In the New Testament these kinds of clauses are found in abundance. One particular type of comparative that occurs frequently is "more than". For example in Matthew 6:25 where Jesus says
"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"It's the last part that becomes challenging in Gumawana. Here's how we rendered it in Gumawana:
Yawoida moe dogoi gagaina namliyeta awoinu be kwama.
life-our that thing big-it afterwards food and clothing
"Our lives are a big thing followed by food and clothing"For a Gumawana speaker this has the same meaning as the English and the Greek, namely that our lives are more important than food or clothing. Notice also that in the Gumawana it doesn't say "life", rather it has to be "our lives". There is a generic word for "life" but in this type of context he is talking about everyone's life so it has to be possessed. Also, the generic word for "life" can mean "air" and would be confusing here.
In Matthew 18:13 Jesus has told a story about the man with 100 sheep. He tells the crowd that 99 were all right but one was lost. So the man goes and looks for the lost one. Then verse 13:
"If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray."The Gumawana version looks like this:
Go tutayana sipiyana ibabane, ina sipiyana taagauna
But when sheep he-finds-it his sheep lost-one
ibabane manuna bei iuyawana gagaina
he-finds-it about-it will he-rejoice big
namliyeta sipiyadi naintinain dedevidi manudi.
afterwards sheep 99 good-ones about-them
"But when he finds the sheep, listen to me, he will rejoice greatly about his lost sheep which he found afterwards about the 99 good sheep."Note that the word "afterwards" here is not a temporal sequence. The idea is more of prominence in that he rejoices a lot over the finding of the lost sheep whereas he rejoices not as much for the 99.
Another way that Gumawana can convey the same type of information is by using the word "surpass". We used this in 1 Corinthians 15:10 where Paul is talking about how he is the least of the apostles yet by God's grace he has labored more than all the others.
"but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me."To convey the meaning of the words in bold above we rendered it in Gumawana as follows:
Yau apoisogana gagaina go, guna poisoganayana goi
I I-labor big and my laboring in
Yeisu ina vamoleyanayao liliudi akalisavedi.
Jesus his sent ones all-them I-surpassed-them
"I labored hard and in my laboring I surpassed all of Jesus' sent ones (apostles)."Languages differ in many ways. Our task is to make the translation fit into the normal patterns of the language we are working with. The way we do this is to listen to native speakers talk about various issues, have the write stories which can then be analyzed and finally to give examples and ask how they would express the idea. The answers seem to come, though, when I least expect them. So in casual conversations, I will often hear someone say something in a way that either I have never heard before or in a way that fits something we had been looking for. Either way with God's help we eventually find the answers.
