A Collection of Comments About the Translation Process

Clear Understanding

Paul was extremely conscious of how important it was that his message was clearly understood, whether it was in written form or spoken form. In 2 Corinthians 1:13 (RSV) he says, "For we write you nothing but what you can read and understand" and in 1 Corinthians 14:8 (RSV) he says, "And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?" Who indeed? Who is going to pay any serious attention to a translation of the Word of God that is often unintelligible and sounds foreign in many respects? No, the goal should be a translation that is so rich in vocabulary, so idiomatic in phrase, so correct in construction, so smooth in flow of thought, so clear in meaning, and so elegant in style, that it does not appear to be a translation at all, and yet, at the same time, faithfully transmits the message of the original.
(Translating the Word of God, John Beekman and John Callow, Zondervan, 1974, p 32.)

Fidelity

What is fidelity in translation? In the previous chapter, two approaches to translation were discussed. Whether the idomatic or literal approach is preferred, all are agreed that the meaning of the original must be preserved in the translation. It seems axiomatic, therefore, to conclude that a definition of fidelity will focus on the meaning of the original. Further, if it is granted, as was shown in the last chapter, that preserving the linguistic form of the original in a translation often results in wrong or obscure meaning, then it also seems self-evident that a definition will not focus on preserving the linguistic form of the original.

One characteristic of that linguistic form does become important, however, when thinking of fidelity in translation. The linguistic form of the original was natural and meaningful. It did not represent a grammatical or lexical structure that was impossible or discouragingly difficult to understand but one that was already in use by the people in everyday conversation. This feature of the original text gave it a dynamic quality which must also be preserved in a faithful translation.
(Translating the Word of God, John Beekman and John Callow, Zondervan, 1974, p 33.)

So Non-Christians Can Understand

The real test of the translation is its intelligibility to the non-Christian, who should be reached by its message.
(Bible Translating, Eugene A. Nida, Ph. D., American Bible Society, 1947, p 21.)

Spoken Like a Child

Translation is a linguistic process. It seems, therefore, that we should be able to learn enough linguistics to translate directly by rule. It turns out, however, that language is so exceedingly complex that no amount of scientific acumen or scientific knowledge is able, by itself, to turn out a suitable translation. Eventually, a good translation must be done by someone who speaks the language well.

How extraordinary it is that the ordinary child can learn to manipulate—to speak—the essentials of the enormous complexity of a language, whereas a linguist working one lifetime, two lifetimes, three lifetimes in tandem, cannot completely analyze that same system. The ability of a child to learn to speak a language is vastly greater than the ability of the analyst to say how he learns that language.

So we have no substitute for learning to speak the language.

The student who finds the speaking of foreign language a pleasure, therefore, finds himself at home in the translation process. How about coming and joining us? You can learn to speak these languages too! We will give you what techniques we have available. Between you, us and God, let's see if you and we can serve our neighbor, giving to him the documents which have let us become one community, citizens of heaven, talking the common language of the heart.
(Kenneth L Pike, from Language and Faith, Wycliffe Bible Translators, 1972, p 30.)

Vulnerable But Precious

Sometimes when I looked at the language data we had worked so hard to gather, I silently prayed that the Lord would protect it. Since much of it was the original handwritten data, it was evident that a little fire could destroy years of work. Whenever we typed anything, we made carbon copies and tried to keep those copies in different places, but our dictionaries were made up from words and phrases which had been added day by day and they remained handwritten.
(Eunice V. Pike, Words Wanted, Moody Press, 1958, p 14)

The Good Sheep-Father

Before any translation portion can be published, the materials are tested thoroughly in the village and then consultant-checked by one of our fellow members trained to do this. How can a consultant check our materials when he doesn't speak Tairora? Alex translates the Tairora back into English, bringing out the Tairora nuances, and the consultant then checks this material and gives comments to Alex to assess. An example from Psalm 23:1 is below:
Sipisipi qova koqeva nai sipisipiqaa raqikintema kero, Noravano Kotiva tiqaa raqiki vaimanta kia te vo haikaravata aara ntaunara.'Like a good sheep-father looks after his sheep, the Lord looks after me and I lack no thing.'Alex & Lois Vincent prayer letter, Papua New Guinea, Sept 2001

Advice to a Burmese Translator

Written injunctions to Felix Carey upon his departure for Burma:
Let the Burmese language occupy your most precious time, and your most anxious solicitude. Do not be content with its superficial acquiring. Make it yours root and branch. Listen with prying curiosity to the forms of speech, the construction and accent of the people. All your imitative powers will be wanted, and, unless you frequently use what you acquire, it will profit you little. As soon as you feel your feet, compose a grammar, and some simple Christian instruction. Begin your translations with the Gospel of Mark. Be very careful that your construction and idiom are Burman, not English.

Observe a rigid economy. Missionary funds are the most sacred on earth. Cultivate brotherly love. Think of our friends, Creighton and Grant, who lived for near twenty years in Goamalti without one painful difference. You cannot be so much as shy with each other without hurt to the Mission. Union, like every other blessing, must be prized and sought.

Preach the never-failing Word of the Cross. Be instant in season and out. Do not despise the patient instruction of one Burman. Let us hear from you regularly. Make memoranda of all you see. Be meek and gentle amongst the people. Cultivate the utmost cordiality with them as your equals. Never let European pride and superiority appear at the Mission House, Rangoon. The day when our Saviour says to you and to us, 'Well done!' will make amends for all we feel at parting.
(The Two Edged Sword, mimeo, Wycliffe Bible Translators, 1963, p 3.)

The Sense and the Spirit

Robert Morrison and the Chinese Bible: "The duty of the translator of any book is two-fold: first, to comprehend accurately the sense, and to feel the spirit of the original work; and secondly, to express in his version faithfully, perspicuously, and idiomatically (and, if he can attain it, elegantly,) the sense and spirit of the original."The Two Edged Sword, mimeo, Wycliffe Bible Translators, 1963, p 9.

God’s Creative Image in Language

The individual in culture is man, in the image of God, a citizen of heaven. What is it that man shares with God? Not fingernails, not hair, not eyebrows. Of course, the capacity for love and for joy—but these abstracts are very hard to study through science. There is one special thing, accessible to science, that we share with God. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning was One who could talk—not a dynamo, not brute power, not some vague pantheisic all in all, but One who could talk to Himself in the Trinity, Father to Son, and Son to the Father. This ability to communicate, to think, to reason, to plan, is ours by the creative capacity of God. Not only can we mimic it, but we ourselves become creative.

Language is in the creative image of God.

This is an intended metaphor—not accidental—at the heart of the Bible. It is at the heart of the universe, and at the heart of personality. Without language you could not say, "I ought," or "I will." Nor could you say, "You must." Personality, in part, comes from language. Language expresses character. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." He also said, "I am the truth." He, in person, is the truth, and He said of the Father, "Thy Word is truth," and "I have given them Thy Word."

Truth comes from the person first, and Christ is at the heart of all. I am not a Platonist who looks for ultimate reality in ideas floating around in the abstract. I am a Christian who believes that Christ is the embodiment of truth, and that His words are therefore truth. Propositional revelation is true because it comes from a person who is true.

Another commercial:
Christ prayed to the Father, "I have given them Thy Word—So send I them—to give the Word."... so I am a Bible translator.

A Sacred Complexity

If language is reflecting deeply the image of God, don't expect it to be simple, now or ever—nor for any theory to exhaust it. God could have made any animal, or any kind of a man He chose to make. But man as we know him, and as God wanted him to be, couldn't have been shaped like an elephant, have burrowed like a worm, been constrained by the mental limits of a bird or the communication restrictions of a moth. So it is with the incarnation of the message of God in the nature of Jesus Christ. Don't expect it to be simple. Language is complicated, because language has its source in person.
(Kenneth L. Pike, Stir, Change, Create, Wycliffe Bible Translators, 1967, p11-12.)

Vocal Gymnastics

This experience of helpfulness was shared by Miss Daisy Bates, O.B.E., who wrote:
"Sitting in a neighboring creek, or boiling the billy by an old tank out on the plain, the men would gather round me taking infinite pains to tutor me in the rippling inflections and the difficult double vowels of their language—a series of vocal gymnastics quite impossible to the average white linguist, and which, I am perfectly sure, in all my years of juggling with them have altered the formation of my larynx." (Of the Worora tribe, northwest coast of Australia)
(William H. Rainey, Living Languages, 1947 p32.)