Translating Jita Jonah (part 8)

Samson and Magoma printing Jita Jonah on the risograph machine

Ok, we're done with the translation part of preparing the book of Jonah in the Jita language.

These were the steps so far...

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.
Step 4 - CONSULTANT CHECKING: We worked with a veteran Bible translator to make improvements.
Step 5 - SPELL CHECKING: We carefully checked the text for spelling, punctuation, grammar and any other errors.
Step 6 - READ ALOUD CHECK: We read the text out loud, watched for punctuation and listened for naturalness.
Step 7 - TYPESETTING: We designed a printer-ready copy of Jonah with illustrations and captions.

Now we get to print the book of Jonah....

Step 8 - PRINTING

This might not seem like a big deal but think about it...this is the first time the book of Jonah has been published in the Jita language...EVER! It's a huge deal. We worked with our friend Samson from the Literacy Department. He helped us choose the cardstock for our cover and then he copied the cover on our risograph machine. Here's a quick video..

Our SIL office here in Musoma just recently received this risograph machine. Now our Literacy Department can print their own reading primers and transition literacy booklets. And in the Translation Department we can print our own (short) books of the Bible. This is much better and faster than sending the job to a print shop in Dar es Salaam.

After Samson printed the covers, he printed the inside pages, lined them up and stapled them together. We decided we would start with a print run of 200 copies. There are 205,000 Jita people in the Mara region so hopefully we will need to print more copies later. (Let's pray!)

Stay tuned for the most exciting step of all...Distribution!

Rhino-beetle

Check out the latest discovery in "Wild Africa."

Translating Jita Jonah (part 7)

WOW! It's a long process to prepare a book of the Bible for publication.

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.
Step 4 - CONSULTANT CHECKING: We worked with a veteran Bible translator to make improvements.
Step 5 - SPELL CHECKING: We carefully checked the text for spelling, punctuation, grammar and any other errors.
Step 6 - READ ALOUD CHECK: We read the text out loud, watched for punctuation and listened for naturalness.

We're almost ready to publish the book of Jonah. But first, we format the text correctly in a step called...

Step 7 - TYPESETTING

Here's a portion of Jonah chapter 3 in the Jita language. It's all ready for publication.

For this step, we worked with a typesetter in the UK to produce a printer-ready PDF of the book of Jonah. We went back and forth by email examining our section headings, choosing a font that is clear and readable, selecting illustrations, writing captions, obtaining copyright permission for illustrations, designing white space and margins, writing the book introduction and finding the best wording for our title.

For our title, we chose...

"The Book of the Prophet Jonah in the Jita Language"

We even got to choose the color of the front cover? Any guesses?????

Pork Day Hallelujah

YAY!!! It's Pork Day....



We bought 3 kilos of pork and it arrived freshly slaughtered, still warm, in plastic bags, with hair and bone and etc. Jeannette chopped it, cleaned it and prepared it for cooking. This time she put some in the freezer for pork stir fry in the future and she put a big chunk in the slow cooker with her homemade thyme bar-b-q sauce. It was AMAZING! She even made cornbread and coleslaw to go with it.

Thank you, God, for making pigs.

Thank you, God, for my wise, wonderful, good cook wife.