Life and Death while Village Checking

During our two days of village checking in Bavi we sat in an open-sided longhouse between the village and the river. From there I could watch village life as it passed by, and village death too.

Firstly, from my perch I saw a young man have a seizure. His parents carefully looked after him, which was a sign to me that this was not a new thing. When I could, I went over to have a chat with his parents about their son, taking someone with to help me with translation.  I then started messaging my friend who is the doctor at Kikori Hospital, sending details about the boy, receiving questions in return and sending more information as I could. It was a medical consult by messenger that resulted in his parents being encouraged to take their son to see her when she next visited the area to do clinics. Hopefully they do!

Later in the day, a logging barge went past on the river. All the kids, and plenty of adults too, lined the river bank to watch it pass. It was lightly loaded and had no trouble navigating the sandbanks in the river.

Watching the barge go by (H.Schulz)

When the school day ended, teenagers who attend school a little further along the river started coming home. They would paddle along, tie up their canoe and walk home, paddle in hand. I was amused by this as I was once at their school as they arrived. As the canoes came in, they tied them in a flotilla, planted their paddles on the river bank and went to class. My school had a bike rack, they had a flotilla. Where I wandered along swinging my bike helmet, they wandered along carrying an paddle. It is the same concept in a different context.

Risking a finger while feeding

star fruit to the parrot (H.Schulz)

As we worked on the checking, a semi-tame parrot joined us. He danced in the rafters. He hopped down and investigated any food anyone had. He was chased away as a nuisance and he kept coming back, adding some colour to the day.

The saddest part of the parade of life was when it became a parade of death. A child in the village became gravely ill, and his home was right across the path from where we were working. People gradually gathered at the house, kids peering in at the windows and doors until they were chased away. This happened late in the day, and as we left for the evening to stay in the next village (Gibi) just along the river we did not know if the child lived or had died. As we left, the women who had been working with us went to pray with the family in their time of need.

During the evening and the morning, many rumours came our way. The child had died. The child still lived. It was not the child, but the mother who was dead or near death. There was no clarity, but the decision was made to cancel the second day of checking out of respect for the family. We packed ourselves up and prepared to head back to our own village, Ubuo’o. As we passed the village where we’d been working, Bavi, we stopped to pick up a team member who had stayed with his family there overnight.

As we pulled up to the riverbank we found that the child had indeed died, but that the family and the community still wanted us to proceed with checking and were waiting for us. The family of the child had even provided a mat for me to sit on to demonstrate that they wanted us there. So, we unpacked the canoe and got to work.

The village was in a sombre mood. The teens had not gone to school, but remained at home. Kids were being hushed into silence when they got carried away. As we did our checking, the sound of wailing came from the house across the path from us. There was also the sound of sawing and hammering as some men made a coffin for the child in the yard outside the house. We continued with our checking making sure our own noise levels were never too high or that we laughed at anything. Discussing the joyful story of Christmas with this as our backdrop and soundtrack was quite a contrast.

Village Checking

Another level of checking in Bible translation is village checking, which comes after advisor checking. This is where we take the checked draft to another village, to a group of people who have not been at all involved in the translation process, and see how they receive it. We took our drafts from Ubuo’o village to Bavi village, where we spent two days sitting with a small gathering from the community, going over the work we had done. This not only provides fresh ears to the checking process, but involves a broader section of the tribe in the translation process. Having broad ownership is an important thing.

As usual, our journey to Bavi and back had its moments. The canoe we travelled in was over full, so part of the way there, as we were about to round a corner and enter some slightly choppy water, we pulled over to the river bank and dropped some people off. They waited on the bank until the canoe could take us to our destination and then come back and collect them.

 In the canoe, when only half full (Ikobu)

The checking process we used on arrival is much the same as the advisor checking, as we read the text as a whole, asked comprehension questions and discussed the finer points that were raised. My ongoing frustration is that people have not learnt the art of summarising a story. When I ask for the big picture, I get all the details. I think I may be on a one person mission to teach my region how to summarise when appropriate! I was encouraged by how well the Bavi community got involved and approved of the translation work, but my biggest encouragement was in seeing the team who did the drafting take ownership of the process and reflect a number of the things which I had been teaching them.

One challenge that we often have is what words to use for introduced concepts. Although my Kope is a long way from fluent, I know that when I hear talk of ‘bogobogo made’ (white talk) that this topic has been raised again. This time it was raised concerning the use of ‘boromakai’ for ‘cow’, a term borrowed from the Tok Pisin ‘bulmakau’. They wanted to use ‘boomo’ or ‘pig’ instead. The problem is that Mary and Joseph were good Jewish parents and would never have laid their child in the pig-food-place. If we had a generic term for ‘animal’ in Kope we would use that, but we don’t (as far as I know!), so a cow-food-place it is. Counting and numbers are the other area where people were worried about using English numbers, but as their own counting system is limited, it is hard to use it beyond about three. Our compromise is that we write the number as a figure not a word, and leave the reader to decide how they’ll say it.

 Sitting in a longhouse in Bavi doing checking (H.Schulz)

When these two issues came up, the team who had done the drafting did a great job of explaining to the Bavi checkers why we had made the choices we had made. There was then agreement that these were the right words for the text.

Another challenge is that people want to use all the old words in the Bible, effectively creating the King James Kope version. As they do this to record the ‘pure’ language, I encourage them to write these words down for the dictionary instead, and to write stories using them that we can turn into readers. This way the words are recorded, remembered and used, but the Bible remains a source of clear communication. It was good to see the translation team talking about the need for the Bible to communicate, not just be a place to store old words.

The biggest area in which I could see the growth of the translation team was their graciousness is receiving feedback on their work. In a shame based culture, taking one’s work out for others to comment and critique is a risky affair. That the translation team accepted and appreciated the input of the Bavi folk was wonderful.

Checking

In Bible translation there are many levels of checking, as we take seriously that this is God’s word that we’re dealing with. One of the first levels of checking is the advisor check, when as translation advisor to the Kope translation team, I discuss with them their first draft and iron out any possible mistakes that I have spotted.

The first thing we do with checking is read the text aloud. Hearing the text as a whole allows the team to hear if it sounds natural or awkward, and if it flows well. Although we have done this when drafting, the gap between drafting and checking gives people fresh ears to hear things they no longer hear after working on a text all day. At this stage, some corrections are usually made to ensure naturalness.

Next I ask a range of comprehension questions of the text as a whole. This allows me to determine if they’ve understood the big picture or not. Sometimes these questions are specifically aiming at things I think may not be clear. Other times they are just general questions.

Next we go through the text, verse by verse, addressing specific questions thatI have from my time studying the draft and the back translation. These questions might be a reflection of something I know that was tricky in drafting, of something that does not seem to match the original meaning, or of something that may be unclear. We gradually work through these questions, making changes as we go.

At the end, we re-read the text as a whole, to make sure that it still sounds natural even after the changes have been made. Although this might sound like a dry process, it is actually an enjoyable form of Bible study as we read our way through the text and make sure that everyone is understanding the meaning clearly.

 Arrows are part of life, so people know
how important a sharp arrow is. (H.Schulz)

When we were doing advisor checking for the first time last year, a leader from the community joined us who had not been part of the translation process so far, and who did not attend church often. His comments as we worked on the text, reminded me why we do this work;

“I don’t go to church, but this is truth”

“It’s like sharpening an arrow”

I liked his second comment in particular, as it suggested that the draft was already strong and useful, but that we were making it more useful.

“We will need no introduction, no sermon; we will just read the text.”

I also liked the idea that once the Bible was done and we could use it in church, that the meaning would be clear enough that it should need no further explanation.

Back Translation

After drafting, the next stage in our translation process is back translation. What this means is taking the draft and re-translating it back into a language of wider communication (LWC) so that it can be checked. In our case English is the LWC, so the Kope draft is turned back into English.

As back translation is designed to help reveal if the meaning has remained clear and accurate, the English which is used is not natural. It should sound like Kope-English, not like English-English. This happens because each language specifies things differently, and this needs to be shown in the back translation so that it can be carefully checked.

One example of how these differences show up in back translation is that in Kope we have single, dual, trial and plural pronouns. This means that the back translation needs to specify if the Kope said ‘you-1’, ‘you-2’, ‘you-3’ or ‘you-lots’. If it is just back translated as ‘you’ the checker has no way of knowing how many people were involved.

Another example is that as the grammar of English and Kope are very different, some words that are necessary in English are not necessary in Kope. These are included in the back translation in brackets, to indicate that although the meaning is there, the words are not.

Another factor that makes the English sound un-natural is that all names are written as in the draft, and that idioms are spelled out.

Looking at the example of Luke 1:6 you’ll see these and other things going on:

•          Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. (NRSV)
•          Riiti oroi’ioi mea oobora dubura ka Iehoma hohoida. Iehoma madeire ka Bubuire ai pimabedioido. (Kope draft)
•          They-2  lived (as) a good woman and man to Iehoma’s face. Iehoma word/message and law they-2  took care.  (Kope BT)

Learning to back translate like this is tricky. In our translation team we have one man who mastered the art very quickly and another who finds it hard work, but can get there slowly. It is very easy for the back translators to rely on their memory rather than the text, and it is my job to spot when this has happened. One such example was when in Luke 2:7 that back translation suddenly said that they’d ‘laid him in the manger as there was no room in the inn’. Seeing as ‘manger’ and ‘inn’ do not have equivalent Kope terms, the slip was obvious. Once the back translation was revised, the baby was laid in the ‘cow-food-bowl’ as there was no room for them in the ‘guest house’.

Once the back translation (BT) is complete, I enter it into the computer and study it. I look at the BT, the Greek, the English and the Kope. As my Kope improves, I will be less reliant on the BT, but at this stage it is a very helpful thing to have. Looking at my resources, I check to see if the meaning has remained the same and flag questions for checking. More on that next time…