Featured Sixteen Years and Done!

We have had some positive input and responses. However, the John & Romans we had printed had an email address for inquiries, but we haven't gotten a lot of response there. The negative responses are about our term for "Son of God." (See Post #8.) The Japanese are traditionalists, and so they have a hard time with changes in the "tried and true."

 

Quite soon after I joined the BB, I posted a thread in Oct. 2005 entitled "Baptisma" asking for advice on how to translate that word. I can't seem to find the original thread here on the BB, but I did archive it for my own files. The general consensus was that we should translate like William Carey did with a word for "immerse." The normal approach here in Japan is to transliterate with baputesuma (バプテスマ), though some versions go with senrei (洗礼), "washing ceremony."

I followed the advice of my new BB friends, with Uncle Miya and my son concurring, and we went with shinrei (浸礼), "immersion ceremony," with the somewhat bold move of putting the transliteration in the ruby (pronunciation) marks (a recent convention in Japanese orthography).

Here is that OP from 2005:

"The great missionary translator William Carey always translated the Greek baptisma into a word corresponding to "immersion" in the receptor language. He was criticized by the pedobaptists for this, of course, but he believed it was right, based on the principle of literally translating from the original languages.

"In Japan, the first Japanese NT (though not the whole Bible) was translated was "from the oldest existing Greek manuscripts" by the amazing Nathan Brown while he was planting the first Baptist church in Japan. Brown was a former Carey colleague who came to Japan at age 65. Imagine learning this crazy language at that age!

"At any rate, Brown followed Carey and translated rather than transliterating. Every Japanese NT since then has transliterated, except for the New Interconfessional Bible, which translated with senrei, meaning 'washing ceremony.'

"I am on a committee translating a new Japanese NT from the TR. Should we translate or transliterate? I have not made my mind up yet. What say ye?"

 

Bearing Precious Seed in Milford, OH, plans to do the printing, and is currently raising funds for that purpose. We ourselves will have to pray for shipping.

We hope to print before the end of the year, but computer trouble may push that back some.

My son is talking about putting a website together. Also, down through the years I have had several queries from software producers. I plan to offer the translation to various of those.

I guess prayer for clarity in proofreading would be the top prayer request.

 

A particularly difficult part of our translation was determining the level of politeness to be used in various conversations, etc. Like Spanish, Thai, and other languages only more so, Japanese has various levels of respect language. (I usually tell people 5 levels.) In contrast, English is a very egalitarian language; you use much the same syntax and semantics to a child that you would to your boss.

In Japanese, you must always take account of where your conversational partner is in society in respect to yourself. If he is your underling, you use one set of grammar and vocabulary, a different set for an equal, and another very different set for a superior.

You cannot ignore this respect language when speaking or writing or translating Japanese, or your discourse will be completely rejected. Your hearers will think of you as a child-like speaker, since Japanese little ones only know a plain version of the language.

So think about it. Should we have Christ using humble language or polite language to the people he ministered to? What about to Satan? If you make Christ's words too superior, He might seem arrogant. But if you use an inferior's language, He may seem weak.

An added difficulty is that Japanese respect language can be used to mock someone. If you afford someone a higher level of respect than they deserve, you are probably subtly making fun of them--and they may not even realize it. So we certainly did not want to make it seem like Jesus or anyone else was mocking--unless it be Satan.

Our final approach is difficult to describe to someone who does not know Japanese. Suffice it to say, we made Jesus polite to all, often used the passive form (an honorific), and kept our honorific prefixes low in number. Make sense?

 

"Respect language" is also called honorifics. Here is a definition:

“honorific Expressing respect, reverence, high esteem, etc. Most languages use honorific pronouns (e.g., the German Sie, the Italian Lei) or honorific pronoun-equivalents (e.g., the Portuguese o Senhor, the Spanish Usted) instead of the second person pronoun, and certain languages (e.g. Japanese) use also honorific nouns, verbs and adjectives when addressing or speaking of a person of superior standing.” (Mario Pei and Frank Gaynor, Dictionary of Linguistics, p. 93)

 

The disciples always addressed Christ with respect language, but the Pharisees were usually rude, unless they were trying to entrap Jesus.

In these cases we went with typical modern Japanese levels of politeness.

 

They are quite obviously rude!

 

I don't like Wikipedia because there are so many errors in the entries. We don't let our college students use it in research papers except to get a direction for research. However, you might enjoy reading the one on Japanese honorifics (Japanese honorifics - Wikipedia), which needs a lot of work (deals only with honorific titles), or this one which is more complete: Honorific speech in Japanese - Wikipedia.

 

As the founder of the Christian religion, and that's about it. Many, many times the person I was talking to had never heard the name "Jesus."

 

Nope. That's part of the Gospel, and they are a heathen nation with only about 1% Christian of any kind.

No, their religions don't teach that. Sociologists call Japan a "shame culture."

The traditional religions are Buddhism and Shinto, and the typical Japanese will claim either or both, depending on what festival is coming up.

 

I've just been preparing a lecture on honorifics for a Bible translation class. I see Japanese as having 5 levels of politeness: plain (to kids or friends), normal (to the same level in society), polite (to those above one's self), respectful (to someone very high up), imperial (to the Emperor).

There is no special level for Buddhist of Shinto priests. What level you use to them would depend on the relationship. I would use the polite level to one. The polite suffix to the name would probably be the generic "Sensei" ("Teacher"), which is what pastors are also called.