The curious case of the unflipped phrase

The translator read clearly Genesis 1:27 so the back translator could hear:

“Sɔ dea wi nɛ zizitɛ wa. Nɛ zizitɛ wa, Sɔ dea wi.”

The back translator faithfully translated back in French:

 “God made mankind in his image…[now hesitates] In his image, God made them.”

I asked the back translator, 

“I hear your translation, but is there anything unusual about the Gbaya here?  Is there anything that doesn’t sound right?”

He said, “The first sentence makes sense, ‘God made people to be like Him somehow.’  

The second sentence doesn’t make any sense at all.  I know all the words, but…it makes no sense.”

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When someone says about a Scripture draft in their native tongue, “I know all the words, but it makes no sense.”  Suddenly, little alarms go off in my head and little khaki-trousered and plaid-shirted (the garb of most translation consultants I know) firefighters go sliding down poles, frantically putting on gear and roaring out of the station ready to embattle some theological inferno.  Something has gone wrong.

Of course, this was very useful information that the back translator was providing as we tested whether the Gbaya translation of Genesis was accurate and natural.  Now, the back translator is a native speaker of the language who has not been involved in the translation of the text. Ideally, the back translator has little prior knowledge of the Bible. This way, we can be sure that the translation itself is being evaluated and not the back translator’s prior Bible trivia prowess.  During the checking of the passage, the translator reads out the passage and the back translator (hearing it for the first time) translates it back into French on the spot.   Then the consultant asks further questions to the back translator in order to find out what the passage really is or isn’t communicating.  It’s a pretty good way of testing if you do it right.

Now, from my previous study of Gbaya, I anticipated that this would happen from when I read the draft before the checking session.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… to understand the problem here, we must have a little grammar lesson.

A grammar lesson?

Now, I know that grammar comes to some like a walk in the countryside and to others like a kick in the teeth. I, myself, lie (or is it ‘lay’ hmmmm…) somewhere between these two.  No matter where the foot lies for you on this issue, however, I beg you to continue reading, as this won't hurt a bit if you keep still.

Word Order

English has a standard sentence word order.  It’s Subject, Verb, Object, Indirect Object.

For example,

1. Papa         wants    meat    in his belly.

    Subject     Verb      Object  Indirect Object

However, in English, this word order is not set in stone.  In certain situations English grammar allows this order to be switched.  In #2 the indirect object is put at the beginning of the phrase.  For example:

2. Where does papa want his meat?

(pointing) In his belly is where Papa       wants his meat.

                Indirect Object        Subject    Verb        Object

Here “in his belly” is put in prominence as the place where he wants his meat.

Simple, huh?

Now here’s how Gbaya word order works (even simpler).

Gbaya Word Order

Gbaya word order is similar to English in that it, too, is Subject Verb Object Indirect Object.  Yet, it is different from English in that its grammar does not allow any of the parts to be put in a different order.  If you do put the parts in a different order, it doesn’t work.  It doesn’t make any sense.

The Problem Revealed (well….at least the first bit)

Now you see the first part of the problem with the translation.  In the second part of Genesis 1:27, the translators copied the form of a French version (which copied the form of the Hebrew original) in their translation.  They translated “In the image of God, he created them.”  They put the indirect object “in the image” before the subject.  A big no-no in in Gbaya.  Thus it sounded weird and must be rejected.  But now we confirmed the translation’s wonkiness, we now make it a good translation.  How did we proceed?

Working towards a (good) solution

We could quickly just solve the problem by switching the word order back to what the Gbaya grammar allows, right? Just put that object at the end where it belongs.  Well…. This is what you’d get.

God made man in his own image
God made man in his own image

Hmmmm…  Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it?  Repeating the phrase doesn’t seem right, and it certainly isn’t what the original Hebrew wants us to do. 
Which leads us to our next lesson

Hebrew chiasmus anyone?

Hebrew (the language that Genesis 1:27 was originally written in) often uses a literary device called chiasmus.  Chiasmus is a literary device where words are repeated in a certain way to give prominence to an element.  In fact Genesis 1:27 is a chiasmus.  Here it is showing the original word order with A, A’ and B, B’ marking the structure:

God made man A

in his image B

In his image B’

He made them A’

You see how the B sentences are both in the middle?  They are placed in the middle to make them prominent.  So, in other words, the author wanted to make sure that the fact that people are made in God’s image is emphasized.  But how do we reflect this emphasis in Gbaya?

Working towards a (good) solution

At this point, I explained the last three lessons to the team and asked the question,

“How do we emphasize that they were made in God’s image in good Gbaya without just repeating the phrase?”

The translators discussed a solution and came up with this.

Sɔ dea wi nɛ zizitɛ wa.

nɛ mbwa baa may nɛ tɛ̂ zizitɛ Sɔ.

God made man in his image.

And they truly were taken together in God’s image.

We further checked this solution with the back translator and he said that made sense.  We also continued talking about what it means to be made in God’s image and how that influences the choices of our daily lives.

Lesson?

Is there a lesson from this little Scripture checking session?

Yes, mainly that nerds are needed.  Specifically linguistic nerds.

Bible translators need to have a self-awareness of how their language is different from the language they're translating from.  Just because someone knows their language doesn’t mean they know how their language works.  And in translation that makes a big difference.  And if no one is analyzing the languages how can this important information help translators? It can't.  More nerds are needed.

Why? Because God’s truth is too important to leave it at

“I understand all the words but it makes no sense.”