How good is a first draft?

Bible translation is a process designed to incrementally increase the quality of a translation. The many steps make the process a lot slower than it would be if the first draft I produced were the final version.

The steps are:

1. First draft by the missionary
2. Checking with language helpers and correcting each paragraph
3. Eliciting an audio recording of a Kovol language speaker giving his own version of the paragraph
4. Taking the naturalness from the audio and the accuracy from the draft and combining the two
5. Comprehension checking with fresh language helpers (3 times)
6. Making any changes necessary for comprehension
7. Content checking the Kovol text against the source
8. Back translating the Kovol text back into English for consultant approval
9. Consultant content check comparing the back-to-English to the source
10. Consultant check in person with language helpers checking each paragraph for comprehension

This week I’ve been working on Genesis 22: the story of God testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. Our Genesis to Revelation teaching will make use of this story to again reinforce the main point that God himself provides the sacrifice for helpless sinners.

Step 1 starts with a blank page. Not a word has been translated yet and the process needs to start somewhere. I do my best to study the passage to understand its meaning clearly and then I write the best Kovol I can. So how good is my first draft? How closely does it resemble the “final” translation. Have a look at the image below. You can see my original on the right and the version after step 6 of the process on the left.

That’s a lot of changes! So how good is the first draft? It’s not very good at all! Were we to read the chapter out loud expecting people to understand it we would be very disappointed with the results! Almost every sentence needs improving from the draft! In a way, that encourages me that the process is working to improve the quality of the translation. On the other hand, when I see how poorly I write in the Kovol language I feel uneasy when I see the final draft resembling my first draft! I’m a little worried that the changes weren’t sweeping enough!

So where am I making mistakes?

Vocabulary
I had the sheep being stuck in the “bushes” using a word for the jungle undergrowth, but the word that best fit was “small tree”.
When Abraham lifted up his eyes, I tried “he looked up”, but the correct phrase was “he lifted his eyes” (ends up matching the source much better)
Over-verbose ways of trying to make things clearer
When seeking to add detail I tend to over-signal it to make it clear. Invariably I find the process shortens my draft considerably.

“For 2 days he was going. 2 days finished and on the third day” became “3 days went”
“Your children will become big, and a man will not be able to count them, their number will beat the number of the stars”, became “Your children will become like the stars”.
Breaking quotes in the wrong places
My quotes tend to be too long, even when I’m trying to chop them up into small enough pieces!
“Stay here with the donkeys” he said. “I and my son will go up” he said. Became
“You two” he said. “Stay here with the donkeys” he said. “I” he said. “Will go up with the young man” he said.

The recording stage is where most of these changes come. I read a paragraph from my draft and then listen to how my translation helper repeats it in his own words. I take special note of vocabulary used, how sentences are joined and how quotes get cut up. Seeing how sentences are joined together is the reason we work in paragraphs. When it makes sense for them to invert the order of sentences, it’s a good indication that doing so will be more comprehensible to future readers. There are times details are forgotten in the retelling, but that isn’t a problem because I can slot in the details that are missed.

I’ve found that the process is creating a new genre of Kovol text. We’ve elicited many hundreds of hours of oral stories. These are stories set in Kovol, with Kovol culture, Kovol vocabulary and Kovol assumptions baked in. The process of translating Genesis produces text that reads very differently. Genesis was written thousands of years ago in a different language and in a different culture. It repeats things in stories that aren’t typically repeated in Kovol. There seems to be detail in the “wrong” places. All the place names and people names are hard to remember. It seems foreign, because it is, but it’s also God’s word and it belongs in the Kovol language. It’ll be very interesting to see over time how readers and hearers adjust to it. I feel like this would be a worthy academic study, but we won’t be doing it. Only the Lord will know!

The three comprehension checks for the passage went very well. Comprehension checking is satisfying work. I get to spend 20 minutes reading God’s word to someone who hasn’t heard it before. What could be better than sitting in the sun and doing that? Then either the passage works really well and they can repeat back almost everything, in which case it feels like a job well done. Or, when you ask “what did I just read to you?” you get blank looks, and then follow-up questions reveal that they can’t remember anything you just read. In this case you discover that your current draft isn’t up to scratch and you have caught the mistake before you print and distribute it!

The three comprehension checks revealed that all of the verses (verses 1-19) worked well apart from v.14. V.14 is a non thematic authorial comment explaining how Abraham’s naming the place became a saying in the writer’s present day. That’s a lot more tricky to get right than a straight forward narrative. I read the paragraph consisting of v.13-14 and found that all of v.13 came back, but none of v.14 did. That means there is work to do. The following change seemed to be understood better.

“He cooked the sheep, finished it and left and Abraham said a new name for the place. God gave a sheep and so he spoke a new name like this and said “Yahweh God will give to us” he said. He said a name like that. Said, and today people are saying like this “On Yahweh God’s mountain he will give to us” they are saying.

My sense of when to be verbose to help with comprehension is still developing. I’m glad the translation process we have doesn’t just make use of my first draft!

With Genesis 22 now at step 6 of the process, it is time to move on to content checking. I’ll be reading it through and comparing it to the source (ESV in our case) to look for parts of the meaning that I left out. Then it’ll be back translated and I’ll have a second missionary take a look to confirm I really didn’t miss anything before sending it on to consultants to prepare for a consultant check. That’s all to come, but with the translation where it is I can now start writing the next Bible lesson that is all about this chapter.

During comprehension checking v.18 didn’t come back clearly with every checker. It says:

“You” he said. “Have followed my talk and so” he said. “Because of your (through) child/children I will bless all people” he said.

I’m not surprised that not all the detail came back. When I asked “Who will God bless?” the answer came back twice “Abraham” and once “All people”. I think it’s because it’s quite a dense verse. I’m looking forward to developing a lesson that digs into it and points out that this is another step in the chain of God implementing his plan to “get people back”. I’m interested to see what the difference in comprehension is after my helpers have been through the “God tests Abraham” lesson.