Formal translation is the term generally used to refer to the most literal type of translation.

Literal translation means that you stick as closely as you can to the original wording. This may sound like a good idea, but formal translations can often be a bit hard to read. That’s because languages tend to express things in unique ways and these unique expressions may seem curious, comical, or incomprehensible in another language.

When it comes to Biblical translation, that is, translating the Scriptures, formal translations are generally considered better or more accurate. But let’s face it–the Bible is a unique book. Besides that, Biblical scholars for centuries have studied and analyzed the original languages and expressions so even unusual expressions have come to gain meaning. A good example of this is the phrase, "the apple of his eye." That was a formal translation that is now meaningful to most English speakers in the way the original Hebrew writers intended.

When it comes to translating tracts, books, study guides, or texts about the Bible, it is often better to veer away from formal translations and become a bit looser. The goal with these texts is to render the meaning rather than the exact words.

I once had a translation professor who said that with some texts, you want to write it the way the original author would have written it, had he spoken your language. Good words!

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Does your translation need some First-Aid? There are lots of things that can hurt your translation. Here’s what to do in the case of some common translation boo-boos:

• Don’t get hung up on the dictionary. Most professional translators do not work out of the dictionary–they work out of their knowledge of a living, vibrant language and they consult with dictionaries. If there is an issue between what you feel the word means in your own language and what you see in the dictionary, go with your living language.

If you can’t figure out what the source text means, contact the author (if possible) or someone like the author.  Believe it or not, most authors who are regularly translated are used to being asked here and there about what their text means. The author may not be available to you, but perhaps a representative or other agent is. If none of this is an option, talk to somebody who speaks the source language as a native language and try to get an interpreation.

If you have to translate a word that doesn’t seem to exist in any dictionary anywhere, Google. Go online to see what is out there, but take your findings with a grain of salt. There are also translation forums (Google “translation forum” and see what comes up) where you can pose your question to other professional translators. This may work better with technical terms and slang, but at least it’s an avenue.

Proof your text like a translator. There’s proofreading and then there’s “proofing a translation.” I’m not sure every translator would agree with me, but here’s what I do. You should look at each sentence of the source document and then compare it against your finished translation.  Can you account for every word of the source in the target (translation)? This doesn’t mean that an 18-word source sentence will be an 18-word translation. But you should be able to see each word of the original somehow offered into the translation. If there are things you don’t translate, be sure you have reason for it. (For instance, in French, “tout de suite” means “fast” or “rapidly” in English. Three words in French make one word in English … but that’s fine because you can account for why you took those three words and rendered them into one English word.) After this proof (which is really more to find missing things in your translation) then proof it like a proofreader to be sure it reads well, is complete, nothing is misspelled, and the punctuation is correct.

Try to understand the source document. Many translators try to translate things they don’t understand. I hate to admit it, but that’s often possible, particularly for skilful translators–but it’s never a good idea. As much as possible, try to understand the sourcetext. Now if you’re a secular translator and you’re translating a chemical patent from English into Japanese, you may wind up translating things you don’t thoroughly understand–but you should understand it in basic terms. In other words, you don’t have to become a professor of chemistry but you should understand the gist of what you’re translating. If you don’t understand a source text, it’s a good investment of your time to dig deeper and try to figure it out. How? Research the topic, read other similar documents, and try to find similar translations if you can.

Analyze the finished translation at the end. Does it make sense? Is it thorough? Is it complete? There are two reasons for this. One is that the source document is incomplete or incomprehensible. That’s not unheard of, but the more likely explanation is that your translation is missing something. Proof like a translator (can you account for everything in the source? Did you skip something important?) and go back and visit the original source document. You may need to do some subject matter research, too. Is there something you misunderstood and rendered incompletely. If you mistranslated even one word, you can twist the whole text up! That’s why reading the translation like it was a stand-alone document can help at the end.

The best approach to translation first aid is one of humility and lifelong learning! Be teachable and pursue the task wholeheartedly. Translation is incredibly tough work (few people realize that) and it’s only natural that at times we all find it very hard.

 

 

 

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Every translator faces this at least once in a while: what happens when you are having to translate something that sounds too harsh, too stern, or just too “unlike you.” If you’re a secular translator, you sometimes run into texts that sound silly, illogical, stupid, or sentimental. In the Gospel translation world, you may sometimes run into tracts or other things that sound a bit different than what you would say.

So what voice does a translator have?

Writers, that is, those who craft the original materials (source documents) have a “voice.” Voice refers to the way a writer would phrase things.  One writer may write things in a flowery, poetical way; another writer may be terse, fast-paced, masculine in how he phrases things; another writer may be extremely formal. Writers get a voice.

Translators don’t. As a translator, your job is to render the text from the source into the target language. We translators do not get to embellish along the way–and that’s what “voice” really is. It’s a way of infusing the text with a bit of our own personality. While we translators can have wonderful personalities, they have no business getting mixed into the texts we translate.

One case where this can really happen is when a tract or Christian text gets to “hard parts.” I’m not talking about things that are tough to interpret. I’m talking about places where you have to bring up things like sin, wrath, hell, and torment. Just as so many contemporary churches shy away from the real message of the Bible (hell for sinners), many translators can find themselves unwilling to translate the original author’s message.

Charles Spurgeon once wrote that if a person had no desire to see others saved, then he was not save himself (to which Spurgeon, with flourish, even added, “be sure of that!”). Now those are pretty strong words. Spurgeon said that people who professed to be Christians who did not want to save other people were not saved themselves (be sure of that!). I am sure that a good many people disagree with that statement. I think some may not exactly disagree with the content, but would be uncomfortable sharing that message.

As a translator, we don’t have that luxury. We are to render the text correctly and accurately.

Another question that comes up with harsh texts–how do we “translate” emotions. When Spurgeon wrote that so-called Christians who do not evangelize are likely not Christians at all, he used some strong language, including the end phrase “be sure of that!” Translators should translate the meaning of the text and keep in mind that part of the meaning is the emotion. “Be sure of that” should not be rendered into some wimpy, wishy-washy phrase like “and that is a true statement” but rather something powerful.

All of that brings us to the main point of this article. There are ways to say things in diferent emotional currencies and you need to make sure your emotions are true to the original text.

For instance, Spurgeon’s ending “be sure of that!” was emphatic. He wanted readers to know that he was not going to backpedal and say “it may be possible that some Christians who are not evangelizing might actually not be saved.” He was making the statement be a blanket statement: any Christian who did not want to see others saved was not a Christian, and there is no wiggle room here. The translation must convey that same tone and emotion–while still being true to the original meaning.

Most of the time it involves understanding the emotional content of words. In English, “big” is more dramatic and scarier than “large.” If you’re ever chased by a bear in the woods, it will be a “big bear” and not a “large bear” and never a “somewhat large bear.” In English, “loud” is stronger and conveys a bit more obnoxiousness than “exuberant” which conveys joy or “boisterous” which sounds a bit more harmless.

One area where translators may want to pull their punches is in the arena of sin and hell. Sin is sin. It’s very common in America right now to confuse it with “poor choices” or “bad decisions.” Sin may indeed involve such things, but sin is something different. I once went to a seafood restaurant and ordered chicken–that was a “poor choice” and even a “bad decision,” but it wasn’t a sin. If the writer calls something sin, call it sin when you translate it.

Hell is not “being cut off from God” or “being separated from God,” although you’ll hear some contemporary church people trying to ditch the harsh term hell in favor of milder (and theologically inaccurate) terms. When the writer says “hell” then translate it as “hell.”

In other words, translators are to check their own inhibitions at the door and translate texts as accurately as they can and not “help” the source document sound gentler and kinder.

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Pidgin is the official term to refer to a language that is not a normal, natural language but is rather one that arises out of mutual need. Pidgins often occur when two people with very different languages need to communicate–for instance, let’s say sailors from one nation travel to a distant land and need to communicate with the local people. The two groups have no words in common and no one in either group can serve as translator because no one speaks both languages.

What arises is a sort of makeshift language. In general, pidgin languages have limited vocabulary. Pidgins usually include the basics–some main nouns, basic verbs, and useful words. These are the things that are likely to be included rapidly into a pidgin language:  ”yes” and “no,” “bread” and “water,” “buy” and “sell,” “man” and “woman,” “help” and “stop.” These are just some examples, but you get the point.

Pidgins rarely get complex. They don’t bother much with fancy sentence structure, verb tenses, articles, or other difficult topics. The language gets super-streamlined. Pronunciation may also be simplified.

To a linguist, a pidgin is a language that is not only made up, but it’s a language that nobody speaks as his or her first language. A pidgin is a makeshift language that people use but nobody speaks it at home or speaks it naturally as his or her main language.

But what happens when a pidgin takes root–as they sometimes do–to the extent that it becomes somebody’s first language? The pidgin language undergoes a change in both structure and name. Linguistically, the language is called a creole.

How does a pidgin change when it becomes a creole? That’s a very interesting topic! First of all, the speed of the language accelerates dramatically. Pidgins are generally spoken slowly and haltingly, but a creole is spoken at normal linguistic speed. This usually means that the words get shortened or slurred–in fact, there can be real changes in some of the words as they get clipped by the acceleration. A creole is usually a sponge in terms of accepting new words. Most creoles take words from a variety of sources–local culture, foreign culture, popular culture, outside influences. So a creole generally experiences an explosion in terms of vocabulary. Pretty soon words used in the creole language are no longer recognized in the pidgin tongue.

Now at this point, the creole language starts to “fix” some of the deficiencies of the pidgin by imposing some grammatical structure on the language. (Most pidgin languages don’t fuss much about grammar.) The interesting thing is that all creole languages have very similar grammatical strucutres.

Creole languages exist all over the place–in the Caribbean (including Haiti), in the Pacific Islands, in Russia, and so on. However, once a creole starts to impose its “new grammar,” all of these languages have a very similar structure. They all have a similar word order (subject-verb-object). They all have verb tenses. There are some similarities in syntax (how words are used together).  This has spawned a lot of explanations including similar origins (the idea that all languages derive from one basic language…hey, that sounds familiar? Where did we hear that before?) or the bioprogram hypothesis. The bioprogram hypothesis suggests that all humans have a sort of hardwired linguistic aptitude–kids, for instance, all over the world learn language basically the same way. This biopogram theory suggests that it’s this basic kid-learning programming that gets imposed on creoles.

My first run-in with a Creole language was from correspondence to Haiti. Actually, some forms of Creole are still spoken in New Orleans and I heard the language (live!) there, too. It’s a form of French and I speak enough French to realize that I can hear snippets of things I understand. But the creole isn’t French and classical French is nothing like this Haitian Creole or New Orleans Creole.

Say pas sah? (That’s New Orleans Creole for “ce n’est pas ca? ” or “isn’t that right?” I’m not sure if it’s spelled right but that’s how it’s pronounced.)

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You may have heard that there is a language that uses clicking sounds. Actually, that’s an understatement. Clicking sounds are found in many languages–even English, if you consider that we sometimes use a tut-tut kind of click to express disapproval.

The classic clicking sounds are found in the Khoisan family of languages of Africa; Khoisan languages are those spoken by the Bushmen in the southern regions of Africa. Probably the best known of the clicking languages to most Westerners are the Bantu languages. Linguists who study these things suggest that the Bantu languages may derive their clicking sounds from the Khoisan languages.

Bantu languages are spoken in South Africa.  The Zulu and Ndebele languages have three click sounds. One of them is called a dental click (it’s kind of like the tsk-tsk sound in English, made by the tongue at the front teeth), the lateral click (a click that comes out of the side of your mouth–my grandmother used to make this sound to call a horse), and a palatal click (which sounds like a cork popping). These clicks have written symbols (c, x, and q).

Clicks are not words; they are treated as letters. Clicks are often merged with other sounds and sometimes even clicks can run together. If you consider all of the possible combinations, some languages have a total of about 15 different clicking sounds.

Now if you go to the Khosian languages–thought to be the originators of clicking sounds in language although it’s dying out today–there is another interesting clicking sound. It’s called the labial click and it sounds like a kissing noise.

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