Unexpectedly familiar: ‘Bean pods’ of Luke 15
Last week I made a discovery that surprised both me and the translation team I was working with: that the ‘bean pods’ the young prodigal of Luke 15 wanted to ‘fill himself with’ neither the generic food scraps we might think, or the sloppy grain-husk-porridge people feed pigs with here but were the fruit of a tree very …
Bottlenecks & translation systems analysis (Nigeria)
(Download print-formatted version.) How the workflow feels at the moment for many Bible translation projects: Analysis of current dysfunction Teams rapidly draft, creating a slight backlog of drafts needing team check.
Why Bible Translation: An infographic
A little attempt at an infographic: partial brain dump explaining why I think it’s worth us (Bible translation people) doing what we do in Nigeria. Being relatively terse, and an infographic it is open to wild misunderstandings. We can deal with those in the comments. 🙂
Premature Mango Harvest
One morning there was suddenly a huge crashing noise just outside the homeschool room; one of our mango trees had over-reached itself in enthusiasm for producing hefty fruit and a large branch crashed to the ground. Green, unripe (but rather large) mangos were scattered all over the place. We picked up a massive basket load …
Homeschool resuming
Homeschool started again for Rebekah and Elizabeth a few days after we arrived back in Nigeria. Rebekah was back to her familiar pink desk, and Elizabeth chose purple for an identical desk that our carpenter Weze made for her. Abigail is keen not to be left out, but she also lost no time in forming …
Languages of Wilder Confusion: hidden dangers for international collaboration
I’ve appreciated the numerous short, thought-provoking articles Jim Harries has written (and also here) on topics of cross-cultural communication. One that got my attention recently was Building Castles in the Sky: A case for the use of indigenous languages and resources in Western mission-partnerships to Africa, particularly in the light of 2 realities which are close to home …
Sickness and Immigration, Revenge and Xenophobia
Based on 2 real people I have had contact with, but with names changed. Have a read and a think. Comment if you like below. Joseph was suffering from some leg pain without any particularly obvious cause. Clearly someone with a grudge against him or envious of him in some way must have caused …
Making dictionaries serve translation
My paper Making Dictionaries Serve [Bible] Translation is here on Academia.edu open for comments. Below is the abstract and introduction. Making dictionaries serve translation David Rowbory, Translation Consultant in Training, SIL Nigeria A paper presented at the 2015 Bible Translation Conference hosted by GIAL Dallas, Texas, 16-20 October relating to the sub-themes Technology and other …
Letting go the familiar words and holding onto the real meaning
[This was first drafted in July – well before the C of E cinema ad controversy blew up. Still, perhaps it may inform a little and provoke some more worthy thought.] Our Father who is in heaven… What’s the first request of the Lord’s prayer? Can you express it in everyday language that you might genuinely use …
How one slash slashes your website: WordPress .htaccess file preventing access to password-protected directories
Very helpful article from hostgator here http://support.hostgator.com/articles/specialized-help/technical/wordpress/wordpress-preventing-you-from-password-protecting-a-directory shows up a problem which can drive many people crazy if they’ve got WordPress installed at root alongside other CGI password-protected folders. In short, there’s a missing / here: RewriteRule . /index.php [L] which would be better being RewriteRule ./ /index.php [L]