Reverse the Train

I've written about semantic challenges we've encountered in translation, that is, wrestling with key terms to find the most-promising overlap in word meaning (so that holy might mean more than cleanliness). I've written about paying attention to discourse details such as tracking participants in a story, that is, making sure pronouns refer back to the correct nouns (so that it isn't Jesus sending Pilate to stand before Herod). One area of translation that I haven't written much about is sentence-level grammar! I know, a glaring oversight on my part!

 

As your Middle School Language Arts teachers diligently tried to teach you, sentences are not just made up of a bunch of random words, there are different types of words each of which play different functions in the act of communicating. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases are like train cars hooked together to carry meaningful thought. But most languages don’t allow you to string them together in any haphazard order. If a sentence is a train, the verb is most definitely the engine: without it, you aren't going anywhere. Gmz likes to put their engines right at the front of the sentence, from which position it can pull the rest of the scrolling word train. English most often puts the verb immediately after the subject noun, which also tends to be toward the beginning of the sentence. Why? Maybe because we want to get the most important ideas out on the table before we add all the supporting phrases. Amharic (the national language of Ethiopia) doesn't agree. They like to keep the main point secret as long as possible. In order to do so, they've converted their verb engines to be pushers instead of pullers. Let me explain what I mean with this example:

 

Example sentence:

"Imagine a scrolling marquee on your computer screen using a big font so that you can only see three words at a time."

 

In English word order - the main verb is a command "Imagine" and it sits right up front, pulling the full sentence along. That would be its place in Gmz grammar as well. However, if I translated this sentence into good Amharic and then word-for-word translated it back into English it would read.

 

"At one time three words only that you see big font using on your computer screen marquee scrolling imagine."

 

If you tried to read this scrolling sentence only seeing three words at a time, as the example suggests, you would have to read and retain all of the peripheral information before you final get to the main idea - imagine. And believe me, in long sentences, it is really hard for us English speakers to wait. Ok, so we do it some in our language too, especially in poetry, songs "Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go," and the speech of little, green, pointy-eared guys with mad light saber skills, "The force is strong with you I see." But it is far from normal in everyday speech.

 

This rainy season (that is, summer for many of you), Worku (one of the translators) and I have been doing some initial drafting of Pauline epistles. In Luke and Acts, the process of initial drafting was done by the translators themselves, which I then checked against the Greek. When I asked the team to begin tackling some of Paul's letters, however, their progress slowed to snail's pace. When I asked them how it was going, they all lamented the confusing grammar of the Amharic text. And I can understand their frustration. Paul wrote long, never-ending sentences that sometimes drag on for 7-8 verses and when Amharic requires that their train engines be pushers not pullers, it becomes very difficult to follow the "train of thought." Worku and I decided to try a crack at it, and so over the 5 weeks, we both learned a lot about how to tackle the texts. Often times, Worku would read the Amharic verse(s) out loud and then I would read the same Amharic words and phrases (while pointing at them on the screen), just in a different order - the order that an English or Gmz speaker would process it. It was fun to see the light bulbs go on for Worku just by the simple changes in order. At one point, I laughed out loud as my finger literally went word for word backwards through the whole sentence, resulting in the perfect Gmz structure. Check out (below) 2 Timothy 3:15b (words separated by hyphens):

 

"from infancy - beginning – in Christ Jesus - through our believing - salvation - in which is found - wisdom - that they give to you - which are able - holy books - you have known."

 

Doesn't make much sense to English speakers does it? BUT Reverse the train and what do you get?

 

"You have known - holy books - which are able - that they give you wisdom - in which is found - salvation through our believing - in Christ Jesus - beginning - from infancy."

 

Much more sensible and with only a few minor tweaks we'd have a good translation. It doesn't always work that nicely, but we found over and over, that scrolling the text backward helps clear up many confusions in the drafting process. Sorry, this post is probably a bit long and boring, but to all you amateur linguists/translators out there – you might find it interesting.

Peter, Paul and WHO???

There are two words in the English language that I notoriously question…that is, I likely annoy their unsuspecting users by challenging what our society deems as perfectly acceptable usages. The first of these is the word "congratulations." In my vocabulary, congratulations is given in celebration of an accomplishment, usually an achievement of some weight, and a hard-fought victory. Congratulations on your graduation with honors! Congratulations on your victory in the election, or on the ball field. Even congratulations on potty training your puppy. But there are very common offerings of congratulations that confound me. Congratulations on your engagement, or your marriage! What does that mean? Is convincing a girl to tie the knot an accomplishment worthy of congratulations? "Hey, I can see that you've had trouble getting girls to like you, congratulations on overcoming that deficiency!" Or "Congratulations on successfully hiding all of your faults during the period of rose-colored twitterpation, way to go!" I don't think that's what people mean. Or maybe it is like the winning of a hard-fought competition, "Among all the other options available to her, she chose you. You're the winner! And she is your prize!" Hmmm…I don't think that's it either. The same goes for when a couple finds out they are going to have a baby. Someone recently came up to me and said, "I hear that congratulations are in order." To which I responded, "Uhhh…uhhh, sorry I don't know what to say. Yes, I did my part in the process, but I hardly feel that to be worthy of congratulations!" Likewise when Georgie Porgie makes his/her debut, I will likely be congratulated again…why? I have come to realize that what we English speakers actually mean in these cases is better stated by speakers of Amharic – "Inkwaan des alachu!" meaning, "Yea! What happiness you have!" or more naturally, "Wow, I'm happy for you!" And so, from now on, I've decided to stop annoying people with critique of these strange congratulatory expressions, but rather translate them silently in my head into Amharic.

The second word that I've notoriously criticized over the years is the word "cute." I have catalogued its usages in such a wide variety of contexts: cute kids, cute bugs, cute little old people, cute sweaters, cute shoes, cute sayings, cute annoying little quirks, and even a sickly donkey standing next to a gravel road was called cute. I've polled people far and wide to find out what cute means and have received a variety of answers. Some have said that it is anything that is miniature - Does that mean I can say, "Oh I stepped in a cute pile of…" or "The doctor said I have a cute tumor"? Others say that it is something pleasing to the eye – When an 18 month toddler says, "Tang yu fo kooky," is that pleasing to the eye? The best definition I've heard (and I think I credit it to my sister-in-law) has to be "cute means anything that makes me smile." This definition is wide enough to cover most, if not all uses of the word cute, but it unfortunately captures things that would certainly not be called cute – the photographer for our school yearbook,  Andrea's homemade pizza, and mention of Casa Bonita (a little family vacation advice: when at a Mexican restaurant, don't everybody pass your unwanted refried beans to one person, especially the day before a long car ride – not cute!).

As any of my Campus Life friends can tell you, TravisT Williamson, as a bachelor, didn't have the slightest clue about the word "cute." Or, rather, that he refused to learn, that is until he was introduced to two new teachers, Micah and Grace, who repeatedly drilled the concept home. Having boycotted the word, I soon found myself speechless in certain situations. The other night, Grace sparked up conversation over our dessert with her usual topic of interest, "Oh, Oh, ShaSha," she stated very seriously before plunging her spoon back into her ice cream. In the language of Grace, that means there are dogs (Oh, Oh) in the compost (koshasha is the Amharic word for garbage). For a month or two, Grace initiated this conversation out of the blue at least a couple times a day. Not that we needed to do anything about the dogs, it was just Grace's filler for a moment of silence (which is few and far between when you Yackey Doodle as a big brother). Now, if I had tried repeated striking up the same conversation over and over again using partial words and sound effects, it would be intolerably annoying. When Grace does it, its…well…I can't help but smile at its cuteness.

Micah has grown past the cute days of bread being "Minamina" and bird being "bidabida," but he still catches us off guard with his own cute moments. Earlier in this rainy season, before the toads have come out of their dry season hiding places, Micah kept himself pretty occupied by catching grasshoppers and crickets (used for feeding either to the chickens, or to himself). One day, he had caught three big crickets on our porch and, after incarcerating them in old strawberry cartons, he preceded to name them. "Hey daddy, these crickets are my pets, I gave them names," he declared with a big smile. "Oh yea, let me guess," I replied, "Sape, Sape and Sape." (Sape was last rainy season's overused name for his pets). "No, their names are Peter, Paul…and Stroganoff!" Andrea and I absolutely lost it! "Peter, Paul, and Stroganoff? What happened to Mary?" I asked between uncontrolled laughter. Sadly ignorant of the classics, Micah didn't see the humor in it, but instead responded with an entirely straight face, "Dad! Mary is a chicken! And besides, I like Stroganoff." Cute! It most definitely made me smile.

Georgie Porgie

With a near perfect recitation of the little poem we had taught him, Micah let the cat out of the bag in a skype call with our parents: "Georgie Porgie," he  began with a look of serious concentration,

 

"Georgie Porgie, Puddin' and Pie,

Now is about the size of a fly.

When the Babe comes out to play,

Micah and Grace will say HORRAY!"

  

Needless to say, we are excitedly anticipating the arrival of Baby #3, which also means looking forward to a visit back to the States for the birth (due date Jan 20).