12 June 2016

Jesus is the ________ of life

Can you fill in the blank? It's rather easy in English, eh? Bread. Of course, bread. We have a nice, neat category for "bread"... and from there we can easily expand as we like. But in instances such as this, we don't need to be specific. We need to be vague.

The ESL translation team has it a bit harder. After all, what kind of bread? Is it injera (the daily flatbread everyone eats)? Dabo (white bread rolls, typically)? K'ita (the spiced unleavened bread you tend to eat in the morning)? Ambasha (special raised flatbread eaten more for celebrations or special events)? Ko'cho (the false banana stalk, fermented flat bread eaten in the south)? Or something else? When each of these had a different place and significance, how do you choose which one is actually the best concept to use for this passage?

Hmmmm...... translation isn't an easy 1:1 task... it's full of all sorts of interesting dilemmas. :)

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