DALOA, Côte d’Ivoire — The New Testament in Bété:Daloa was launched on June 28, 1997, in the presence of a sizeable gathering of people, church leaders and civic and government officials, which included the Minister of Education and a representative from the Ministry of Culture. And when the Word of God was read out loud in Bété:Daloa the congregation demonstrated their delight with whoops and ululations and shouts of encouragement and joy.
Begun in 1987, this first interconfessional New Testament in the Daloa dialect of Bété was the product of nine years of translation work, the main translators being Sery Emile Gbai, Blaise Bouabré and Célestin Biailly, supported by Coordinator Edwin Pinkston, keyboarder Martine Kalou and UBS Translation Consultant Dr Lynell Zogbo. The Roman Catholic and Baptist Churches were the main supporting churches of the project and the UBS contributed quality control, finance and production assistance.
In his address at the launch service, Mr Pinkston said that, as is usual with translations, there were problems to overcome: "How do you translate the word ‘camel’ into Bété:Daloa when the Bétés do not have a word for camel? Here we had to adapt a word used for a very large horse," he said.
Another example of translation problems was when the meaning of the image used in the original gave quite a different meaning in another culture: "The phrase: ‘It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God,’ has a negative meaning and we had a problem because the image of falling into someone’s hands in Bété is something good and positive; it means that they will take care of you, which is the opposite to what is meant in the Scripture.
"In the end we used a more understandable image for the Bété culture: ‘It is a terrible thing to fall into the mouth of God.’"
Dr Zogbo spoke about the aims set in Scripture translation: to translate the meaning of the text while remaining faithful to it, and also to put it into a language that people would understand. She said that although they had done their best, the translation probably had mistakes in it which could be corrected in a revision, and it was up to the readers to offer their thoughts about it.
She said that the New Testament depended on the people who read it to
make a dynamic impact upon their lives and the life of the community. Using
Bété imagery taken from the New Testament she ended by saying:
"In the words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, ‘May God our Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ throw water on you (bless you) and give you freedom
on your back (peace).’"