank discussion of these issues and to encourage concerted efforts either to develop new or to seek out existing literature that will communicate more effectively—that is, with greater ease and overall comprehension, whether orally or in writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mother Earth is home to an unprecedented number of translations of the Bible, making it the most widely translated book in the world. The pages of this book have traversed a variety of physical and metaphorical borders, navigating diverse geographical, political, economic, cultural, linguistic, and religious intersections. Across space, time, and cultures, millions of readers have found various reasons to read it through diverse lenses. The Bible was frequently translated and brought to the colonized territories with colonial movements. Regrettably, it was often utilized as a tool for subjugation and dominance. However, the colonized people also used this resource for their own goals. Do contemporary biblical studies have the courage to look upon the tomes and tons of translated Bibles lying upon the surface of Mother Earth? What responsibilities and opportunities does the Global Translated Bible(s) lay upon academic biblical studies? What research questions, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration does it open? What are the pedagogical obligations and implications of acknowledging the Global Translated Bible(s)? In other words, what does faithfulness and unfaithfulness to the translated biblical corpus entail, imply, and demand? This lecture proposes and emphasizes the imperative of mainstreaming the Global Translated Bible(s) into academic biblical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Africanisation of Christianity in Africa is closely linked to the availability of the Bible in African mother tongues. However, mission-led Bible translation in Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not solely the work of European missionary linguists. Africans, such as Ludwig Adzaklo of the Bremen Mission, played essential roles in this process. Nevertheless, African translators like him were considered as mere Sprachgehilfe (language assistants) to the missionaries and not as co-translators. After a postcolonial analysis of archival data on the translation of the Old Testament into Ewe by Ludwig Adzaklo and Jakob Spieth, this study argues that Adzaklo was not just Spieth's Sprachgehilfe but a co-translator on the project. Being referred to as Spieth's Sprachgehilfe was a colonial-missionary label that denied Adzaklo's agency in mission-led Bible translation in Africa. Therefore, the study suggests that Adzaklo should be viewed as an early Ewe mother-tongue Bible translator in the history of West African Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding the considerable attention that Chinese Bible translations have attracted, some important theological issues have been ignored for a long time, one of which is anthropology. The present article focuses on the Chinese rendering of terms in this category. From the attempts in the first three Catholic versions, the Western theory of soul introduced by Matteo Ricci began to influence the connotation of ling 靈 in Chinese biblical texts, though anima and spiritus had not been distinguished or the translations were still obscure in these renditions. Robert Morrison's version, though heavily dependent on Jean Basset's translation, was also indebted to Emmanuel Diaz and Louis A. de Poirot in its dichotomous anthropology, developing a ling–rou 靈–肉 (lit. spirit–flesh) dichotomous discourse with his conceptualization of ling 靈. Initiated by the "second generation" of Protestant Bible translators, the renderings of pneuma/ruach and sarx/basar took the indigenized approach that culminated in the Delegates' Version of the Bible. With the assistance of some Chinese scholars in completing this version, Medhurst launched a dialogue between Christian anthropology and Chinese traditional outlooks of human beings by emphasizing the concepts of shen 身 and xin 心, which had long-lasting popularity in later versions of the Chinese Bible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In establishing the Christian faith on African soil, the first missionaries to Africa came along with the Bible. They were determined to share the word of God with the indigenous Africans. This was undertaken effectively; however, it came at a cost. In an attempt to produce translated versions of the Bible for the natives, they ended up producing translations, some of which did not reflect the thoughts of the indigenous people. This has called for an enterprise whereby these texts need to be retranslated and interpreted to reflect the thoughts of the indigenous people. Mother-tongue biblical hermeneutics in Ghana has been advantageous to this enterprise since it seeks to remedy the situation by examining the mother-tongue translations and making proposals for retranslations and interpretation. This has attracted some scholars to come up with a methodology and approaches that would be appropriate in this direction. This paper seeks to assess and evaluate the use of the mother-tongue interpretation, as well as its methodology and approaches in Ghana in the light of African biblical hermeneutics. Though this enterprise is recommendable to African exegetes, it is a special area of biblical studies in search of a standard methodological approach. The paper calls for much attention to how the mother-tongue interpretation could bring the meaning of the text closer to the culture of the Ghanaian reader—however, not at the expense of neglecting the cultural milieu of the original author in which the text was couched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates how Sesotho translators have translated Biblical Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 Sesotho translation of the Bible. Because this 1989 translation is undergoing revision by the Bible Society of South Africa, it is important to determine the success of the translation. The orality of proverbs relates to their origin as orally transmitted sapiential sayings. In evaluating how some of the Biblical Hebrew proverbs are translated in Sesotho, the literal translation of 1909/61 will be compared to the 1989 dynamic equivalent translation. Using complexity thinking as a theoretical framework, the paper argues that the Hebrew proverbs are better translated in the 1989 version than they are in the 1909/61 version of the Bible in Sesotho in terms of numerous features of orality. In the 1989 version and its revision, proverbs are translated in a poetic format. This means that the translated proverbs in this version of the Bible, informed by the principles of orality, exhibit Sesotho poetic features or structures. The article is divided into the following components: proverbs in Hebrew and Sesotho, theoretical frameworks, how the theoretical frameworks are used to translate certain Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 version, and conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study has selected Codex Sinaiticus and Mark 1:1 as a test case to propose a new way for Greek New Testament editions and translations to present textual uncertainties in manuscripts. The article suggests that editors and translators use a partial cancellation type of erasure in a continuous line over problematic text. This method draws inspiration from a technique used by Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida known as sous rature (under erasure). This form of limited cancellation aims to expel indifference and elicit a visceral reaction in the reader. The technique also has a philosophical and theological aim, namely, to work within Heidegger's view of truth as a process of hiding and revealing. Finally, the limited cancellation, which both conceals and shows, fits with the theme of "messianic secret" in Mark's Gospel, wherein Jesus both reveals and hides his identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines a new etymology that has recently been proposed for Arm. gerezman and Caucasian "Albanian" garazman , both meaning 'grave, tomb', and the relationship of the latter to modern Udi gärämzä 'id.'. It shows that the peculiar shape of the Udi word can only be explained on the basis of a morphological restructuring that involved the genitive suffix - in -. Concerning the proposed etymology of gerezman and garazman , which builds upon an Iranian ("Median") phrase * gṛ δ a- zmani - 'house of clay', it refutes the hypothesis of a "mirroring effect" influencing vowels in the neighbourhood of r in Albanian and points out further problems in the assumed developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George Henry Borrow became well known in Victorian England as a novelist and travel writer. He wrote a brilliant description of the five years he spent working in Spain for the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), The Bible in Spain (1843). It became a best-seller. This article examines Borrow’s multi-faceted work in St Petersburg — before his time in Spain — in which he was engaged in the translation of the New Testament into the Manchu language. This article also brings out Borrow’s Christian faith, an aspect which has been ignored or misrepresented in much of the literature about him. In 1911, it was reported that a bundle of letters by Borrow had been discovered — ‘a great literary treasure’. Here, his letters from St Petersburg, held in the Cambridge University Library, are used as the main primary source material to enable a picture of Borrow and his endeavours to be painted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Journal of European Baptist Studies (JEBS) is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the International Baptist Theological Study Centre (IBTS) with its latest volume. The IBTS, previously known as the Seminary, was founded in 1949 and has since transformed its focus to supporting research at the doctoral level. JEBS reflects IBTS's research interests and theological exploration, covering topics such as Baptist identity, contextual missiology, practical theology, biblical studies, and historical research. The current issue includes articles on the role of the Bible in Baptist thinking, theological authority, the life and ministry of George Henry Borrow, racism in British Baptist churches, relief efforts in Ukraine, mission and ministry among the Bulgarian Roma, and faith-based peace building in Nigeria and Sierra Leone. JEBS serves as a platform for scholars to communicate and raise awareness of belonging to a wider academic community. [Extracted from the article]

The Bible translated into South Africa's indigenous languages has a colonial history. For the Vhavenḓa people, the 1936 and 1998 Bible translations are revered as icons that hold a privileged position. However, this paper argues that these two translations should be seen as colonial language tools that do not serve the culture of the Vhavenḓa people. Instead, they can be viewed as weapons against them. These translations distorted the Tshivenḓa language by imposing distorted and foreign concepts of God, thereby rendering the Vhavenḓa people to have been without knowledge of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Habermas's translation proviso, which requires religious concepts to be translated into secular language when in the public sphere. Translation, for Habermas, protects the state from religious interference and elicits essential aspects of pre-rational thought—that is, religious and metaphysical thought, which post-metaphysics cannot generate for itself, e.g., social solidarity. The task undertaken by Habermas's translation proviso is illustrated through his own work of translation: that of the translation of the biblical image of humanity as created in the image of God into the identical dignity of each human being. To provide context to and to highlight the difficulties involved in Habermas's translation proviso, consideration is given to the thought of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI and Alasdair MacIntyre on these themes. What is demonstrated is that Habermas's translation is, in essence, assimilation and re-appropriation. In practice, it manifests itself as the truncation of Christian metaphysics, in which the divine Logos is replaced by or collapsed into the logos of intersubjective human language. The relational image of humanity as a creature distinct from the Creator, in which human reason is analogous to divine reason, is erased, leaving autonomous human beings, from which human reason emerges out of the discursive communication of the logos of intersubjective human language. The conclusion is that the translation proviso fails in its objective. An alternative to Habermas's translation proviso, the presupposition proviso, is presented as a more apt approach to addressing the underlying issues involved: facilitating human flourishing in an orderly, free, and just society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turkbilig/Turkoloji Arastirmalari Dergisi is the property of Turkbilig/Turkoloji Arastirmalari Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista CS is the property of Rafael Silva Vega and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper proposes an insight into some philological issues that have concerned editors and translators of the Bible over time. After a survey of Samuil Micu‟s approaches to textual criticism, which are well-known in Romanian philology, we briefly present some phenomena that influenced the development of biblical philology in the 17th century, with the aim of highlighting their impact on later editions of the Septuagint. One of the main sources of Samuil Micu‟s translation, Lambert Bos‟s Septuagint (1709), was critically evaluated by some European scholars. We will show, through a comparative analysis, how some of these objections were dealt with in Samuil Micu‟s translation of the Blaj Bible (1795), addressing the dialogue between two traditions: the Romanian translation tradition and that of the major editions of the Septuagint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filologija is the property of Croatian Academy of Sciences & Arts (HAZU) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Language is a tool for communication in concrete use and there are several thousand languages; hence, approaches that are both corpus-linguistically and typologically informed must play an important role in linguistics. This is demonstrated in an investigation of the generally expressed meaning (GEM) 'only', considered here in translations of the New Testament. It is shown that restrictives are universal (are attested in all 121 languages of a stratified sample from 121 language families and isolates), that the generally expressed meaning (GEM) 'only' differs considerably from the parochially expressed meaning (PEM) of English only, that restriction plays an important role in discourse and that the use of restrictives exhibits hemispheric differences with the Pacific and the Afro-Eurasian linguistic hemispheres reflecting partly different usage patterns. It is argued that these differences are deeply rooted in discourse (parole) rather than grammar and lexicon (langue) and are so common in discourse that they percolate to written Bible translations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides a summary of a book review on "Indirect Translation Explained" by Pięta, Maia, and Torres-Simón. The book explores the concept of indirect translation, covering various domains such as news translation, interpreting, and audiovisual translation. It offers practical exercises, tips, and solutions for learners and is recommended for translator trainers, trainees, scholars, and researchers. The review highlights specific chapters on relay interpreting, scientific and technical translation, and localization of websites, video games, and software programs. It concludes that indirect translation will become more relevant in the future and calls for interdisciplinary research in this area. [Extracted from the article]

The article traces the problem of emergence of the Arabic written translations of biblical texts. There is a generally accepted idea about the period of formation of Islam (i.e., the early 7th century) as the starting point after which the first written Arabic translations of biblical texts might have appeared. Accordingly, the oldest written Arabic translations of biblical texts date back to the 8th century, although a generally accepted translation of the Bible among Arabs did not exist even in the 10th century. The traditional approach to the date of the first written Arabic translations of biblical texts is based on the belief that before the emergence of Islam Arabs had a developed oral tradition of storytelling, and thus the ideas of Christianity and biblical texts could have circulated orally in Arabic. Therefore, this approach suggests that the oral storytelling was the source for the numerous Christian reminiscences in the Qur'an, such as references to events or figures of the Gospels (e.g., St. Mary and the Annunciation, Jesus and his miracles), as well as for inaccurate quotations from the Torah and the Psalms. On the other hand, the traditional Islam recognizes such reminiscences as confirmation of the divinity of the Qur'an as a revelation that the Prophet Muhammad - the founder of Islam - received from the same God who had sent a similar biblical revelation to Christians. At the same time, the fact that there is no real evidence of the existence of written Arabic translations of biblical texts in the pre-Islamic period serves as a basis for scientific confirmation of the traditional approach. This raises a hypothesis about the possibility of finding the above-mentioned evidence in the future. This hypothesis is based on the facts of the historical and religious context in pre-Islamic Arabia. It is believed that before the formation of Islam in Arabia, Arab missionaries played an active role in spreading the ideas of Christianity. The activities of these missionaries influenced the development of the Arabic writing, which is reflected in numerous inscriptions and graffiti. It is quite probable that the first written Arabic translations of biblical texts could have appeared within the context of the developed Christian community with the writing system. The preservation of such hypothetical translations was complicated by the turbulent history of the Arab world which affected local Christian monasteries where pre-Islamic Arabic written translations of biblical texts could have been preserved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the etymology of Slavonic loanwords found in a previously unpublished South-Western Karaim translation of the Book of Daniel copied into manuscript no. ADub.III.84. South-Western Karaims were surrounded by speakers of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian, with the linguistic contact instigating changes in Karaim over a period of several centuries. The present article focuses only on the Slavonic impact upon Karaim vocabulary and attempts to determine whether the borrowed words can be traced back to Polish, Ukrainian or Russian etymons. The loanwords are additionally compared with their counterparts in ancient Polish Bible translations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the challenges and prejudices faced by translators and the need for their work to be recognized and valued. It highlights the importance of translation in understanding different cultures and perspectives, and argues for fair compensation and recognition for translators. The article also addresses the issue of translation criticism and the need for more sophisticated reviews. It suggests that changes should be made in academia to promote translation literacy and to integrate translation into academic discourse. [Extracted from the article]

To what extent can neural network models learn generalizations about language structure, and how do we find out what they have learned? We explore these questions by training neural models for a range of natural language processing tasks on a massively multilingual dataset of Bible translations in 1,295 languages. The learned language representations are then compared to existing typological databases as well as to a novel set of quantitative syntactic and morphological features obtained through annotation projection. We conclude that some generalizations are surprisingly close to traditional features from linguistic typology, but that most of our models, as well as those of previous work, do not appear to have made linguistically meaningful generalizations. Careful attention to details in the evaluation turns out to be essential to avoid false positives. Furthermore, to encourage continued work in this field, we release several resources covering most or all of the languages in our data: (1) multiple sets of language representations, (2) multilingual word embeddings, (3) projected and predicted syntactic and morphological features, (4) software to provide linguistically sound evaluations of language representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of similarities between natural languages often relies on prior knowledge of the languages being studied. We describe three methods for building phylogenetic trees and clustering languages without the use of language-specific information. The input to our methods is a set of document vectors trained on a corpus of parallel translations of the Bible into 22 Indo-European languages, representing 4 language families: Indo-Iranian, Slavic, Germanic, and Romance. This text corpus consists of a set of 532,092 Bible verses, with 24,186 identical verses translated into each language. The methods are (A) hierarchical clustering using distance between language vector centroids, (B) hierarchical clustering using a network-derived distance measure, and (C) Deep Embedded Clustering (DEC) of language vectors. We evaluate our methods using a ground-truth tree and language families derived from said tree. All three achieve clustering F-scores above 0.9 on the Indo-Iranian and Slavic families; most confusion is between the Germanic and Romance families. The mean F-scores across all families are 0.864 (centroid clustering), 0.953 (network partitioning), and 0.763 (DEC). This shows that document vectors can be used to capture and compare linguistic features of multilingual texts, and thus could help extend language similarity and other translation studies research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the possibility that contact with Greek through the translation of biblical texts may have played a role in the development of Latin proprius 'personal', 'peculiar' into a reflexive possessive adjective. A few centuries earlier, post‐Classical Greek witnesses a similar development with the adjective ídios 'private', 'personal': we determine that in the New Testament this adjective has innovative uses as a reflexive possessive, and we argue that this is a system‐internal development triggered by the loss of the reflexive possessive forms of Classical Greek. The comparison between the Greek original and the Latin Vulgata translation of the New Testament furthermore shows that Latin proprius was used, with just one exception, as a translation equivalent of Greek ídios. We conclude that contact through translation acts as a catalyst for a change that, also in Latin, responds to the system‐internal pressure created by the loss of an unambiguous 3rd person reflexive possessive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to present one of many possible research aspects in the New Testament translations of palćensći jazić, banátsći balgarsći jazić. There is an old translation from the end of the 19th century and a new one from 1998. The historical circumstances and influences, as well as the relationship between the two translations, remain the subject of a complete separate study. Despite the reduced number of examples in the chosen field of compound word formation, the cultural distinctiveness of the Banat translations of the New Testament is demonstrated. They are not a narrowly dialectal phenomenon, but a supradialectal and linguocultural one. They have both common features and significant differences, which reflect the processes of the intra-linguistic dynamics of the written regional form of the Bulgarian language in the Banat region. They should be studied in a comparative perspective with other representatives of the New Bulgarian spoken language tradition of the Bible. The layers of the Bulgarian dialect language; the influence of Romanian, Hungarian, German, and Croatian; the international vocabulary of Greek and Latin; the Old Bulgarian literary tradition appear in both translations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article examines the peculiar shape that the Middle Iranian word for 'praise', āfrīn , has achieved as a loanword in the language of the Caucasian "Albanians" where it appears as afre - in the complex verb afre-pesown 'praise, bless'. Based on a thorough investigation of the morphology of formations with the light verb - pesown in Caucasian Albanian, it is proven that a recent proposal, which assumes the influence of an agreement marker, is untenable; instead, it is shown how afre - can have emerged from a metanalysis of afrin as a case form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "FØROYSK PURISMA - Føroysk orð ella orð í føroyskum?" by Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen deals with the topic of Faroese purism. It is divided into three thematic sections and is aimed at reader groups such as secondary level II, higher education, and those interested in the Faroese language in general. The book examines, among other things, linguistic variation, loanwords, and the influence of Danish on Faroese. It also discusses the history of Faroese orthography and Bible translations into Faroese. Overall, the book provides a comprehensive and easily readable presentation of purism and linguistic variation in the Faroe Islands. [Extracted from the article]

The article "Journal and Book Review" in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament discusses various topics related to biblical texts. It cites contributions from various authors who deal with silence in the Hebrew Bible, the use of quotes and allusions from the book of Genesis in the book of Chronicles, the interpretation of the book of Ecclesiastes, and other topics. The article also discusses the significance of child sacrifices in the Bible and Greek mythology, the translation of certain biblical texts into the Septuagint, and the metaphorical use of plants as clothing. Other topics include the composition of the crisis of Kadesh in Numbers 13-14, the ethical action of God in the book of Job, and archaeological findings in the southern Levant. The articles provide insight into various aspects of biblical studies and archaeology. The present text describes various books and articles on various topics related to the Old Testament. It covers books on the political and religious roles of women in ancient Israel, the historical-philological interpretation of the book of Deuteronomy, and the analysis of the lexeme צדק in the book of Proverbs. Other topics include Pentateuch research, archaeological and ethnographic topics related to the Bible, the redaction history of the wilderness narratives in the Pentateuch, archaeological and historical topics related to Jerusalem and the Iron Age, Ugaritic culture and literature, Psalms, and archaeological excavations in the Yotvata and En Gev Oasis. It also covers studies on ancient wisdom collections and early Jewish wisdom. [Extracted from the article]

In 2023, Bible Societies distributed 152 million printed Bible texts globally, including complete Bibles, New Testaments, and Scriptures for children, reflecting a sustained interest in physical Bibles. While there has been a decline in printed Biblical texts over the past decade, digital formats such as apps and online platforms are increasingly meeting the demand for Biblical content, especially among younger generations. Economic constraints, conflicts, and governmental restrictions impact Bible accessibility and distribution, with Central and South America leading in distribution followed by Asia, which experienced significant growth in distributing Scriptures. [Extracted from the article]