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Saturday, July 14, 2001
Read da Bible, li’ dat
A 12-year effort by
linguistics professor Joseph Grimes results in a pidgin version
of the New Testament
By Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.com
Island pidgin speakers now have an easier-to-understand
alternative of reading the Bible. "Da Jesus Book," a translation
of the New Testament into pidgin, went on sale in island
bookstores this week.
The soft-cover book was published by Wycliffe Bible
Translators, the world's largest organization involved in
translating the Scriptures into languages of tribal people.
Retired Cornell University linguistics professor Joseph Grimes
enlisted 26 pidgin speakers in the 12-year translation effort,
which had its first fruit in the 1997 publication of the gospel
of Matthew.tthew. of Matthew.tthew.
Critics have attacked and tried to ban what they hear as slang and
a degraded version of English. But Grimes says linguists
recognize pidgin as a creole English language. "It is a
language, a very expressive language. There are other forms of
creole English. What they share is a population from various
roots blended together, as in Hawaii's plantation workers, who
worked out a way to communicate.
"We face the idea that pidgin is just used for
telling jokes," Grimes said. "When people pick up 'Da Jesus
Book,' we have noticed that when they start reading, people
start chuckling. They read a paragraph; by then they are in
tears.""tears.""
The Rev. Franklin Chun, Iolani School chaplain, was
one of three clergymen among the consultants. He has already
used excerpts in Sunday services. "It's a delight to use for
youth groups."
With the translation, "we accomplished something
for a wider community, people who have English as a second
language ... people who would have an 'aha' response when they
hear or read this now in their language," said Chun, who grew up
a pidgin speaker despite attending Roosevelt High School when it
was an English Standard School.h Standard School.
Chun was impressed with the Wycliffe standards,
which require not only an accurate language-to-language
translation, but conformity to the theology. "Joe (Grimes) is a
living lexicon of Greek, the language the New Testament writers
used. It was like a living refresher course at the seminary,
with my own tutor."y own tutor."
The seed for the book was planted in 1986 while
Grimes was here on a teaching sabbatical at the University of
Hawaii. He and his wife, Barbara, also a linguist and editor of
the "Ethnologue," an index of the world's 6,800-plus languages,
had participated as consultants on Wycliffe projects in Asia,
Africa and South America and had completed a Bible in the
Huichol Indian language in Mexico. He retired after 23 years at
Cornell, and they moved to Makaha 11 years ago to dedicate time
to the pidgin product.
The consultants translated, consulted with Grimes,
reviewed and revised each others' work in hundreds of "talk
story" sessions over the years. "I'm thinking in theory as we go
along and can't wait to ask questions; the linguistics professor
is still there," Grimes recalled.; Grimes recalled.; Grimes recalled.
He found that pidgin speakers prefer information to
be direct. "One thing was that in pidgin, you don't talk about
yourself in the third person," he said. "If it's me, you say
'me.' They get insistent." Thus, readers will find Jesus
stressing he is "God's Ony Boy."
Grimes said: "Pidgin uses phrases to express an
idea, whereas English or Greek would use a single word. A pidgin
speaker would call the big word 'hybolic,' which has the
connotation of pretentious."
He said a concept that can be taken figuratively in
English would be taken literally in pidgin. For example, the
idea that "you will never die" could be understood in English as
meaning spiritual life. In pidgin it would be taken as
physically not going to die. not going to die. not going to die.
"Many concepts in the Bible are familiar, like
forgiveness," Grimes said. "The idea is that you want to get
even, but you make the choice not to. In pidgin, you say 'let
him go.'"
Barbara Grimes said the subtlety of pidgin surfaced
in conveying the added dimension of God's forgiveness. "With God
there is more to it; he lets us go, but he also takes away the
shame," she said. "On the mainland we would talk about guilt,
but here shame is more of a big deal ... for Asians, for
Hawaiians." Discussion led to the use of "hemo our shame."
Grimes said: "The product checks out theologically.
Wycliffe gave it a fine-tooth-comb treatment." Among the
Wycliffe reviewers were an expert in Papua New Guinea pidgin who
recognized the island language's "different way of packaging
ideas"; another was a woman who checked figures of speech.figures of speech.
"For instance, the use of light vs. dark, which is
used as a figure of speech showing good vs. bad or understanding
vs. not understanding," Grimes said.
"But for a pidgin speaker, it is not used that way.
You can't rely on any metaphor to transfer exactly. We squeeze
the juice out of the metaphor ... then put in extra juice from
pidgin."
They don't expect unanimous acceptance, Grimes
said. "For people who think of pidgin as a debased language,
they might see this as a kind of insult to Scriptures,
translating it into a low-life language. If they would take the
time, they would see that people 'get it' beautifully in
pidgin."
Read the entire article, including excerpts and illustrations
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