This morning I was comparing two parallel passages in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. They are very similar in the original text, though not completely identical. Whoever originally translated them into Monkolé hadn't noticed that these were parallel texts, and so I have two translations and have to work out – with the help of the team of course – which version is best.
This brought up an interesting translation question. Both 1 Kings 7:26 and 2 Chronicles 4:5 (identical in the original text), describing the large basin for the priests to wash, says, "its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom" (NIV 1984). I found two different translations of this in Monkolé:
In 1 Kings 7:26 it had been translated, "andɛu mɔ iyi í yɛ bɛi kɔɔfu, à cooi bɛi kokoi jĩi ndii lisi", meaning "the edge was like a cup, they made it like the flower of the lily plant" with "lisi" being the transliteration of the French word "lys", this being an unknown plant in the north of Benin.
In 2 Chron. 4:5 it had been translated, "andɛu mɔ iyi í yɛ bɛi kɔɔfu, à cooi bɛi kokoi jĩi iyi í fũ anu", meaning "the edge was like a cup, they made it like an open flower".
It seems to me that what the first gains in precision, the second makes up for in comprehensibility for speakers of Monkolé. Perhaps lilies had a particular meaning for Israelites, but it seems to me that the important thing in this passage is the shape being described. And it will mean more to the Monkolés to read "an open flower" than to read about a kind of flower they've never heard of before.
What do you think?
