Anathema
Why might someone call down curses on themselves? Fury with God or with self? Despair? What does it mean for someone to be blighted by witchcraft? Why would anyone ask for that? These questions pop up when looking at Romans chapter 9:3 in Nigerian languages, because while ‘cursing’ and ‘swearing’ are treated somewhat lightly or …
Best Practices for developing and using Best Practices?
Many organisations have a concern for developing and checking conformity to Best Practice. Bible translation is no exception. Often Best Practice comes about after people notice recurring failures or a variety of good and bad outcomes. It seems to be part of a Western-style obsession with not just coping but striving after excellence or trying …
Making Luke Clear & Compelling
Meanwhile most of my time has been spent trying to work with translator Arams over patchy video links from his home in Kachia, revising Luke’s gospel. I’m pleased to report we are making decent progress and have managed to tidy up really quite a lot. Three weeks ago he travelled to our office in Jos …
Example of Discourse Improvements in Luke
We certainly haven’t got Luke’s gospel finished yet, but over the last few months Moses and Arams and then just Arams and I have been working through the whole of Luke’s gospel about 20 times or more looking at particular issues and tidying things up. I thought I’d give any interested people (geeks) an annotated …
Translator training: checking tools
The current translator(s) with the Ashɛ translation project had not received much training in using the translation software, so we’ve been doing that over Skype and I’ve made some videos to reinforce what we have done interactively. They’re unedited and not amazing, but if you want a taste of what we have been doing (but …
Biblish: According to…
One stock phrase that comes up quite often in many English Bible translations is according to. It’s bona fide English, but it contains within it a subtle trap which can be quite annoying or disconcerting for the reader and this is why. You’ll probably recognise 2 kinds of use of according to in everyday English: …
Spiritual Beings
My smart friend and colleague Ben Kuwitzky quotes from Martin Luther: “If God had wanted me to die thinking I was a clever fellow, he would not have got me into the business of translating the Bible.” …and even more so when you’re working outside your own culture. I was reminded of one of my …
Mercy seat or atoning sacrifice?
One of the newest English language Bible translations has got an update. It’s not radical. About the only remarkable change they highlight is switching the translation in Romans 3:25 from the key term atoning sacrifice to mercy seat. As a committee we adopted “mercy seat” for a number of reasons, but we recognize that “propitiation” …
Ishɛ translation update: I’m a wondering about ‘amma’…
Years ago when starting work with the Koro Ashɛ translation team (whose language is called Ishɛ) the translators asked me about an issue they had. There were too many Hausa words in it. In particular the word ‘amma‘. It’s a common conjunction rather like English ‘but‘ and you do actually hear it frequently in conversation. …