Coding/Translating: Taking a fulfilling demotion
Before I had a thought of doing Bible Translation my first hobby and possible career choice was in Software Engineering.* I got diverted from that after graduation, but I like to keep abreast of what people are doing and learning in the programming and development world, and so I came upon an interesting article about …
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: …
April 16: House Move!
In Brief In Glasgow: We’re GO for completing buying our new flat moving in from tomorrow, Friday! The UK’s been in lockdown for about 3 weeks or so. We switched a little into home school mode before Easter, but having a garden would be nice. One of Julie’s elderly relatives (Ethel) is sick with Covid-19. …
Research in progress: Making dictionaries serve translation
Here’s an abstract that has been approved for presentation at a Bible Translation conference: Making dictionaries serve translation John Roberts has lamented the tendency of Bible translators to ignore lexicography until after a New Testament has been completed and printed. The consequence is that while the translation process necessarily reveals much of the lexical richness …
Well done chicken
Here’s a quote from a book which ended up making a somewhat surprising long-term impact on our family. It’s about the problems of translating hymns into tone-languages… I have heard Dr Nida refer to a group in Liberia who were supposed to be singing the chorus, “Precious name, oh how sweet, Hope of earth and joy of heaven.” But the tune so reassigned the pitch patterns that it came out…