Wednesday 26 October 2011

fighting through a linguistic jungle!

Sometimes I feel rather overwhelmed by the task we have of rendering the Hebrew Bible in the Monkolé language in a way which is faithful to the original text and yet as far as possible understandable to a Monkolé reader (or listener). Fortunately I am not working alone! I have my Monkolé team mates and some very good resources on my computer.

Just recently, as I was working on Exodus 23:24, I read about the Israelites being instructed to break down the “pillars” or, in another translation, “sacred pillars” of the Canaanite people. This had been translated in Monkolé as “push over the stones they have put in place”. My first question was to know what these “pillars” represented, and here my Logos resources came in extremely helpful. I searched for the term “pillars”, which brought up more than 4,000 examples. I scrolled down, found “The Archaeological Encyclopaedia of the Holy Land”, and opened up the different instances of the word there. It gave me the Hebrew word massebah and an explanation of how these pillars were set up and used by the different Canaanite peoples in their cultic practices. Since it said they were stones (not the highly polished columns I tend to think of when I hear the word “pillars”) I supposed that the word “stones” would be fine in Monkolé, but my second question was to know whether a Monkolé hearing the sentence “push over the stones they have put in place” would realise it had religious overtones, and there I can only rely on my co-workers' mother tongue knowledge! We had quite a lengthy discussion about this, but finally agreed with the youngest member of the team that since the instruction is placed with other prohibitions of idol worship, it should be clear to your average reader that these were no ordinary stones.

I am not translating into English, so this is by the by, but if I were, I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to translate massebah by “standing stones”. The photo in the AEHL looked more like a standing stone, and I would automatically associate “standing stones” with some kind of religious practices, which is not the case with “pillars”.

Another example, which reminded us not to translate on automatic pilot, was Exodus 4:6 which says that Moses' hand became leprous and “like snow”. Where the Bible describes things as being “white like snow”, we translate “white like cotton”. Fortunately the commentary I'm reading pointed out that this verse doesn't say “white”, and that quite probably it means “flaky like snow”. We were able to find a Monkolé word which means “flaky” and have avoided introducing cotton into a context where it wasn't relevant!

Monday 24 October 2011

oh, for a thousand tongues...



Most of us Westerners were brought up in mono-lingual families, and we tend to forget that many people in the world grow up being familiar with two or more languages. When the four of us were back in Europe, people were often fascinated by our boys' bilingualism. That didn't bother us at all, except Simon who insisted that he actually spoke three languages, but when we're out here in Benin we're just like everyone else who speaks two or more languages on a day-to-day basis. Esther, who worked for us in Parakou, speaks at least 6 languages relatively fluently, and has even been picking up some Monkolé from us!

As the name of my blog says, I like to think we are at least try-lingual! Our Monkolé is getting better, though we still have bad days where it feels like the language is an express train speeding through the station where we're waiting, and we have no hope of catching onto it!

As a family, we're used to being bilingual by now. Simon never speaks anything but English to me, or French to Marc, except as a joke. Benjy still mixes the two, but is beginning to separate them out and speak more English to me and more French to Marc. If I say to him, “What do you say to Papa?” (when Marc has given him something) he will say, “Merci, Papa!” and vice versa.

We are very OPOL – One Person One Language – which leads to funny conversations sometimes. We parents don't always register which language is being spoken, but Simon is very indignant if one of us answers when he is speaking to the other parent. So the conversation can go:

Simon: Tu peux m'aider, s'il te plaît?
Me: Yes, hold on a moment, I'm just coming!
Simon: I was talking to Papa!!

This also means that it is difficult for Simon to address us both at once, not that this particularly seems to cause him problems. I was amused once in the car when Marc and I had just been singing something, and Simon said, “Tu peux encore le chanter s'il te plaît and you can sing it again, please?” I noticed once recently though, that he started a sentence, “Mummy? Papa?” and then carried on in English when he wanted to say something to us both. He knows we both understand both languages!

That said, I usually speak to Marc in French, and if I say anything to him in English, Simon is likely to ask, “Mummy, why are you speaking to Papa in English?”

For a while I had hoped that Marc and I might be able to speak to each other in Monkolé if we wanted to keep things secret from the boys (who do know some Monkolé, but not as much as we do). For a long time though we found we just didn't understand each other, which was rather discouraging (not to mention a waste of time!). This week I decided to try again. Simon had had a bit of a temperature, had taken some paracetemol and half an hour later got up from the sofa and came to the lunch table to eat some chicken. I asked him if he was feeling better and he said no. Watching him tuck into his chicken I said to Marc in Monkolé, “Despite what he says, he's feeling better!” and Simon replied in English, “No, I'm not feeling better!” … so I guess his Monkolé is improving, and that parental strategy is a dead loss!

We aren't sure how fluent Simon will become in Monkolé, particularly now that he is spending mornings at school in French and therefore has less contact with Monkolé-speakers. His best friend, Benja, has completed a year of school and now only wants to speak to him in French – which does at least mean they can communicate better than before! We'd like Simon to understand Monkolé simply to avoid church being meaningless and boring, but we just don't know to what extent that is going to happen.

People in the village used to laugh at Simon because whenever they tried to speak to him in Monkolé he would just reply “Aawo!” (which means “no!”). However, now he's picked up a bit more, he will reply more sensibly to their questions … and that just makes them laugh even more, to hear a little white boy speaking their language. So it's a bit of a lose-lose situation for him!

Benjy is looked after the pastor's wife while I'm at work in the mornings, and she only speaks to him in Monkolé. I'm a little unsure if this is the best way to do things when it comes to disciplining him, but then it isn't as if he understands French or English when he doesn't want to! At any rate, it does mean that he has more of a chance of ending up fluent in Monkolé, and will probably end up cringing at his parents' accents and messing-up of tones. We'll see...

Well, it is hard to find a photo illustrating bilingualism, so I won't even try! Instead, here I am with my two lovely bilingual boys:


Monday 10 October 2011

fun with the translation team

I said I would post about translation work, and I have been so busy with the new work routine that I haven't got round to it yet. Marc and I are both finding it rewarding to at last get our teeth into the work which we came here to do. Yes, language and culture learning is essential, and ours has been an enriching time, but it can be very frustrating and the rewards are not instant or constant! We are also aware that although we aren't doing it full-time any more, we still have a lot of room for improvement. So on Wednesday mornings we are still reserving 2 hours for language work (plus time spent in the village hearing it around us).

Marc is getting on with preparation for Dry Season Bible School in March (a month of Bible teaching), and also some sessions to train the church youth leaders.

And I'm working with the translation team at last! During September that meant just Pastor Samuel and me, and we soon got into a good routine. He is working on a rough translation of Isaiah, working from 3 different French translations, and together we are revising Exodus. So while I'm reading ahead in Exodus, or in the afternoons when I'm not at work, he's been getting on with Isaiah, and then some of the time we've started to read through Exodus together. My task is to look at what the Hebrew says – and while I have learnt some Hebrew I have to admit I am well-aided by software which gives me a grammatical breakdown and thesaurus notes on the Hebrew – and to compare it with the Monkolé. Then we go through with me saying, “Is there any way we could say it more like this in Monkolé?” and either he says, no it isn't possible, or else we manage to find an alternative which is closer to the Hebrew while still sounding like Monkolé. It's a pity we don't have anyone who has good enough Hebrew and Monkolé to go straight from the Hebrew to the Monkolé, but we don't, so we have to work this way.

A big answer to prayer is that we have a new member of the translation team who started this month. His name is Philémon, he's about 27 years old, and he's a farmer. He is one of our church elders and sings in the church choir (he writes songs too). He's active in the church youth group and also serves on the national church youth committee.

Philémon started work last week, and it seems to be going well so far, though I'm not sure it's easy to sit at a desk all day and think hard when you're used to being out in the fields doing very physical work. He is going to re-take his BEPC (primary school certificate) this year, and from next week will have evening classes every weekday night and Saturday mornings too. So he'll have a lot on his plate!

I wasn't feeling entirely confident about Philémon starting work, and needing supervision, when I've only been working with the team for the last month. It didn't help that the pastor had to take the first two days of the week off, so I had to get Philémon started myself, and as I only work on translation in the mornings, he was on his own for his first two afternoons. I left him plenty of work to be getting on with, but still!

As a linguist, it is very interesting to see the kind of questions we run into when translating the Bible into Monkolé. For example, the Monkolé people believe that there is one God who created the earth, but they would pray to local spirits rather than God. So the idea of idols, as presented in the Bible, isn't hard for them to grasp. The idea, however, that there are “other gods” as also mentioned in the Bible, even if they are “false gods” is very difficult. Sometimes it's possible to translate it as “idols”, but sometimes that just doesn't work.

Another difficulty stemming from this, is the fact that the Bible often speaks of God as “the God of Israel” or “your God”. If it isn't possible to have other gods, this seems strange – and in fact isn't grammatically possible. I was trying to think of a parallel in English, and the closest I can come up with is the air. The air is everywhere, and we can't talk about “my air” (except perhaps in a very figurative sense). You couldn't talk about people having “another air”, either (though you might say that the air is very different in Benin compared to Europe – that's where my parallel breaks down!).

I'm sure that as time goes on I'll be able to share other interesting examples of translation challenges!

I have noticed my spoken Monkolé improving simply because I'm having to use it in a situation where I'm not thinking so much about the words as about the overall meaning. It is hard work and sometimes very frustrating, but I haven't had to resort to French too often. My Hebrew reading is improving too, having been rather rusty when I got back to it, but again, using it regularly is polishing it up nicely!

I am thankful for the team we have. It is early days yet, but I think we are going to work well together and find that our strengths complement each other. I am also grateful that Grace, my predecessor, uses email and has been able to answer many of my questions about Monkolé grammar and such matters.