The summary of what I did and say goes as follows…

Activity

Taking Peter as an example (Peter is one of the leaders on the course but it could be anyone). Give a few words – in English – that describe who Peter is.

Now let’s translate these into Dutch (there are a number of people on this course from the Netherlands so it seemed to make sense, but the same principle could be applied to any language). What happens?

Some words have a direct, literal translation, but other words are more complex and there is no direct translation. Instead you have to use different words, phrases and examples to express what exists as one word in English.

Application

When you go away from the course and talk to your friends about Peter you can do this in any language. Peter stays the same regardless of the language used. There may well be some words in English that are better at describing Peter than there are in Dutch, but the reverse may also be possible. The good thing is that an accurate representation of Peter is possible in both languages, he remains the same person.

Now, if you’ve told your friends about Peter they may want to get to know him better, so, instead of just using single words to describe him you may tell a story about him that illustrates who he is. In English and in Dutch you will use different words to tell the same story, but the person will remain the same and the characteristics displayed will be the same.

With all this talk of Peter it’s no wonder your friends are really enthused about him, so they want to meet him. You can now bring Peter to your friends and show him to them. They can meet the real Peter.

Now read John 1:1-18

John 1

Prologue: Christ, the Eternal Word

¹ In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
² He existed in the beginning with God.
³ God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
⁴ The Word gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
⁵ The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.

⁶ God sent a man, John the Baptist, ⁷ to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. ⁸ John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. ⁹ The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. ¹¹ He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. ¹² But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³ They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

¹⁴ So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

¹⁵ John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’”

¹⁶ From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

From Bible Gateway.com

This is exactly what God did through Jesus Christ. He revealed himself to us through Jesus.

Andrew Walls in his book The Missionary Movement in Christian History says,

Incarnation is translation. When God in Christ became man, Divinity was translated into humaity, as though humanity were a receptor language.

Walls, A., 1996, The Missionary Movement in Christian History, Orbis Books: New York, p27

In what ways does Jesus translate God into human?

Hebrews 1:1-4 says,

Hebrews 1

Jesus Christ Is God’s Son

¹ Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. ² And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. ³ The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. ⁴ This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.

From Bible Gateway.com

Christ’s incarnation shows us what God is like. Not by giving us a good description in words that we need to imagine for ourselves, but by God in human form and ‘making his home among us’. Jesus stepped into human history, in a specific location and at a specific time and existed under the specific conditions of the culture of that time and place.

Do you think Jesus would have looked different and talked differently if he’d lived somewhere in Europe or the Far East instead of being born in Bethlehem? Do you think his core characteristics would have been the same as they were with him growing up in Galilee? I think that the core of who Jesus is would have been the same where ever he was born, what would have changed is the language he used, the clothes that he wore and the cultural events that he contributed to.

This all means that the message of the Bible becomes about Jesus and not about the words used to describe him.

My personal reflection

Reading through the first few chapters of the book of Acts I’ve had to reflect on what is meant by the apostles when they talk about preaching Christ. Suddenly preaching Christ isn’t about the vocabulary used, it’s about using the best words to descibe God’s son most accurately.

It’s not a problem. He was leading the morning of the WoW course, and for all the grief I give him (sometimes too publicly) Eddie can do interactive training very well. This morning we started to consider the bigger picture of what is involved with the whole work of Bible translation. What do you need in place to be able to publish a Bible for a language group. This isn’t just you need translators, or language consultants; there’s the printing, distribution, recruitment, IT support, training, financial management, logistics, as well as the fund raising and prayer support required in an operation like this. It’s more than one person can do and requires a huge range of people with a wide range of gifts. Projects often can’t be completed at the fastest speed possible because one link in the chain is missing. Often it’s not for the lack of skilled linguists, but the desperate need for skilled support, that slows the whole thing down. Imagine the joy that linguists have when they are working on the project that they have been asked to complete; then just think how disheartened they must feel to leave it behind for a while because one of the links in the very long chain is broken and they are the only people that can fill it.

I’ll be honest, I don’t want this blog to turn into a PR channel for all things Wycliffe, but occasionally you’ll have to forgive me if I step out and put things in your mind, just link I’m about to do here.

To be able to continue the work of putting Bibles into the hands of people all around the world Wycliffe need people who can be committed to a whole load of duties, not just translation. If you’re interested in languages I’d strongly suggest you consider doing the next WoW course, but if you have logistics, accountancy, IT, management, HR,… or any other skills and you’d be willing to give a few weeks, or a year or two, of your time, please get in touch. There are a whole host of roles advertised on the Wycliffe website www.wycliffe.org.uk, or go directly to the jobs page here.

OK, back to the day.

This afternoon we considered many of the roles played by SIL and how children who learn a local language can progress more quickly to learning a national language. That was followed by seminars for people who are considering one of the many roles open to them.

It was interesting this evening talking to folk about how they feel at this end of the week. Some are scared that God may have a plan for them, others are quite calm… everyone’s excited.

I went back to the office while the interviews were taking place. I’ve got a job that I’m enjoying so I was less interested in this bit. However, I did record one of the sessions and hope to do the same tomorrow. I’ll let you know when something’s online that you can listen to.

That’s my last update. I’m off to France on a ferry tomorrow. I should know better. We did this during the World Cup and I got no sleep. This time it’s a cheap day ticket, so I’m probably going to get two nights in a row without sleep. A load of fun I’m going to be at breakfast on Monday morning.

Have a good weekend folks, even if it is a little early to say.

The second success was that there was a part of the WoW course that I felt I could fully engage with.

The morning sessions still involved looking at translations. We were trying to work through another language and make sense out of a literal translation. Again, there were some folk in the group that found this really interesting and engaging while I was thinking mostly about the next coffee break.

But, we also had a couple of sessions on cultural differences. As a bloke who, in the past, has tried to shake hands with a very Muslim woman in the presence of her husband, I know a bit about the mistakes that are possible when working with people of different cultures. What this, and other similar mistakes, have taught me, is to smile, apologise if appropriate and keep going. Hopefully the worst you are going to do is convince others that you’re a complete idiot, mostly I get laughed at.

At the end of today I was thinking more about the cultural mistakes we make as Christians in a western culture. There are elements of my Christian sub-culture that kick against the cultural norms in the UK. While, there are still other aspects that oppose perceived cultural norms. In other words, what may be indicated in the media as normal in this society does not match an individuals cultural expectations.

Anyway, I really engaged with the cultural stuff, I just find the ‘words bit’ slightly difficult.

At this point it’s probably worth referring back to a post I wrote a few days ago called Learning about Wycliffe. I cited one of the comments from this post in what I wrote yesterday, claiming that only 1/3 of Wycliffe staff are involved in Bible translation. Anyway, Mark left the following comment in response…

Hmmmm… I’m not sure about those proportions. If we’re talking about expatriate missionaries, hardly any are “doing Bible translation”. Some are involved in translation checking, others in linguistics, literacy work, language assessment etc, and others in project managing, IT and computing, member care etc.

I wouldn’t want to make a distinction between those “doing Bible translation” and those supporting the work. All expatriates are supporting Bible translation which is being done by the local community – some more directly involved in the language work and others less so.

I think there are a few communication issues here caused by my not using the correct terminology. I would expect that a lot of what I would call ‘translation work’ wouldn’t fit into the official definition of translation. I think that I’d still say that anyone working on generating a new written language, whether it’s writing down the words people say using the phonetic alphabet, or if it’s developing the rules for the language system, they are all involved in some area of translation. I get the impression that the field is actually quite huge and that others would be more precise in saying that one thing is translation while another bit is something completely different. Anyway, clearly I’m going to have to start digging into some of the stats when I get back to the office. If we can say with some level of certainty how many languages still require translation we can probably also say how many people associated with Wycliffe UK are working in language or support roles. I’ll keep you posted when I find something out. Or if you can give some direction I’d love to learn from you, please feel free to comment here.

Right now, I’m done for the day. I think I’ll watch one last West Wing episode before bed. Night all.

Terms that I’m now basically happy with include,

• voiceless constanants and vowels
• Glottal
• Nasal sounds
• labialise stops
• palletalise

and some others.

In the afternoon we did some more looking into phonology and trying to find rules in languages.

There’s lots of detail work associated with all of this that I’d love to be able to explain to you. The problem is I just didn’t get it. That’s not true exactly, I could sort of see where things were going and I’m happier now in seeing that there are some ways I could contribute to language study, but it would be wrong to say that I understood everything that was going on. I really found this afternoon pretty tough.

I’ve said already in earlier posts that I think there’s very little more important than putting the Bible in the hands of as many people as possible, in a way that everyone can understand. Today I became even happier that God can use lots of different skills to accomplish one aim, because I now know that I’m not about to run off overseas and start a translation project, but there are people equipped with the skills necessary who can.

What I did get from today is the following…

• 20% of all 11 year olds in Britain are not functionally literate after 6 years of school (not sure of source).
• when orthography closely matches the phonology, illiterate adults can become functionally literate in about a month – basically this means that when what’s written closely matches what is spoken, adults can learn how to understand a written language more quickly.

These points serve to illustrate two things. One is that English is a difficult language to master. We have rules but they aren’t constant. Then it also shows how language work, when it’s done well, can really benefit a community and make literacy easy to achieve.

The other thing is that all these languages that exist, where ever they are in the world, have fixed rules and patterns. Even in oral traditions where the language hasn’t been written down, the language still has fixed rules that people stick to. This makes it possible to learn and write languages that can be understood by native speakers.

Some people in the group were commenting at the end of the day, about how vital the mother tongue is to someone’s identity. An individual’s personal value is completely wrapped up in the language that they speak. Stories illustrating this have continued to come out all through the week.

My mind wandered a bit, to wondering if part of the English reluctance to learn other languages is that we have very little national identity to hold on to. Let’s face it, there’s little that’s uniquely British anymore. Our national dish is curry, our beers are European, television is American, clothes are made in the far east, companies have been sold off… The language and the cricket team are about all we have left.

OK, the idea needs work, but I am using this to think out loud.

So, at the end of day two I’m hoping that something other than languages is going to come into the course before the end of the week. If Paul’s comment from an earlier post, about only 1/3 of Wycliffe people being directly involved in translation, and the need for management skills is real we need some of this to be covered during the week. That said, I’m really pleased that I took part in today because I have a much better idea of the process for studying a language.

More tomorrow.

I’m not analytical, at least, not in this way. Many of these guys like patterns and structures and systems… my kind of analysis is based around the simple phrase, “what the hell happened there?” usually as I get myself out of one scrape and try to avoid landing in the same situation in the future.

I’ll use this space as some kind of reflection, feel free to ignore, I’m kind of writing for myself here.

This morning – I’ve burnt the roof of my mouth at some point because drinking coffee this morning hurt. It wasn’t a distraction so much as an annoyance. I was feeling bad too, because I came into the morning session drinking steaming black filtered coffee while everyone else had to make to with the sachet type stuff you get in hotel rooms. Part of me thought I should leave it in my flat, but then I need coffee to function before 11am so figured that I’d have to be allowed this luxury.

Morning worship was lead by Eddie. He still hasn’t shaken off whatever bug he’s been carrying. His voice was not good but his words were useful – he was speaking about God being a relational being who is interested in us as individuals. At least, that’s what I was still thinking about at the end of the day, it was good to muse on too.

We then had Mark talking about language surveys and giving examples of his time in Tanzania. A few stats for you,

• There are 6,912 languages
• 438 have complete Bibles
• 1,168 have the New Testament
• 848 have some portion of the Bible.
• There are still some 200 million people who do not have access to the Bible.

Language surveys are the first step as people try to find out the language situation in a community. Details like, how many people speak the language, are there similar language groups, is this a written or oral language… details like that.

It was interesting and Mark did a good job of presenting the nature of language surveys. Personally I realised that this kind of thing doesn’t excite me as much as other people. Some folk reflected at the end of the day that they could see themselves doing something like this, I instead thought how the presentation could have been improved. Ah well, God loves our differences.

We went on a bit of a treasure hunt later and answered some questions relating to what we would do in certain situations.

“You arrive in a village hot and tired after a long trip. You are offered a drink of water, what do you do?”

a) pray and then drink it.

b) pretend to drink it

c) refuse and drink your own water

I was amazed that some people would go for (a). There would have to be a real special reason for me to have to drink the water. I clashed with a few people over that choice, and again later on when we were asked if we would meet the tribe’s chief in the house used for spirit worship. I said yes, others were less sure. I was working on the baisis that ‘my triune God trumps your spirits’.

As it turned out that there was no right or wrong answers.

The afternoon was centred on Scripture Use. In other words translating the Bible is no good if you give it to people who will not use it. Fair point, and something I found far more interesting.

So we discussed how we would work at encouraging a language group in PNG to engage with the Bible and see its relevence in society. Fortunately we didn’t just stick to reading nice passages of scripture that tell people not to worry and trust in God and everything will be OK.

It was a good day. I even managed to record a few interviews with people on the course for use when I get back to the day job.

Anyway, I’m now going to get on with reading some stuff and listening to the cricket on the radio. I really must join a gym soon these lazy evenings are doing me no good.