Checking translations

I recently found a website for a church where the pastor had a blog. He raised some questions about the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators. He was questioning how translators could really know that the translation was correct in the language. I was surprised by the statements he made because if he had done even a small amount of research he could have found very good answers to his questions. Right now I'm in the midst of checking some chapters of Joshua for a colleague in Papua New Guinea. So I thought this would be a good time to talk about Wycliffe's "quality control".

Believe it or not, before any Scripture is published it has to be checked. We don't just do a minor little read through either. Normally, when any book is completed in a first draft form, the translators will then check with native speakers who have not worked on it. When I do this in the village, I round up some men and women who did not work on the translation. We then begin reading the book paragraph by paragraph. I have them read a little then I ask them to close their books and tell me what they remember. This tells me if the text is coherent. If they can remember things in the right order and can recall minor details, there is a good chance it is well written. If, on the other hand, they are unable to come up with details and seem to be confused on the order of events, there is most likely something that is not translated quite right.

I will ask questions about each verse as to who is doing what, when, where, and why. The answers that come back are very helpful and we make changes based on what is not understood properly. I ask questions about words that we have used to make sure they mean what the translators told me they did.

Once that phase is done, I translate the whole thing back into English. As I do I am constantly checking it again to see if we left something out.

When I have translated back into English this copy is given to a translation consultant. He will check this against the Greek or Hebrew. His goal is make sure we didn't leave something out. If he finds things that may be questionable exegetically or theologically, he may challenge me on it. He goes through it very carefully writing out questions. Then we meet together with a native speaker of the language. He will ask the questions and I will translate them into Gumawana. The native speaker will be someone who has not worked on this book in any way before this point. His answers will usually show whether or not it is clear. By having another set of eyes look over the text, we are able to find any problem areas.

Only after all this checking is done, can we publish. I am a translation consultant as well and it is possible to read through the English back-translation and find errors. The questioning time does work to find most if not all problems. In fact, I would say that our translations are tested far more than any English translation is. Furthermore, we don't use the same consultant for all the books we translate. For Gumawana we have already had 6 different consultants check it. And in checking the gospels, we really get it checked four times. Even though Mark may be done, when a different consultant checks Matthew he may find things that were missed on Mark. So changes are made to both. As far as I can see it is one of the best systems for quality control.

Responding to this pastor's query about being able to understand what the native speaker knows about the translation, I can say that the majority of translators in Wycliffe have learned the language they are working in very, very well so that they can understand how the native speakers are going to take a certain passage. When we are translating we do so in Gumawana. We do rarely use English. So when I am looking for an important term in the language, I explain it all in Gumawana. After 25 years working in the language, my fluency is quite high as is the case for most translators.

Hopefully, this will clear up questions you might have about how we maintain quality control.

Hunger on the Amphletts

I just received an email a few days ago from our regional manager at our regional center in Alotau (Milne Bay Province, PNG). He stated he heard our friend Tomasi on the radio (he added the word "clearly" because our new antenna must really be working!). I guess they are experiencing another famine of sorts. We were out there last Oct for several weeks and there had been so much rain that the people could not plant their yams. I don't know the full story yet but I do know that when the gardens get messed up, a famine follows.

Normally on the Amphlett people plant their gardens in August or September. Harvest is in May. The yams usually last from harvest time till December. Then they begin eating more sweet potatoes, bananas and manioc from January till the next harvest. This past year the Southeast winds which usually blow from May till around September kept right on blowing and producing so much rain the ground stayed to moist to plant. If they had planted the seed yams would have rotted in ground.

So it is possible with all the rain from last year they are hurting for food. When this happens they begin sailing to other language groups to trade their clay pots for food. They will also trade turtle, fish and betel nut as well.

We had planned a possible trip in March and now we are glad we didn't. The other message from Tomasi was that the seas were so rough, he advised not trying to come. I appreciate him thinking of my stomach. It reminds me of a trip we took in July one time from the village Nubogeta to Alotau. It's about 15 hours. I couldn't even pick my head up off the bench because it was so rough. July is the worst time to travel. The Southeast winds are at their worst at that time. 15 hours of the boat slamming into the waves - up and down, up and down.

There was one other time I tried going in on the boat and it was rough. The Southeast winds had started blowing and I could hear the howl all day. I thought maybe that night it would calm down. Around midnight I thought it had calmed down and planned on leaving. We boarded the boat. It was one of those nights where it is so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face. As we pulled out of the reef area, we hit the first waves. Because I couldn't see the horizon I knew I was in for trouble. For the next 5 hours straight I was throwing up. I would open the window, throw up, then close it quickly so the waves didn't come crashing in. Once we were in the shelter of three islands, it was calm and I had a brief rest. But then we turned Southeast again and once I again I threw up for another 5 hours. Once we were in Milne Bay, the waves finally calmed down and I was very happy!

So you can see why I would be glad not to be on a boat at the moment. If Tomasi says it's rough, I believe him. He knows all about my weak stomach.

So I would appreciate you praying for the people on the Amphletts. You may never meet them, but they are going to have a tough time with a lack of food. Pray that God will provide the means for them to find the food they need in the ocean and in their trading relations.

Living in Papua New Guinea has been exciting at times. There have been times when I wish I had been some place else though. It's nice to talk about what happened in the past, but when the events happened I would rather have been anywhere else at the time. Medical work is one area I have never enjoyed. We were only trained to do minor things. So when major things happen, it pushed us to the limit some times.

One time we were getting ready for bed when the kids playing nearby brought an injured kid whose name was Edwin. They had been playing a game with old tin cans. The game was rather interesting. Some of the kids attempted to pile the tins up while a couple of them tried to knock them down with a make shift ball. Unfortunately for Edwin when he grabbed a can another kid grabbed the same one. They both pulled hard. The other kid let go and Edwin found the tin smacked against his forehead. He had a nice gash just above his left eye. Blood and guts everywhere. I might be exagerating a bit, but you get the idea. Those cuts on the face always seem to bleed excessively.

So now we have a problem. The thing obviously needed to be stitched. But how? Roxanne hates needles, so that's out. We had been taught to give injections in the backside, but not to sew up people. I pulled out my trusty book "Where there is no doctor" to find out. Actually, I like to refer to the book as "Where you wish you had a doctor." I checked the book to find out which local I should use and how to give the injections so I can attempt to sew it (which I also don't know how to do). The book lived up to the name I gave it because I couldn't find anything that explained it well. What to do? I prayed a lot now hoping for some divine wisdom. I chose one of the two possible locals that could be used (I figured I had a 50% chance of getting it right). I prayed over Edwin before I started on him. At this point you might say I was in an operating theater. The entire village was on our verandah to watch the dimdim (that's what the call foreigners there) fix this kid. My prayer for him was that he wouldn't feel anything. You see, I knew what was coming. I've experienced the other end of that needle and know it hurts like the dickens. That and the fact that I had never sewn up someone before would guarantee this kid was in for it.

Edwin lay there quietly with his eyes closed as I attempted to put the needle in. All eyes were on me. The problem was the blasted needle wouldn't go through his skin. I pushed and prodded with no luck. I sat back to think what to do. Someone said bogina ikamasa 'he has died'. I looked down and he did look like he was dead. At that point I realized that while I had been trying to stick him with the needle he never made a sound nor did he ever move. I asked, "Edwin, are you all right?" He opened his eyes a little and said, U 'Yes'. "Does it hurt", I asked. He said, Tupwana 'A little."

By this time my hands are starting to shake. I tried once again to put the needle through his skin. I thought I got it through so pushed on the syringe. The local ran down his face into his eye. I thought great, now I'm going to blind him for life. The gash will hurt but his eye won't feel a thing! I wiped his face off and once again sat back. I asked Roxanne to do it. She told me she couldn't do that, no way. I explained to her that there was no other way. I couldn't do it now. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. She finally relented and tried it once. No go.

We had put this kid through quite a bit. I figured it would be healed by the time we got the local in him! So I made an excutive decision. I said, "Let's wipe his face off and just put a butterfly on it." That's what we did. I sprinkled a little antibiotic powder on it, cut out a cute little butterfly and plastered to his forehead. We told Edwin to leave it on there till it drops off on its own. That really is not that long there. I think the crowd quite enjoyed this little aside from the everyday life.

What had I done wrong? Well, for starters I found out later the injection is given inside the wound not on the outside as I had been doing. Made complete sense why I couldn't get the needle through his skin.

A week or so later we saw Edwin. I called him over to look at his forward. You won't believe it. There was not a mark on his forehead, no scare, no line, nothing. Completely healed.

And God must have been looking down and chuckling. I can laugh now, but I sure wasn't when it happened. Stay tuned for more stories from the village.

The Truth Project

I'm going through thevideo series "The Truth Project" from focus on the family at a church in San Marcos. It is an excellent series and very much worth watching. It helps to understand the current culture and the false assumptions people are living by.

The one today on history was great. Too many people today do not understand the importance of history. There are people trying to rewrite it in an attempt to remove God from the picture. The point was if people can change the past (i.e., rewrite history) they can change the way people think today. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans are being deceived by the rewriting of history.

I'm continuing to translate Matthew's gospel back into English (see my previous posting on what a backtranslation is). I came to Matthew 6 where at the beginning where Jesus in the middle of the sermon on the mount makes reference to the hypocrites in the synagogues. Gumawana does not have a word for hypocrite. At first we translated it as topola 'one-who-lies' or 'liar'. But as I was rereading it, I found that it just didn't sound right. Was Jesus saying they were liars? Lie is more of a verbal idea, but in Matthew 6 Jesus is referring to people who act one way to impress but the heart is not right.

So as always, I had to go back and rethink how we had translated this word every time it occurred in Matthew (as well as Luke and John!). Some believe that the word hypocrite does not have a Greek background which is where our English word comes from. Rather, it is believed to have a Hebrew background. The word in the Old Testament seems to refer to a godless person. It is suggested that 'lawless', 'corrupt' or 'unrighteousness person' are better translations of the word. There is a mismatch between the outward appearance and what is in the heart.

So Gumawana topola 'liar' will not work. Instead we can say todedevina polapola 'one-who-is-good false' which will mean something like 'a false good person.' The idea that hopefully comes across is that this would refer to a person who acts as a good person towards others but inside he is not; he is godless.

So the editing continues. I keep learning new things everytime I work on the translation. It's amazing how when you look at things through another language it requires you to think outside the box.

Have you ever noticed in your Bibles, especially the more literal translations, the word "Behold"? Have you ever wondered what that word is doing there? It sounds so foreign to English, so much so we could say it is biblical English, that is, it's only found in the Bible and not in every day speech. But the Greek word that translates it, idou (ee-do), is important. The problem is that the word has either been translated literally into our English Bibles or not translated at all. Both options are not really translation. What we need to do is look at the function of the word.

To do that I need you to recall a story written many years ago entitled "The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever." Did you ever read that story? In it a family who had never been to church finally come. The kids are motivated to come because they believe food is to be had. there These kids are absolutely wild. They end up in the Church's Christmas pageant and one of them plays Mary. None of these kids had ever heard the Christmas story before so they were quite enthralled with it the first time they did. They asked a lot of questions as it was being told to them. The story comes to the point of an angel speaking to Joseph and he says "Behold the virgin shall be with child." The girl who was to play Mary doesn't understand what this means so she asks what "behold" is. After listening to the answer she says something like, "You mean shazam.". Remember that from the comic books you read as a kid? When something surprising or unusual happened in the story there would be a "shazam". Gomer Pyle used to say it at something surprising too. My point is that shazam functions very much like "behold" in Greek. Whenever something surprising happens or an important character comes onto the scene, "behold" is used to mark this. The other place it is used is in quotes. The speaker is saying to the listener "listen up to what I'm about to say; it is important."

Unfortunately, those translations which make no effort to translate the word lose some of the umph in the translation. Those that translate it literally leave the reader puzzled as the girl above was. I don't think I have ever seen any English translation that tried to capture the function of the word.

Other ways to translate it that might be more meaningful would be "pay attention to what I'm going to say" when someone is speaking. What about the other places it occurs like "behold an angel of the Lord appeared"? How might we render that in better English so as to convey the function of "behold"? Look in your Bible for other examples and post your comments.

Right now I'm working on the back-translation of the gospel of Matthew. Some people may not know what a back-translation is so let me explain. When we finish a draft of a book like Matthew. I will go through edit it, put in section headings and references. When that is done I test it out with people in the village to see if it is clear, accurate, and sounds like the way they speak. When that is finished then I translate the book from Gumawana back into English making it as literal as possible. This copy will be given to a translation consultant who will check the book against the Greek. He will look for things I have omitted, things I have inserted which may be a problem, places where he thinks a native speaker might get the wrong meaning or no meaning at all when it is read. This is our quality control.
Now you know what a back-translation is. The other name we use is VE for vernacular to English translation.