We Are Going up to Jerusalem! Toponyms in Two Translations of the Gospels into Balochi
We Are Going up to Jerusalem! Toponyms in Two Translations of the Gospels into Balochi

Summary/Abstract: The history of Bible translation into Balochi goes back to the late 19th century. One century later, in 1999, a complete New Testament in Southern Balochi was published. This translation (abbreviated SBKT) was carried out in Karachi, and largely reflects the variant of Southern Balochi spoken in Karachi. There is also a more recent translation of the four Gospels into Southern Balochi (abbreviated SBCT). The text of this translation is published online. The purpose of the present article is to explore how the two translations of the four Gospels into Balochi have dealt with toponyms occurring in the Greek source text. The toponyms are presented and discussed in alphabetical order in three different subsections (countries and provinces, towns and villages, rivers, lakes and mountains etc.) based on their names in English as found in the New Revised Standard Version from 1989. Toponyms in the Gospels have already undergone translation rather than copying in the translation of the Gospels into the national languages of Iran and Pakistan, Persian and Urdu, which serve as models for the toponyms in the two translations studied here. SBKT basically uses the copying strategy, but with the addition of diacritics for short vowels, whereas SBCT uses the translation strategy, which involves phonological and orthographic adaptation to Balochi. Both translations also make use of addition to make the toponyms more comprehensible to the target audience, both in comparison with the original Greek source text, and with the translations into Persian and Urdu. SBKT does so almost invariably and SBCT to a more limited extent.

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