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Technological wonders – and human problems – in West African translations
NIGERIA — “As well as working on three or four translation projects,” Andy Warren explains, “I have a growing involvement in script issues. An exciting development in this area is the facility for converting Roman text into Arabic script automatically. “There are many places in the world where a language can be in two different scripts. In West Africa, languages that can be written in both Roman and Arabic script include Hausa, Fulfulde, Kanuri, Yoruba and many others. What’s the use?“Until 1901 Hausa had been written in Arabic for 250 years. It was a British colonial decision that it should be written in Roman script. But in the north of Nigeria there are lots of Muslims who have resisted that. So what’s the use of a Bible in a script that you don’t read – even if it’s a language that you do know? “Nowadays we can convert text from left-to-right Roman script into right-to-left Arabic script – or the other way round – in seconds. The program is called TECKit and it’s a product of SIL’s Non-Roman Script Initiative (NRSI). SIL are the world’s leaders in this kind of technology. You have to spend a long time writing ‘change tables’, instructing it to convert a Roman-script b into an Arabic-script beh and so on. This has to be done for every single letter and cover all sorts of combinations. It’s a complex thing to write the ‘change table’ for a particular language. You’ll love this!“One day I was sitting with one of the translators on an SIL Fulfulde project – one which we at the Bible Society relate closely to – and I showed him the technology that’s available, together with change tables I’ve been involved in producing. I said, ‘Look! You’ll love this!’ And almost in tears, he said, ‘Andy, you have no idea what this means for making the Bible accessible to my people!’ Fulani are 99 per cent Muslim and for him that just opens the door for them to read the Bible because most of them can only read Arabic script.” Stories about misunderstandings can also be illuminating about the translation process. “In Genesis 22:13 it says, ‘Abraham lifted his eyes and saw a ram caught in a thicket.” A local translator had translated this to mean that he looked up and he saw a sheep hanging by its horns from the top of a tree, up in a tree, as it were. He had misunderstood the idiom ‘lifted up his eyes’ and so forth. So I asked him how he thought the sheep had got up in the tree because sheep really can’t climb trees! He said, “Well, it came from heaven, didn’t it? So it got stuck on the way down!” And then there was the time he worked with an old man who was trying to translate The Song of Songs. Sexual metaphors“That was an experience!” he laughs. “Scholarship on The Song of Songs really does see very explicit sexual metaphors and trying to have to explain those kind of things is just outrageous! “The translation was in the Berom language. The old man was a retired village man who wanted to write pages and pages of preface to The Song of Songs, explaining to African young people that this was the expression of sexuality, which is not appropriate for them, that they should not try to copy what goes on in this book. The interaction between The Song of Songs and AIDS-ridden communities was no small matter. Kissing“But I think he was concerned even about things like kissing. Traditionally there is no kissing in most West African cultures that I’ve come across – except perhaps for putting your cheek against a baby’s cheek; but the idea of touching lips with somebody as a loving or romantic thing doesn’t exist in traditional Berom culture at all. Touching cheeks“He and I considered using the expression ‘touching cheeks’, but we couldn’t do that because it’s very explicit in Song of Songs 1:2 that he kisses with the mouth. So we considered other expressions and in the end, he refused to have anything to do with the mouth. “During my lunch break I went and talked to the girl in the compound who always makes my lunch when I stay there, among the Berom people. I know her quite well and she’s a mature Christian, so I thought I could talk to her about this. I asked her, ‘How do you talk about it – this westernisation coming into Africa?’ And she coyly said that they do have an expression meaning ‘to join lips’. He blushed“So I went back and suggested this expression to the old man. He blushed and said, ‘Well, yes… I know that people do say that, yes. But can we really have that in the Bible?’ To him that expression was simply rude. In the end we did put it in, recognising that the Bible is not intended solely for people of his generation, but it was very difficult.” (WR 403/9 - 07.06) |
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Andy
Warren is a Translation Consultant with the