Translating Jita Jonah (part 4)

So we continue our series about how we translated the book of Jonah into the Jita language...

Step 1 - DRAFTING: The Jita translators adapted the book from Swahili to Jita.
Step 2 - TRANSLATION ADVISOR CHECKING: I studied the text to make sure the meaning of the original was communicated accurately.
Step 3 - COMMUNITY TESTING: We invited Jita speakers to listen to the text and help us make improvements.

After we entered all the helpful improvements from our Jita friends, we sent the text away for...

Step 4 - CONSULTANT CHECKING

In this particular case, we emailed our Jita text and Swahili back-translation to an SIL Consultant in the UK. His job was to examine our translation and compare it to the original Hebrew to make sure that the meaning was communicated accurately. He also reviewed our exegetical decisions and translation decisions and asked us questions to challenge our thinking and make our translation more exact. After we answered many of his questions by email, we scheduled a time to meet by skype. This is always a circus in Musoma because the electricity is never reliable and the internet is never reliable. Thankfully, by God's grace, the three Jita translators, the consultant in the UK, and I all met by skype for three days with minimal problems.

Here are some of the things we discussed...

In Jonah 1:3, Jonah went to the port of Joppa and got on a boat. Then verse 4 says, "But Yahweh hurled a great wind upon the sea." Our consultant observed that in most Bantu languages (Bantu is the family of languages which include our languages here in Mara) if we translate the story that way, it sounds like the ship never left port. Therefore, we added a transition phrase at the beginning of verse 4, "So when they were going..." Now the narrative flows much more naturally.

3:4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown!”

At first, we translated that verb, “will be overthrown” with a stative form of the verb [omusingarika] “will be overthrown” with no implication of who will perform the action. However, our consultant pointed out that this verb should be passive [omusingarisibhwa] “will be overthrown” (I know, the English is the same, but the Jita is very different) with an implication that God is the one who will perform the action. Good catch! Now our translation is more accurate.

 

And the list goes on. The consultant helped us with a few other questions about our exegetical and translation decisions. In addition to all this, the consultant also helped us correct some mistakes of punctuation, tense, and word order. After three days of hard work, we have a much clearer, more accurate Jita text.

 

It was a great experience, especially for me as a new Translation Advisor. I learned so much from the consultant about Swahili, Tanzanian culture, Bible backgrounds, team dynamics, and even how to use our translation software. I’m thankful for our consultants.