Help!

In one of the villages which the translators visited to test part of our
translation, the people didn't know the word "sobi". When it was
explained to them, they said, "oh no, we say 'bua', we don't use 'sobi'".

The translators explained to me that in their own variation of the
Monkolé language, both "sobi" and "bua" are used to express the concept
of "help". But "sobi" is used when one person helps another and the two
collaborate to get something done. "Bua" is used when someone offers to
help and the other gives the task over to them.

However, a variation of the language seems to exist where "bua" covers
both meanings. Despite the danger of those people not understanding at
first, or feeling that it isn't quite their version of the language, I
think we'll keep the nuance. My team certainly seem to feel that it's
important (and not to do so could lead to misunderstandings for those to
whom "bua" has a more restricted semantic field).

It is interesting to me that a language with relatively few speakers in
a fairly small geographical space can still have considerable variation
among different speakers.