“I’m telling you man, there’s no kick like the one you get when you tell these stories to those who’ve never heard.”
That’s what Jerry Robertson said to me as he and his wife Carol worked on translating Scripture into the Nafana language. Not only is the Bible unavailable in their dialect of Nafana but there is no literature available as there is no written form of the language. They spend hours and hours translating verse by verse, phrase by phrase, and word by word in order to share God’s Word.
Seeing the Robertsons working on their translation reminded me of how blessed we are to have not just the Bible in written form but anything in writing. It is also an incredibly daunting and important task that they are responsible for. I thought I would share the process they go through to translate the stories in Scripture to share with the Nafana people in the surrounding villages.
When Jerry and Carol have verses they need to share they tackle it separately at first. Independently, they study various existing translations (the original Hebrew and Greek texts, New King James, ASV, NIV, French Louis Segond, and a Ghanaian dialect of Nafana that has been translated by SIL), and come up with a translation in Nafana.
After they have each finished a draft they get together and compare their versions. They go over it word by word and discuss why they choose certain words or phrases and come up with a new version that is a compromise of the two drafts.
Once the Robertsons’ combined draft is finished they meet with Zakari Ouatara, their Nafana language study helper. Zak is illiterate, but helps out by listening to the Robertsons’ translation as they read it to him and correcting their grammar and vocabulary.
Nafana is tonal language meaning that the tone with which you say a syllable gives it a different meaning. There are three tones – high, low, and flat (or midtone). The corrected draft is then gone over syllable by syllable and Zak helps the Robertsons annotate the translation with the tones. Determining the tone follows very complicated rules and despite 9 years of working with the language the Robertsons still need assistance with that part.
With the final version now annotated with tones, Jerry and Carol practice reading the verses in Nafana aloud. They practice it over and over and then practice telling them to Zak.
After all that hard work comes “the kick” Jerry mentioned. They go out to the villages and get to share the stories with Nafana people who have never heard them. Hearing the Scriptures in their native tongue is of great importance. Listeners can not only understand it better but are impacted much more powerfully by the words.
The next time you have a Scripture reading in church praise God that you can hear it in your native language and say a prayer for the Robertsons as they work with the Nafana.