Category: Linguistics

Stacey and I are scientists. No, we don’t wear lab coats, or work in a sterile environment. We are linguists. Some people consider linguistics a “soft science,” as opposed to the “hard sciences” like biology and chemistry. However, linguists do follow the scientific method: 1) make observations, 2) make a hypothesis, 3) test the hypothesis, 4) repeat until data is accounted for. Rather than chemicals or microorganisms, linguists study languages. Our main area of study so far has been the Kwakum language. Kwakum is structured so different from Indo-European languages and we often encounter grammatical constructions that are untranslatable in…

There are two groups of people among the Kwakum: Those who have some knowledge of how to read and write in French and those who have no knowledge of how to read and write in any language whatsoever. We have already started literacy classes for those who have some knowledge of French comparing the two languages and in September we will start literacy for those who do not even know the letter “A”. I recently finished creating a book describing how to read and write in Kwakum for those who have no knowledge of reading and writing at all. This…

This coming Saturday will be a big day. On the literacy front, we will be administering a 10-page exam in Kwakum to determine who among our students is ready to receive a diploma and an “I can read in Kwakum” T-shirt (one of the many tools that we are using to get people reading…). In addition to students reading various texts and answering comprehension questions, they will be required to teach someone who has not participated in a literacy class the ABCs. We’ve set the bar high in literacy and so far people are rising up to this standard. On…

A Recap on the Oral Bible Storying Workshop This last Wednesday we spent nearly 8 hours in an Oral Bible Storying (OBS) workshop with about 20 Kwakum men and women. Together we wrestled to understand the context and meaning of the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18. The goal of this meeting was to begin to give our friends an idea of what OBS is going to look like in the future. Particularly we wanted them to understand that it was going to be a lot of work. A goal that was achieved as…

The first time we met members from one particular village, after we explained that we wanted to write down their language and translate the Bible, said, “If you don’t pick the letter for the sound “s” that we want, we won’t touch your Bible.” These words echo in my mind as THE meeting to choose an alphabet approaches. This Tuesday, in a Kwakum village called Beul, representatives from every Kwakúm village will be coming to decide which letters they want to represent the sounds of their language. I have been indirectly preparing for this meeting for years and intensely preparing…

What is discourse analysis? How does it relate to Bible translation? Is it even important?

Where we have been. We arrived in the US in March 2017, and you may be thinking we have just been vacationing. Au contraire my friends, we have been quite busy. Let me tell you what we have been up to. STUDY. The majority of our time has been spent in Dallas, TX where we have been studying at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics. The reason we were here is because we knew that we needed more training before we began translating the Bible. At GIAL took the following classes: Advanced Grammar Advanced Phonology Cross-cultural Teaching Seminar Discourse Analysis…

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela By God’s grace through much coffee, loud dance music, many late nights, hundreds of neglected emails, and a year’s worth of dreams about tone, we now have a writing system in the Bakoum language!   If I was not convinced that revisions will be necessary, I’d consider getting a tattoo of the Bakoum alphabet – just as an expression of my joy.   Not only do we have a system of writing (with tone markings, I might add), but through Dave’s work we have a solid understanding of how the…

It is the glory of the Lord to conceal things. Proverbs 25:2 One of my all-time favorite movies is Arrival where a renowned linguist is called upon to figure out how to communicate with aliens (who don’t have mouths…). I love this movie because I now have a point of reference to describe my work to people: “What I do is like what the linguist in Arrival does except that it takes a lot longer and we work with humans, not aliens.” People seem to get that. And, within the movie, my absolute favorite part, which totally describes how I…

When discussing some of the difficulties of Bible translation with people, often I will hear them say, “I think you should just translate the Bible word-for-word.” Actually, I think I have said that before! However, as it turns out, it is not that easy.  As I have studied linguistics for the last 20 weeks a host of translation issues have come up. Consider this section of Zechariah’s Prophecy in Luke 1: 76And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to…