Posted on 11/24/2005 7:25:41 PM PST by aimhigh
The American Bible Society is celebrating the conclusion of a 26-year project to translate the New Testament in Gullah, a creole language created by slaves from West Africa who devised it from indigenous African languages and English.
The announcement of the translation, De Nyew Testament, was made at the Penn Center on St. Helena Island in South Carolina, a key center of Gullah culture. The new translation went on sale to an excited crowd during the Heritage Days festival, following a special presentation to leaders of the Penn Center, a partner in the process, and to those who had contributed to the final product.
More than a quarter of a century ago the Sea Islands Translation Team was assembled under the auspices of two Wycliffe Bible Translators consultants. The team’s first effort, Luke’s Gospel, was published by the American Bible Society in 1994 to great appreciation among Gullah speakers. The team consisted of Gullah speakers who painstakingly worked their way through the New Testament, with assistance from translation experts, finding appropriate wording to express the message of the Bible in easily understandable ways to those who know the Gullah language intimately. This was a joint effort of the American Bible Society, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), Wycliffe, the United Bible Societies and the Penn Center
Here is a sample from John’s Gospel 1.1 from De Nyew Testament, compared with the same verse from the King James Version:
Fo God mek de wol, de Wod been dey. De Wod been dey wid God, and de Wod been God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanbible.org ...
Since Gullah is an oral (not written) language, I have to wonder if the future will bring an Ebonics translation.
Gullah is a real English based creole. Not the same grammar structure as English, althought to a standard English speaker, it might just sound like bad non-standard English. But it doesn't have a lot of speakers left. Further from standard English than the typical black dialect, which also is grammatically different than standard English, but not as much.
Seems to me a lot of work on a Bible translation that wasn't really needed. But it might help preserve something of the language before it dies out.
FYI: a creole is a language that develops out of the limited vocabulary that is used between two groups that don't speak each other's language fully, and the speakers use a limited subset of words from one of the languages to speak to each other. This is called a Pidgin. People who speak this have kids, the kids hear the trade language and basically turn it into a full language. This new language is a creole. It will have lots of vocabulary from the parent language, but its grammar tends to develop its own words.
Examples of this is the French they speak in Haiti, the Chinook language in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaiian Pidgin, New Guinea Pidgin, and Gullah.
How interesting. Of limited utility, I suppose, but a number of the translations Wycliffe has done benefit only a few hundred people.
That is to say, "benefit only a few hundred *readers*," but the historical value of recording the languages benefits everyone.
Someone could generate a lot of sales, and spread the Word by recording an audio version the book of John and Revelation in this language. I love listening to this language being spoken.
The song
Kum ba yah
was written by the Gullah's.
Another example would be lingua franca which was a common language spoken by sailors in the easter Mediterranean.
This must be similar to what some small tribe in the interior of Belize speak.. I was there in the early 1960's and my guide said there were small nomadic groups that spoke a strange dialect of English.. He said if you slow down their talking and slowly sound out what they were saying, it was just a form of gibberish English.. I tried it with one of the elders we met.. and it was true.. go figure
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