Bum of bag...

... is the name of a book which translates French idioms literally for
the amusement of English speakers. ("Bum of bag" being "cul de sac".)
The book shows in a humorous way that idiomatic expressions translated
literally are often incomprehensible.

I had my doubts when in Psalm 28:3 I read in our Monkolé text, "Maà
dasim si bɔgɔ akã do ilu kukã ŋa do woo ce laalɔ ŋa", which means
"don't put me in one bag with the wicked and those who do evil". I
checked the French versions, and sure enough I found one with that
meaning, "Ne me mets pas dans le même sac que les méchants, eux qui font
le malheur des autres".

Now, as I have already mentioned, I am not a native Monkolé speaker, so
though I had my doubts, I simply asked my translators if the expression
existed in Monkolé. They decided to change it to "Don't treat me as you
treat...", which I suspect does make more sense!

Tinsel and snow

When we were down in Cotonou at the end of November, we were amused to see this big Christmas display in the hypermarket. We don't see anything like this in the rural north!



I took this photo, and later was looking at it before sending it to my family, when it struck me how funny it was to see our kids in "summer" clothes in front of the "snowy" scene. What was equally amusing was that when I was taking the  photo I hadn't thought of that at all!

More loss in translation...

I'm not a poet and I don't pretend to be one. But I can enjoy poetry.

I'm also not a native Monkolé speaker, and I couldn't even dream of
pretending to be one. So I feel that it isn't up to me to decide whether
something sounds "right" or "poetic" in Monkolé.

And translating poetry is really really difficult, including the Psalms.
Sometimes I feel that getting the meaning right, leaves it sounding very
*clunky* in Monkolé. We will discuss this in the team, but ultimately
it's not my call.

I just long for something of the beauty of the Psalms to shine through
in Monkolé.

Parallels

I am currently working on checking parallel passages. I need to make
sure that where passages are identical, we have an identical text, but
that where they vary, our translation varies accordingly.

Look up 1 Chronicles 17:16-27 and compare it to 2 Samuel 7:18-29 if you
want to get an idea of what I'm up against!