Re-animating orality: the design for a new translation of the Bible into Sesotho

English: The Sesotho community has proved an avid religious (Christian) audience for more than a century. Two Sesotho translations of the Bible, the Old Translation of 1909 and the New Translation of 1989, are used by Sesotho-speaking people. The former seems to be complex and difficult to its users (both those who can and those who cannot read the written text) due to the following reasons: (i) its adherence to a word-for-word philosophy of translation (reflecting the Biblical Hebrew structure in Sesotho in terms of lexical items for the Lord, such as Jehova (1909) which is Hebrew instead of Morena (1989), and (ii) features of colonial interference during the translation of the Bible (e.g. the use of the Afrikaans loanword teronkong instead of the indigenous Sesotho word tjhankaneng for 'prison'). The primary concern of the later version is meaning and readability, but it was not well accepted by much of its prospective readership. Others would say the translation was much easier to read, and therefore had lost its authenticity. Both translations lean heavily on the reader's ability to understand a written text. They constitute a very serious problem in a religious community made up of members not able to read the written text. This was proven by a preliminary study of illiteracy which was undertaken by the researcher in Bloemfontein's Sesotho-speaking congregations in 2007. The study indicated that 11% of the church members cannot read or write; this figure would presumably be higher in the rural communities. One must also take notice of the fact that in the remaining 89% of religious communities there are Bible readers who still find it difficult to master the content of the Bible due to the complexity of the vocabulary and language structure of the text when read aloud. This means a Bible translation adapted to the needs of the specific target audience is needed. The problem that was investigated for this thesis was: How can the Bible be translated to fulfill the demands of the Sesotho audience who are unable to read the written text? Since Africans implicitly understand the principles underpinning the oral literature so clearly, and also because orality is the core element of African traditional religion, it is therefore also important to have it incorporated in the Scripture through translation of the Bible and in preaching. As a result, a translation project based on the principles of orality (showing the participatory mode of communication) was designed (cf. Chapter 5) to fulfill the needs of the Sesotho community within the oral culture. The type of translation was a culture-specific adaptation of Ong's (1982:37-56) features of orality (cf. Chapter 4). These features are additive rather than subordinative, aggregative rather than analytic, redundant or copious, conservative or traditionalist, close to the human life-world, agonistically toned, and homeostatic or situational rather than abstract. The framework within which the proposed oral translation was based is Nord's functionalist approach to translation (cf. Chapter 3). The notion that is highly accentuated in the model, is that it is not the source text that is given first preference, but the target text for the prospective audience. Concomitant to the translation, are the main vehicles namely, translation strategies at both the macro level (i.e. the overall translation strategy - for the sake of the study, adaptation was the overall translation strategy) and micro level (word, phrase, and sentences). The preliminary portions that were translated were also compared with both the 1909 and 1989, and it was found that it has a place in the hearts of the Sesotho readers. The aim of the oral translation to be produced is not to replace the already existing translations of both 1909 and 1989, but it is to complement them.(617 words).