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Showing posts with label Patois Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patois Bible. Show all posts

Sunday, January 6, 2013

The Patois Bible: Relevant or irreverent?

By Desrine Bogle







THE debate around what is commonly referred to as the Patois Bible that began in 2010 was reignited with the December 9, 2012 release of the New Testament in both written and audio forms of Jamaican Creole. However, do most persons enter the debate dispassionately?
 
Unfortunately, as Jamaicans, we still do not want to recognise that what we speak is in fact a language. It has been given many disparaging names, the most dignified of which is "the dialect". From a linguistic standpoint, a dialect is nothing but a regional variety of a language. Thus, for example, American English is a dialect of Standard English. Mexican Spanish is a dialect of Castilian and Canadian or Senegalese French are dialects of Standard French. Jamaican Creole is not a dialect of English; speakers of English cannot readily comprehend it, despite its having some English words.

So, what value does this Patois Bible have? For linguists, the translation of the Bible into Jamaican Creole seeks to deflate the argument that Patois is a corrupted, vulgar or a broken form of English, devoid of scholarly merit and inappropriate for written texts, moreover the sacred word of God.
For translation specialists, the Jamaican Bible translation project, dubbed the Patois Bible, has significant merit because of the historical relevance of Bible translation. Some facts will undoubtedly clear the air and hopefully make the project more acceptable.
 
For centuries, Christianity, and more precisely Roman Catholicism, was the only religion in many parts of the then known world including Europe. From the late fourth century until the Reformation, the only authorised translation of the Bible, called the Vulgate, was available in Latin. However, Latin was not understood by the masses, which spoke their vernacular, which were forms of Latin that were considered, at the time, corrupted, broken or vulgar. Sounds familiar?
 
Despite this unpopular view towards the vernacular languages, Great Reformers like the German Martin Luther and the Englishman William Tyndale saw the need to render the Inspired Word into the language of the masses. They set about to translate the Bible into the vernacular language of their compatriots.
 
On September 21, 1522, Martin Luther published the translation of the New Testament. This translation became known as the September Bible. In 1534, Luther completed the translation of the entire Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew, which was known as the Luther Bible. In 1526, William Tyndale published his translation of the New Testament, which was referred to as the Tyndale New Testament.
 
In 1535, he completed the translation of the first half of the Old Testament. He was strangled to death and burnt at the stake before being able to complete the translation of the entire Bible.
 
The Bibles of these two Reformers are significant for several reasons, chief among which is the fact that their translations were done from the original Greek and Hebrew and not from existing translations. The Patois New Testament, like these great translations, uses the original Greek and Hebrew and not English translations.
 
During the Reformation, the significance of translating the Bible into what was considered broken, corrupted or vulgar languages was to make the Word accessible to the masses that did not master Latin. The translators of the Reformation were wholly concerned about the people accessing the Word to enrich their spiritual experience; they did not spend time questioning the validity of their native language for expressing the Sacred Word of God. The move also demonstrated that these vernacular languages were no less worthy than Latin to express the Holy Word.
 
The Bible translations into English and German were met with staunch opposition by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, of the time that felt, for various reasons, that the act of translating the Sacred Word into these vernacular languages was sacrilegious. What was the price for translating parts or the entire Bible? Surely not praise.
 
The translations were banned and the translators were ex-communicated and killed, being deemed heretics. Tyndale printed 3,000 copies of his translation. They were banned and burnt. Only two copies remain today.
 
Translating the Bible was a victory for the Reformers who gave the common man an opportunity to understand the Word in his own tongue. Was not the goal of Pentecost to have every man hear the Word in his own tongue?
 
Translating the Bible into vernacular languages was also a victory for those languages that were considered corrupted versions of Latin. The translations helped in the standardisation of those vernacular languages. The Luther Bible was written in Early New High German. This translation was influential in standardising the German language.
 
The Tyndale New Testament, written in early modern English, greatly influenced future versions of the Bible, especially the King James Version. Tyndale's translation had an indisputable influence in shaping modern English.
 
The standardisation of Jamaican Creole will, contrary to popular belief, not mean the death of English. It will give credence to a language that has existed and has been used by Jamaicans of all social classes for over a century, but which has been demonised as vulgar, corrupted or broken English.
 
The translation of the Bible into Jamaican Creole follows a similar trajectory to German and English Bible translations. Many scoff at the move, deeming it sacrilegious and a waste of time and money. Others see in this translation a more sinister motive to oppress the masses by depriving them of mastering English.
 
Linguists see the translation of the Bible into the Jamaican language as a victory in efforts to standardise it. Like the Great Reformers, translation specialists believe that the Bible can, and should, be translated into vernacular languages, just as into any other language. Why not into Jamaican?
 
Desrine Bogle holds a PhD in Translation Studies. She is the chair of the Department of Humanities at Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville.

January 06, 2013

Jamaica Observer

Friday, September 30, 2011

Jamaica: God understands Patois

By Devon Dick

Jamaica

On Sunday, Jo-Ann Richards, former missionary to West Africa and the Americas, proclaimed at the Boulevard Baptist Church, on the observance of Mission Sunday, that God understands Patois. Apparently, God speaks even in Patois. She read a passage of the Bible in Patois, spoke at times in Patois and sang in Patois. This is very important to her in the quest for the evangelisation of Jamaica.

Richards related a visit to a USA centre for world missions which had Jamaica listed, not as a Christian country, not as well evangelised but as an underevangelised place. This was a shocker to many, when popular folklore has it that Jamaica has the most churches per square mile. How could anyone claim that Jamaica is under-evangelised? It is because the criterion used is based on the availability of the Bible in the language of the people. And in that context, Jamaica has been found wanting.

The mother tongue of the majority is Patois, but most versions of the Bible are in English. Richards claimed that most Jamaicans think in Patois but it would be on the rare occasion that there would be a reading in Patois in a church. Even at Miss Lou's funeral, the service was in English! And she was an advocate for giving Patois respectability.

Patois is taking Great Britain by storm and the youths of England understand and use Patois. It is known that many Japanese who do not speak English understand the Patois in the reggae music. But so often Patois is ignored in church save and except when it is evangelistic time, or during open-air meetings.

This disregard for Patois started in colonial times. Part of the colonising strategy is to impose language, religion and values on the conquered. K.D. Smith, in a letter to the editor on August 13, requested: "It would be great if Pastor Dick followed up with an analytical article about Eurocentrism and its influence on Christianity in Jamaica."

Eurocentrism in Christianity has led to us having mainly English hymns being sung, rarely the Negro spirituals and not many songs in Patois. It has led to English being the major means of communication, and oftentimes the images and illustrations are European or North American. In my book, The Cross and Machete, it states that the Native Baptists fought for the use of Patois in the Church and warned of the emphasis on classical education and English pronunciation.

Unknown tongue

The Native Baptists were not against the use of scholarship, except when its display became like an unknown tongue to the congregants. They believed it was futile for a preacher to speak in a language that the congregation did not know or understand. The Native Baptists defended the use of simple speech, which was not 'clothed in elegant language' and diction. They insisted on 'plain preaching'.

In the 1840s, Robert Graham, 'a free man of colour', came under the tutelage of Joshua Tinson, English Baptist missionary at Hanover Street, Kingston, and Graham insisted on plain speaking. Tinson had wished to "instruct him in pronunciation and English grammar", but Graham refused because he "believed Mr Tinson's way of pronouncing words was the way in England" and he "was sure his method was the Jamaica method, and the way best understood by the people".

He was correct, as later when Englishmen Thomas Harvey and William Brewin visited Jamaica in 1866, they concluded, "Much of the literature which is so attractive to our population at home is neither interesting nor very intelligible to the people of Jamaica ... the topics, the allusions, the local colouring, are unfamiliar."

Since God understands Patois, and the majority of people understand and speak in Patois, it is time the church services reflect that reality.

Devon Dick is an author and pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.

September 29, 2011

jamaica-gleaner

Saturday, September 24, 2011

JAMAICAN CULTURE: Lost in translation - Is the Patois Bible a waste?

Lost in translation - Is the Patois Bible a waste?
By Franklin Johnston





With every new rendition of the Bible it is diluted. What did the KJV's "thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ass" mean 2,500 years ago? What's my neighbour's ass now? car, donkey, meat and transport in one? Did this apply to all or just those with no ass?


Translation across centuries, cultures and languages means much is lost and things assumed based on what we now know. Abrahamic faiths — Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Rastafari -- all lose authenticity as they lose touch with the Torah. We have Christianity in all flavours to suit every taste and some are the ego trips; emotional excrescences of men who do not know the roots of the Church and don't care as long as they make money. The Old and New Testament were translated from Hebrew and Greek many times. With those rendered from English versions new errors are made and old errors perpetuated. Much is lost in translation.


The Bible Society of Jamaica translated the gospel of Luke in patois but not from Greek. Millions were spent, and to be fair and open, they should name the translators, sources and all involved. The Bible is our heritage, not words on paper for academics, patois actors and playwrights to render as they like. Translators are scholars of the original languages and manuscripts, the new language, comparative exegesis, and the task calls for a sense of the spiritual, history, meditation and insight. We need assurance of the integrity of the process!


The book is titled Jiizas di Buk We Luuk Rait bout Im; to us The Book of Luke. Patois is our heritage, culture; rich, colourful, fluid; ours to use and change, not by linguists who rule how it must be spoken. No patois police! Let patois be free wherever it may be! I bought a copy in Hagley Park Plaza.


I was told it was for the poor man who speaks patios only, yet costs a day's pay! Why would a poor man buy a Patois Bible which he can't read when he can get an English Bible free; he can't read it either? The cover and paper are flimsy, but we love a well bound Bible in the front room to write our births, deaths and "run duppy".


The cover picture is patronising; better if it were a Clovis cartoon! The section in English titled "How to read Jamaican" deals with "consonants, vowels and symbols". So a man illiterate in English buys a book in patois, but as he is illiterate in patois too, the writers put the rules to read it in English, Wow!


This Patois looks like Dutch or Afrikaans and has nothing in common with Miss Lou's patois which is what we speak. Check these stanzas:


"Wha wrong wid Mary dry-foot bwoy?


Dem gal got him fe mock,


An when me meet him tarra night


De bwoy gi me a shock!


Me tel him seh him auntie an


Him cousin dem sen howdy


An ask him how him getting awn.


Him seh, 'Oh, jolley, jolley!"


— Extract from "Dry-foot bwoy" by Louise Bennett.


Now compare it with an extract from Jiizas de Buk we Luuk rait bout Im:


"1 Tiyafilas Sa, Uol iip a piipl chrai fir ait dong di sitn dem wa apm mongks wi. Dem rait it dong siem wie ou dem ier it fram di piipl dem we did de de fram di staat, si di sitn dem wa apm an we priich di wod".


— Patois Bible St Luke Chapter 1, verses 1-4. May 2010.


This can't be right! It looks like nothing we know. I will stick with Miss Lou!


FIELD WORK IN THE UK. I used a captive audience of Jamaicans and I also went to Brixton to accost some between NCB branch and the Post Office. I wore a suit with Her Majesty's ID on my chest. Many, relieved I was not Border Agency, co-operated fully. But this is informal and the experts must show us their work. Here's what some people said of "de Buk":


BRIXTON. I asked each person to read "de Buk" to me. Some said: "A wah dis? Me neva see nuttin laka dis" or "Oh this is the Patois Bible, I like it" or "A Rasta tings dis, lang time it fe cum!" Most could not read it and those who did read the instructions first and mouthed each word slowly. Most people liked the idea of the book and some asked for a copy.


CAPTIVE AUDIENCE. The illiterate ones couldn't read it. Some say "is Polish" as it looks like writing they see every day as they live with Russian, African etc. Some 80 per cent of the foreigners who speak English understand our patois. English speaking British illiterates could not read it though many use patois slang; a man with degrees read haltingly, said it used English phonetics and if I left the book he would master it in a week. Africans who spoke no English could not read it. One savvy Nigerian said the words were contractions, variations, broken English. I said it was an Akan or Twi based dialect. He said firmly "Then do not corrupt our languages further, give them a Bible in Akan!" I was quiet! A lady who translates patios says court officers understand our prisoners but details matter in Law and so "im did a badda, badda mi an mi get bex an juk juk im" she translated as " after much provocation by my girlfriend I lost my temper and stabbed her". She tells the Court the "im" is not a man and "badda, badda" is a repitition of the word "bother" which shows intense feeling and "juk juk" means multiple stab wounds. Sadly "Jiizas di buk" means nothing to these men!


The bible society has excellent motives but their "Jiizas buk" may undermine ancient churches, scholarship and mislead many. Jesus reasoned with scholars on faith and the Torah. Few apart from Jewish, Anglican, Catholic scholars can do this now. Many "faith entrepreneurs" can't read the founding articles of the faith. The unintended consequence of removing the Bible from a prayerful scholarly tradition is men now think they can do with it as they like. The "Church of Blessed Patois" coming soon to a community near you! Sadly the Patios Bible does not advance our patois, literacy or faith! Stay conscious my friend!


Mrs Enid Golding was a legend to those of us who did teaching practice and classroom observation in her school. In her day she was a reference point on "best practice" for UWI Prof Gordon Shirley. Heartfelt sympathy to PM Bruce, Trevor, Douglas and their families.


Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK.



franklinjohnston@hotmail.com

September 23, 2011

jamaicaobserver