Quotes within quotes

Four months ago, I “finished language study.” Finishing language study required three years of full-time effort. What a challenge it was! I’ve come a long way from pointing at different root vegetables, asking “What is it?” and then promptly forgetting that new word 🙂

I may have reached the level required to start translating, but the learning process doesn’t stop. I’ve simply reached the level where I can improve my language skills as I use them. In the four months I’ve been translating and writing literacy books I can already see improvement, but there is still so much to learn! I almost dread rereading my translation of the Joseph story in 5 years. I’m doing my best, but I’m sure in 5 years I’ll look back and shake my head at how little I knew.

One of the things about translation that pushes me further in my understanding of this language is that I need to translate things I’ve never heard used in the language before. This week I dug into quotes within quotes. In Gen 43 Joseph’s brothers return to their father and tell him what they said and what Joseph had said to their father.

I’ve never, ever heard in the Kovol language a dialogue reported to others in a dialogue before!

It’s a good thing I’m not translating alone. I read my draft to my translation helper and after explaining what I was trying to say to him I had him reword it for me. I dug into the audio recording of what he had just said to me and saw the pattern. Here’s how it’s done in Kovol:

“The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land. But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we have never been spies.

Gen 42:30-31

” ‘You are people who secretly see places’ said he talked” they said. ” He said, we said like this ‘no’ said we talked” they said. ” ‘We are good people’ said we talked” they said. ” ‘We don’t secretly see places’ said they talked” they said.

That’s a brand new way of speaking for me. The real question is does it communicate first time to someone who’s not heard the story before? I tested it out in a comprehension check to find that… maybe it does? The guy could tell me exactly what was said by the brothers, but when I asked “Who did they say this to? Are they talking to Joseph again?” he couldn’t answer.
It seems we’re almost there, but I might need to slow down the opening line (Gen 42:29) a bit. Right now it reads “They came to Canaan and said to Jacob. That’s fine, but seeing as the first person I checked this with couldn’t tell me who they were talking to I think I might need to say something like “They came to Canaan. They said to their father Jacob. They saw him and said to him”
We will see. I have two more comprehensive checks to go so perhaps persons 2 and 3 can answer my question.

Perhaps I should practise this pattern somehow? The problem is that it is so obscure! I feel like I’d have to manufacture such a contrived scenario to use it. “I talked to Gerdine and said that Oscar had said that he had finished with school and I had said that he still had to do maths.” Well, perhaps not that example because then I’d also need to worry about explaining what Maths is 🙂
I don’t see myself needing to be able to use this in everyday speech, but it’s nice to have it in the toolbelt for translation.

While drafting Gen 43 this week I came to:

“If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.”
Gen 43:10

This is a contrary to fact condition consequence proposition relationship. Now doesn’t that sound fancy? The reason I am excited is that a few months ago I discovered what I think is the way this is done in the Kovol language. I think I have the absolutely perfect way to say this in Kovol. The real test though will be next week when I meet with my language helper. When it comes his turn to say the paragraph in his own words (natural Kovol speech) will he use the sentence I have drafted, or will he use something else? If he follows my draft and uses the sentence I’ve suggested then I can be pretty sure I’ve hit the nail on the head and understood it properly.

You might be able to tell that I’ve been in the office all week! All my work time has been drafting written materials, correcting and checking written materials with Kovol helpers, or reading written materials to Kovol people to check they communicate properly. I don’t have much else exciting to share, other than our package with Christmas presents arrived yesterday

In village news Natalie has picked up on something we missed. It’s great to have her back! It seems that people have gotten the mistaken idea that the evangelistic Bible teaching is starting in February. We’ll be having a literacy kick-off then, where our team spend 2 weeks producing the literacy program that will take people from illiterate to knowing all the syllables used in the Kovol language. It seems some wires have been crossed and expectations are building. The Kovol villages have been arranging all-night-long meetings where they confess their sins and “clear the road” for the teaching to “go well”. We’ll certainly need prayer to figure out what we can say to get people on the same page as us.