Colonial and postcolonial encounters with the indigenous: The case of

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2011, 29(3): 313–326 Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved

Copyright © NISC (Pty) Ltd

SOUTHERN AFRICAN LINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LANGUAGE STUDIES ISSN 1607–3614 EISSN 1727–9461 DOI: 10.2989/16073614.2011.647494

Colonial and postcolonial encounters with the indigenous: The case of religious translation in Africa Jacobus A Naudé* and Cynthia L Miller-Naudé Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, University of the Free State PO Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa *Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Translation in the African context is mainly associated with religious translation, especially the Bible but also the Qur’ān. In this paper, selected aspects of the translation of the Bible and the Qur’ān, each a vast field in itself, are used to illustrate the colonial and postcolonial encounters with the indigenous. Religious translation practice tends to focus on the actual source text although many diverse, yet interrelated, contextual factors may also interfere. This article illustrates some of these situational variables and potential influences. Introduction Africa can be proud to have a special relationship with religious translation, especially the Bible but also the Qur’ān. The first Bible translation was done in Africa. Tradition relates that a team of Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, first translated the Torah from its original Hebrew into Greek, the language spoken by the Jews in the North of Africa and throughout the diaspora some three centuries BCE. Translation is a fundamental requirement of society and culture, a sine qua non of progress and communication, and a prerequisite for the arts, humanities, and sciences. A world bereft of translation would remain a world of isolated, localised, and clannish ethnic groups, unable to cross language and cultural borders and ignorant of the knowledge, wisdom, and faith recorded in other times, places, languages, and cultures. Many speak of translating as cultural mediation. In this vast history of translating, the translation of sacred texts for over two and a half millennia has earned pride of place (Noss, 2007). It also helped to create alphabets, grammars, dictionaries, national languages, literary systems, religions, and nations. According to Robinson (2000), religious translation is problematic in terms of the possibility of translation (Can or should religious texts be translated? How, when, for whom, and with what safeguards or controls should religious texts be translated?), sacredness (Is a translated religious text still sacred, or is it a mere ‘copy’ of the sacred text? What is sacrality, in what does it lodge or reside or inhere, and can it be transported across cultural boundaries?) and text (What is a religious text in an oral culture? What are the limits of a religious text in a literate culture? Do liturgical uses of a translated text count?). These core issues serve to contextualise the nature of the translation activity with respect to the two predominant monotheistic religions active in Africa – Christianity and Islam – and two of their central religious texts, the Bible and the Qur’ān. The tenth parallel is the line of latitude 1 120 kilometres north of the equator where Christianity and Islam meet. Local and tribal issues on this geographical and ideological front line are often shaped by religious ideas (Griswold, 2010; see also Rothfuss & Joseph, 2010). The role of religion in Africa is examined by Naipaul (2010), who emphasises the effects of belief (in indigenous animisms, the foreign religions of Christianity and Islam, the cults of leaders, and mythical history) upon the progress of civilisation in Africa. Religious translation has thus been critical to shape and develop African society. In the last two centuries, Bible translation projects have proliferated, produced in the past by missionaries and presently by Bible societies.1 Bible translations seem to have overcome the natural resistance of primarily oral cultures to the written word. In the past, the Bible and its translations into the indigenous languages represented colonial empowerment. In recent years, however, the status Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

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quo seems to have changed. By means of a translation strategy of indigenisation, Bible translations have come to prescribe and dominate biblical dialogue, as well as the nature of the colonial encounter. Religious translation practice tends to focus on the actual source text although many diverse, yet interrelated, contextual factors may also be relevant. This article illustrates some of these situational variables and potential influences, by using a multidisciplinary approach. This complex process of intercultural, interlinguistic communication involves sociocultural, organisational, and situational factors (see Wendland, 2008; Wilt, 2003). We select aspects of the translation of the Qur’ān and the Bible to illustrate the colonial and postcolonial encounters with the indigenous. The translation of these two religious texts comprises two vast fields; in this paper we provide only an overview of the translation of the Qur’ān in Africa and a case study of the translation of the Bible into one South African language. Assumptions for the translation of religious texts Naudé (2002, 2006, 2008, 2010) provides the following assumptions for the translation of religious texts. Translation of religious texts as normal translation The translation of religious texts is an activity not substantially different from the translation of other texts belonging to a culture remote from the target readers in time and space. This implies that the best translation approach available should be employed by the translators of religious texts. It also implies that the translators of religious texts should have translation competence; in short they have to be trained translators. Since translators rarely manage to achieve expertise in the complex field of sacred texts and theologians seldom combine their factual knowledge with sound translation competence, teamwork is eminently advisable. Translation of sacred texts as opening up of a foreign culture There are two situations that result in an intense gap between cultures. Firstly, the lack of culturespecific background knowledge often makes it impossible to establish coherence between what is said and what is known. Secondly, non-verbal and verbal behaviour may not match, due to the fact that the non-verbal behaviour cannot be interpreted correctly. These two factors impede coherence, or even render it impossible in the reception of sacred texts. These texts refer to a world that could not be more remote in time and space, yet their comprehension is vital for the identity and unity of their respective religious movements today. There may be situations in translation where it is essential to bridge the cultural gap and others where the translator is supposed to leave the gap open and insist on the cultural distance between source and target cultures and just try to assist people to peep across and understand the otherness of their sacred text. Translations of sacred texts for specific purposes Sacred texts cannot fulfil the same communicative functions in modern societies as those for which they were intended in their original social and cultural setting. Therefore, the translation of these texts can by no means rely on equivalence standards. What is needed is a target-oriented strategy, where a new function or skopos is defined independently of the functions of the original. From the point of view of the target literature, translation invariably implies a degree of manipulation of the source text in order to achieve a particular purpose. A translator makes a choice between adherence to the source text’s structure and the source culture’s norms, and striving to meet the linguistic, literary, and cultural norms of the prospective new readership of the sacred texts in the target culture. In practice, however, a religious translation will be either primarily (not totally) sourceoriented or primarily (not totally) target-oriented. Utilising translation strategies instead of striving towards equivalence Translation consists of a series of decisions made by the translator in considering the conflicting requirements of the source text and source culture, on the one hand, and those of the target language and target culture, on the other, in the light of the purpose of the intercultural communication. A categorisation of strategies to describe the transfer of culture-specific terms might include

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transference, indigenisation/ domestication, cultural substitution, generalisation, specification (intensification/ explicitation), mutation (deletion and addition), and so on. A descriptive instead of a normative analysis of the translations of sacred texts From the early 1980s onwards, one finds a tendency in translation studies to move away from the normative approach of translation criticism, which deems a religious translation as good/ faithful, bad, or indifferent in terms of what constitutes equivalence between two texts. The focus is rather on a description and explanation of the translation in the light of the translator’s ideology, strategies, cultural norms, and so on. Cultural knowledge in the translation of sacred texts is shaped by the epistemology, hermeneutics, and religious spirituality of the translators Some of the translations seek to serve the needs of particular segments of the community: children, the youth, women, converts, or speakers of various dialects. For these consumer audiences the reading of the translation of a sacred text should not be a disturbing or uncomfortable experience. As a result, there have been attempts to produce paraphrase translations, translations concerned primarily with interpretation, translations reflecting contemporary religious scholarship, and translations using inclusive language to reduce the sexist language of the sacred text. Consequently, modern translations of sacred texts are often based primarily on sensitivity towards the needs of their prospective reading audience to the detriment of the principle that sacred texts should be heard, read, and understood as religious artifacts derived from an ancient world. Dimensions of the translation of sacred texts The translation of sacred texts, both within individual cultures and over the historical course of whole civilisations, can be reduced to four dimensions which reflect the reality of religious translation (adapted from Robinson, 2000: 103–107). • The translation of sacred texts for personal usage requires very little control and translation is unregulated. • Regulated translation involves strict controls on who translates, what is translated, how it is translated, for whom it is translated, and whether and with whom the translation is shared and discussed. This stage entails either forbidding all translation or restricting the translation to a small group of insiders, in one or more of the following ways: o the original (untranslated) texts are kept from the ‘profane’ (outsiders) and are therefore not available for translation o the texts are protected against discovery, through the use of ciphers or keeping it in ancient scripts or o the texts are ‘translated’ (interpreted) orally to selected receivers (initiates) by members of the priesthood and only within the ritual space. • The third dimension is a transitional phase from a rigidly enforced ban on vernacular translation (dimension two) to open translation (dimension four). The regulation of the comprehensibility of actual translation is typical of this dimension. It results in literal translation, which serves the purpose of keeping the sacred text largely incomprehensible to the masses. Examples of this include the Vulgate for Latin-speaking Christians of the fourth and fifth century. • In the fourth dimension, the belief is that the text was originally written for the masses and should not be kept from them. This openness, however, does not mean absolute freedom. Open translation seeks to control the reader’s mental preparation for translation to ensure that free interpretations will be viewed as orthodox. Translation of the Qur’ān Overview of translations of the Qur’ān It was only after Islam had spread outside Arabia that the problem of the comprehension of the text by non-Arabic-speaking Muslims arose. Unlike Christianity, Islam did not encourage the production

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of translations of the Qur’ān for the benefit of those who could not read it in the original. On the contrary, some Muslim authorities even condemned the attempt to make such translations as impious or even blasphemous. There are therefore no authorised translations of the Qur’ān into Persian, Turkish, or other languages equivalent to the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta, or the Luther or King James versions of the Bible. However, the Qur’ān has been translated into most of the languages of Europe and Asia, and many African languages. Christian missionaries have been the most active non-Muslim translators of the Qur’ān. The first translator of the Qur’ān was Salmon the Persian during the 17th century. The first translation into a European language was by Robertus Ketenensis, who made a translation into Latin in Spain in 1143, which was first printed in Basel in 1543 (Holes, 2000). There are many English translations of the Qur’ān. The first English translation, which appeared in 1649, was a retranslation of an earlier French version done by Alexander Ross, theologian, schoolmaster, and royal chaplain (Holes, 2000). The first English translation done directly from the Arabic, but influenced by Maracci’s Latin version, was by George Sale and published in 1734. This version was reprinted 12 times between 1764 and 1844. Between 1882 and 1886, it was reprinted with a new critical apparatus by EM Wherry, which was used in numerous reprints up to as recently as 1973. English translations by non-Muslims in the 19th century were done by JM Rodwell in 1861 (the third edition, issued in 1909, is provided with an introduction by Rev. G Margoliouth), and Edward Henry Palmer (1880). In the 20th century, there have been translations by Richard Bell (1937), Arthur John Arberry (1955), and Thomas Ballantine Irving (1992). There have been more than 30 translations of the Qur’ān into English by Muslims, the first appearing in the 1860s. The most popular of these is by ‘Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali. Almost all of these translations were done by Muslims from the Indian subcontinent where the need for English translations was pressing (Holes, 2000). The major exceptions are the one by the English Muslim convert Marmaduke Pickthall, published in 1930 (with frequent reprints) and that by the Iraqi scholar NJ Dawood (1956) for Penguin Classics (with several revised editions). As stated earlier, the translation of the Qur’ān by any mere human into another language would be blasphemous because the text of the Qur’ān is considered by Muslims to be a miracle (mu‘jiza), the literal word of God, revealed through his messenger (that is Muhammed). This difficulty was eventually circumvented by the device of describing translation of the Qur’ān as interpretation of its meanings (ma‘ānī), that is by treating the translation as a species of commentary or interpretation. Nowadays, Muslim translators often bear witness to the doctrinal significance of the Arabic text by arranging it interlinearly or side by side in columns with their translation, for example the editions by Ali and Al-Hilālī & Khān. Al-Hilālī and Khān (1996) state in their introduction that the Qur’ān should be taught in the language of the Qur’ān (the Arabic language). Translations are mainly meant for informing the people who have not yet embraced Islam to make clear to them the principles of Islam. Most of the translations are literal or word-for-word, by which is meant the reproduction in English of the phrasing and syntax of the Arabic. Dawood’s translation is the only translation reflecting a functional equivalent character. The source orientated translation of Al-Hilālī and Khān (1996) transfers cultural aspects (for example names) into the English translation. However, explanations and commentary are added in brackets in the translated text and in footnotes. To conclude, the Qur’ān (as the meaning of the word indicates) was not initially written as a book, but revealed as an oral recitation to a real audience (cf. the vocative, second person style of the source text). Much of the majesty and aesthetic appeal of the Qur’ān resides in its sound. No existing translation in English reflects the language-dependent nature of the performance of the Qur’ān. The Qur’ān in Africa The Qur’ān has been translated in its entirety into at least 11 African languages: Kiswahili (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic Congo, Zanzibar), Luganda (Uganda), Hausa (predominantly in Nigeria and southeastern Niger, but having significant numbers living in regions of Cameroon, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Chad and Sudan), Yoruba (Nigeria), Fulani (Niger, Cameroon,


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Benin, Senegal), isiZulu (South Africa), Morisyen (Mauritius), Amharic (Ethiopic), Afrikaans (South Africa), Somali (Somalia), and Chichewa (Malawi, Zambia) (Ma’ayegi, 1993; Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, 2011). Many partial translations also exist in African languages, including Asante (Ghana, Togo, Ivory Coast), Bassa (Liberia), Bemba (Zambia, Congo), Bete (Ivory Coast), Dagrani (Ghana, Togo), Ewe (Ghana, Togo, Benin), Fante (Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo), Fula (Nigeria, Guinea, Senegal), Ga (Ghana, Togo, Benin), Igbo (Nigeria), Kikamba (East Africa), Kikongo (Congo, Angola), Kikuyu (Kenya), Kpelle (Guinea, Liberia), Lingala (Congo), Madinka (Guinea, Mali), Mende (Sierra Leone, Liberia), Oromo (Ethiopia, Kenya), Tamazight (Morocco, Algeria), Temne (Sierra Leone), Tigrinya (Ethiopia), Vai (Liberia, Sierra Leone), isiXhosa (South Africa) and Wolof (Senegal) (Ma’ayegi, 1993; Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, 2011). Translations of the Qur’ān into African languages were initially made by Westerners in Africa, specifically by Christian missionaries, and only later by Muslims. This scenario can be illustrated by comparing Qur’ānic translation activity in two languages, Yoruba and Swahili. In Nigeria, the Anglican bishop Michael Samuel Cole translated the Qur’ān into Yoruba (Cole, 1906) for missionary purposes – he believed that if the Yoruba people (who were largely Muslim) could examine the Qur’ān beside the Bible they would see ‘which best satisfies the needs of humanity’ (Abou Sheishaa, 2001). Similarly in East Africa, another Anglican bishop, Bishop Godfrey Dale, translated the Qur’ān into Swahili in Zanzibar (Dale, 1923). Like Cole, Dale intended his translation to be used for Christian missionary purposes in converting Muslims; in the preface he stated that the Bible and the Qur’ān are clearly different and thus it is impossible to believe in both (Ma’ayegri, 1994). These two early translations by Christian missionaries were followed by translations produced by Muslims. For Yoruba, two complete Muslim translations have been made (Ma’ayegri, 1994), one by the Ahmadiya missionaries (1976) called Al Kurani Mimo: ni edo Yoruba atti Larubwa, and one by a committee of Nigerian Muslims (Augusto et al., 1973) called Al Kurani ti a tumo si ede Yoruba. For Swahili, the Ahmadiya Muslim mission was involved in the first Muslim translation produced by Mubarek Ahmad Ahmadi (1953) with facing pages of the Arabic text and Swahili translation. Later commentaries and translations into Swahili proliferated, including those produced by Sheikh Abdullah Saleh Farsi (Ma’ayegri, 1994). Thus, in response to the challenge of Christian missionaries in the 19th century and their interest in translating not only the Bible, but also the Qur’ān, Muslims began to translate the Qur’ān into African languages nearly a millennium after Islam had entered sub-Saharan Africa and had spread with its sacred text primarily in Arabic (Mustapha, 2011) Qur’ānic translations produced by Muslims for Muslims routinely have the source text of the Qur’ān in Arabic alongside the target text, whereas translations produced by Christians do not, though there are some exceptions. The first complete Afrikaans translation of the Qur’ān, for example, although produced by Imam Muhammed Ahmed Baker (1961) does not include the Arabic text. Furthermore, Arabic is occasionally not used as the source text, as in the Fulani translation (Ba, 1982). This translation was produced by a Muslim translator, Oumar Ba, using a French translation as its source text and with the French (rather than Arabic) text of the Qur’ān published alongside the Fulani (Ma’ayegi, 1993).2 Translation of the Bible Overview of translations of the Bible Sanneh (1990) has emphasised the centrality of translation to the Christian religion. Key concepts of the faith had to be conveyed in many different languages to a multitude of cultures, otherwise Christianity would never have spread beyond Palestine. The developmental history of Bible translation can be divided into four Great Ages. The First Great Age (about 200 BCE to the fourth century CE) has a Jewish setting (Alexandria and Western Asia) and the target languages involved were Greek (Septuagint), Aramaic (Targums and Peshitta), and Coptic and Geez (Mikre-Sellassie, 2004). The Second Great Age (fourth century to about 1500 or the Middle/ Dark Ages) was Catholic in origin with its main centres in Palestine and the emerging Christian communities in the Roman

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Empire. The target language was Latin (Jerome’s Vulgate). A salient feature of this age is the Christianising of the Hebrew source text; thus new meaning and nuances were read into Hebrew and Greek-Septuagint words and phrases. The Third Great Age (about 1500 to 1960) has an essentially Protestant setting. The target languages were English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, and so on. The main centres of activity were located in those regions where the (essentially Protestant) trade communities were developing at the expense of the old (essentially Catholic) feudalist establishments. In the process of translation, there was a noticeable adherence to the word-for-word philosophy of translation and to old-fashioned vocabulary and style. The nature of the products of translation was transference as much as possible of the forms and structure of the source text, both at the macro- and micro-level. The pragmatic functions of the source text were not taken very seriously. Famous translations of this era include the King James Version or Authorised Version, the American Standard Version, the Dutch Authorised Version. The Fourth Great Age in Bible translation introduces a significant change in the overall philosophy of Bible translation. It shows the unprecedented attempt on the part of the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant communities in the United States and Great Britain to cooperate interconfessionally. Secondly, the focus is to make accessible to readers the plain meaning intended in the source texts. Amongst those who played a pivotal role in the development of the theory and practice of Bible translation at this stage are Eugene A Nida and his colleagues of the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies. Nida and Taber (1974) view translation as reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source text, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. A translation is dynamically equivalent to the source text if the message of the source text has been transported into the receptor language in such a way that the response of the receptor is essentially that of the original receptors. The explosive expansion of Christianity in Africa and Asia during the last two centuries constitutes one of the most remarkable cultural transformations in the history of mankind. Because it coincided with the spread of European economic and political hegemony, it tends to be taken for granted that Christian missions went hand-in-hand with imperialism and colonial conquest. However, the precise connections between religion and empire have yet to be fully delineated by historians (Etherington, 2005). There is a very small shelf of literature devoted to exploring those connections in a vast library of scholarship on the history of the Christian religion. Much work remains to be done. While utilitarian theorists argued strenuously for English as the language of education in the British colonies, missionaries argued that it would be easier to get their sacred texts into the hands of their converts by translating them into indigenous languages. In this regard, Bible translation was conceptualised and executed by either missionary societies or Bible societies. Bible translation in southern Africa Prior to the translation of the Bible in sub-Saharan Africa, Africans were already engaging with the Bible, initially as an iconic object of power and then as an aural object. Those who brought the Bible to southern African peoples believed in its power as ‘the Word of God’, and though different missionaries, traders, and explorers may have understood different things by this phrase, what was clear to each of them, and to those Africans who observed them, that it was an object of power. As part of the basis for ordinary, everyday communication, translation remains an integral component of the colonial power differentials that shaped it in the first place (for example they control what gets translated and how). Hermans (1999) points out that language is subjectively coloured and emotionally charged, rather than neutral and impassive. Robinson (1997) in turn points out that translation has often served as an important channel for empire and has a threefold importance in this regard: (i) as a channel of colonisation, parallel to and connected with education and the overt or covert control of markets and institutions; (ii) as a ‘lightning-rod’ for cultural inequalities persisting after the demise of colonialism; and (iii) as a channel of decolonisation. Jacquemond (1992:139–158) offers four main hypotheses regarding translational inequalities: • A dominated culture will invariably translate far more of a hegemonic culture than the latter will of the former.


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•

When a hegemonic culture does translate works produced by the dominated culture, those works will be perceived and presented as difficult, mysterious, inscrutable, esoteric, and as requiring a small cadre of intellectuals to interpret them, while a dominated culture will translate a hegemonic culture’s works with a view to easy accessibility for the masses. • A hegemonic culture will only translate those works by authors in a dominated culture that fit into the former’s preconceived notions of the latter. • Authors in a dominated culture striving for a larger audience will tend to write for translation into a hegemonic language, and this will require some degree of compliance with stereotypes. Unfortunately, these hypotheses do not state how translations are performed, that is, the macrostructural (global) and microstructural translation strategies (see next section) are not explicated and must be refined. South African colonial and postcolonial history is divided into four principal periods. The Dutch period (1652–1795), followed by the British (1795–1924/1948), the Afrikaner (1924/1948–1990), and the eventual establishment of the Democratic period (since 1994). This historical breakdown coincides roughly with the periods of structural vicissitude in Western economic history: a mercantilist world order based on slave labour as accepted institutional backbone to the economy (1350–1770), a 19th century world order (1770–1914) bringing in its wake the philosophy of emancipation and revolution, a contemporary Western order (1914–1990) with the preponderance of human rights as its hallmark, and the new world order or globalisation, where cultural and political borders went into strong decline (since 1990). The earliest engagements with the Bible took place at a time when Africans were in control of their territories. Though those who first brought the Bible among Africans, whether they were traders, explorers, or missionaries, were the forerunners of colonialism, actual colonialism in southern Africa was still some time off. This fact is often forgotten in the rush to talk about ‘colonialism’. To be sure, colonialism, when it finally arrived, was a devastating reality, forever changing African societies. However, the first encounters with the Bible did not take place under colonialism; they took place under African territorial and political control (see West, 2009). Because missionaries were often the vanguard of empire, they worked in areas where the colonial empire had not yet established itself, whether ideologically, institutionally, or militarily. African world-views, African institutions, and African armies held sway. Bible translation in southern Africa was conceptualised and executed by either missionary societies or Bible societies. The nature of the translators’ encounters and negotiations between the source text culture and the culture of the target audience is investigated (see also Bessong & Kenmogne, 2007). The Missionary Society Period As in other parts of Africa, the history of expansion of Christianity in southern Africa began with different missionary societies working among different tribes (Kollman, 2005; Majola, 2007). Bible translation was undertaken by an individual or group of missionaries from the same society. Missionaries had to study Greek, Hebrew, and Latin to be able to work on Bible translations (Hermanson, 2002). They translated using formal equivalence, in the same way as they had been taught to translate the Classics, matching word-for-word and structure-for-structure wherever possible. Sometimes they created a translation which was more idiomatic (reproducing the message of the original, but tending to distort the meaning by adding idioms which do not exist in the source text) than literal (source language grammatical constructions were converted to their nearest target language), whereas lexical items were often translated singly and out of context (Newmark, 1988). Missionaries also used translations in their own languages to guide them in the translation process. This technique was actually misguiding and resulted in colonial interference during the translation of the Bible into indigenous languages. The translations were mostly published by the mission itself, either on a mission press or a commercial press. The Missionary Society Period links up with the Third Great Age of Bible translations as described above.

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The Bible Society Period Bible translation and the effort to see that these translations reached the people who needed them led to the formation of national Bible societies, beginning with the foundation of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804 (see Batalden et al., 2004 for the cultural impact of the BFBS). In 1816, the American Bible Society was organised, bringing together the Bible work of a number of smaller existing societies. Since 1946, the United Bible Societies have supported the efforts of more than 140 national Bible societies engaged in Bible translation and distribution. Other parallel efforts are those of SIL International and the International Bible Society (formerly New York Bible Society). By the beginning of the third millennium, all or part of the Bible had been translated into nearly 2 500 languages (Noss, 2007). The Bible Society of South Africa became an autonomous body on 1 November 1965, although the BFBS had been present in South Africa since 1820. During this period, parts of the Bible were translated and/ or published in a variety of southern African languages. The process of translation involved an editorial committee which then handed the translation draft over to a review committee and a consultative committee. Translators included missionaries and indigenous ministers. In 1967, Nida’s theory of dynamic equivalence translation was introduced as the recommended methodology for translating the Bible and, while translation methodology continues to evolve, Nida’s general approach is now routinely used in Bible Society translation projects (Hermanson, 2002). As a result, many churches and missions felt that previous translations were inadequate and requested new translations that were based on dynamic equivalence. Training seminars were held to practice the application of Nida’s theory and to select translators who were both competent in translation and acceptable to the churches who would be using the Bible once it was published. The Bible Society Period links up with the Fourth Great Age of Bible Translations as described above. Dynamic or functional equivalent translations in South Africa’s languages, which were published by the Bible Society of South Africa during this period, include the Sesotho Bible in two orthographies – that of Lesotho and that of South Africa (1989) (Hermanson, 2002). Case Study: Framing Bible translation into Sesotho The Basotho Basutoland, currently known as Lesotho, the home of the Sesotho-speaking people, was opened to Christian missionary work in 1833 or 1834. The Basotho originated from remnants of other tribes scattered by the wars and raids of the Zulus under King Tshaka. In about 1822, Moshoeshoe gathered them together, building a stronghold on the summit of Thaba Bosiu. By cooperating with other chiefdoms and extending the influence of his own lineage, he was able to create a Sotho identity and unity, both of which were used to repel the external forces that threatened their autonomy and independence (Rosenthal, 1970; see also Casalis, 1997; Ellenberger, 1997). Moshoeshoe also acknowledged the importance of acquiring the skills of farmers, settlers, hunters, and adventurers who increasingly moved across his borders from the south. He therefore welcomed the missionaries from the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (Société des Missions Évangéliques), when they arrived at Thaba Bosiu in 1833, as a source of information about the rest of the world (see also Harries, 2007). He placed them in strategically important parts of the kingdom, where they gave the Basotho their first experience of Christianity, literacy, and commodity production for long-distance trading. The missionaries respected him, helped him, and even loved him. Later missionaries from Catholic and other churches were allowed to continue their work, as long as they did not jeopardise the independence of the tribe. However, Moshoeshoe eventually placed himself under British jurisdiction in 1868. In 1884, Basutoland was granted the status of a protectorate. In 1966, the country attained full independence. The missionaries It was during the period of missionary arrival that Lesotho was opened for Christianity (Smit, 1970; Reyneke, 1987). Eleven mission stations had been founded by the end of the 1940s, of which the best known, besides Morija itself, were Bethulie, Beersheba, Thaba Bosigo, Hebron, and Bethesda.


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For 36 years, the missionaries of the Paris Society had formed an excellent relationship with Moshoeshoe, to whom Eugene Casalis (1812–1891) served almost as a confidential counsellor. The place of the older missionaries (Thomas Arbousset, 1810–1877, and Casalis) was taken by Adolphe Mabille (1836–1894) and Francois Coillard (1834–1904). Mabille was largely responsible for the territory of the mission, inaugurating a native pastorate and starting a normal school, a printing establishment, and a book depot (Latourette, 1978). Coillard succeeded Casalis as confidential advisor to Moshoeshoe. Coillard’s peculiar combination of patience, persistence, ability to understand the African humour, and radiant sanctity made him one of the dominant figures on the African scene for 40 years (Neill, 1965). By their counsel, their schools, and the Christian faith of which they were the channel, the French missionaries had a large share in enabling the Basotho to accommodate themselves to the white man’s world (Latourette, 1978). In 1914, the church, founded by the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, numbered 22 233 communicants. Moshoeshoe welcomed the first Roman Catholic missionaries in 1862. They entered his small country in which the French and Swiss Protestants had already been at work for 30 years and had already made a deep impression on the lives of the people. The Roman Catholics regarded this as their chief bastion in southern Africa. The Protestants and Anglicans with their severely limited resources found it hard to remain standing against the Roman Catholic wave (Neill, 1965). As could be expected, these French missionaries pioneered the translation of the Bible into the language of the Basotho. Arbousset, in particular, distinguished himself in becoming a first-rate authority on the Sesotho language. The Paris Evangelical Mission commenced their missionary work at Morija, Lesotho, during 1833 to 1834. The first Gospels in Sesotho were Mark (translated by E Cassalis) and John (translated by S Rolland); both were published in 1839. The translation of the New Testament was completed in 1843, but due to a number of setbacks, it was printed at the mission press of Beerseba, near Smithfield, and published in 1855 (Schutte, 1971). The complete Bible in Sesotho was published in France by the BFBS in 1881, but because of the Basotho War, it reached its prospective readers only in September 1883 (Smit, 1970). During this two-year delay, Mr Mabille, one of the indigenous pioneers of the translation of the Bible into Sesotho, undertook a new and more thorough revision of both the New Testament and the Old Testament. He changed not only the orthography, but also improved the text itself, where necessary. The first revision of the 1881 version was published in 1899. A new edition in revised orthography was printed in 1909. In 1961, this translation was also published for the first time in the new South African orthography, which was proclaimed on 1 August 1959. This version is known and is still used as the ‘Old Translation’. It reflects an adherence to the word-for-word approach of translation and to the pristine vocabulary and style similar to the Third Great Age of Bible Translations. It is characterised by a desire for the greatest possible transmission of the forms and structure of the source text, both at the macro and micro level. The pragmatic functions of the source text received scant attention. Various revisions followed. In 1970, a large project to translate the Bible into Sesotho was pioneered. The coordinator of the project was Dr BJ Odendaal. It was in this endeavour by Odendaal that different churches were invited to take part in the translation of the Bible in their own language. The Anglican Church was represented by Mr BM Khaketla and Canon I Maja, the Catholic Church by Father BE Marole and Father A Steffanus, the Methodist Church by Rev. DJ Senkhane, and the Lesotho Evangelical Church by Rev. EM Thakgudi and Rev. D Rudge. The Dutch Reformed Church in Africa was represented by Rev. ES Nchephe, succeeded by Rev. AS Ncholu and Rev. DT Keta. During 1975, the editorial team was reduced to five members, with Dr BJ Odendaal as project coordinator and Mr EM Thakhodi as secretary and translator together with Mr BM Khaketla, Rev. EEI Molahloe and Fr A Steffanus, the latter as exegete. The New Testament and Psalms were published and launched in Maseru on 24 October 1976 and the standard orthography edition at Witzieshoek in the Republic of South Africa on 28 November 1976. When Fr Steffanus retired in 1976, Fr Kantoro replaced him on the Editorial team. As from 1980, the members of the editorial team consisted of Dr AA Odendaal, Mr BM Khaketla, Mr EM Thakhodi, Rev. M Mopeli, and Bishop IM Phakoe.The entire Bible was not completed until 1989.

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Most members of this team knew the basics of the source languages, Greek and Hebrew. They also made reference to other versions, such as French, German, English, Afrikaans, and Latin. They were not in favour of a word-for-word translation, but wanted to produce the deeper meaning that was functional, by adhering as closely as possible to the original Hebrew and Greek texts, but formulating the translation in a natural equivalent in Sesotho. In this way, they saw their work as ‘correcting’ the literal translation of the 1909 version, which was based on the traditions and norms of the readers of that time, although the 1989 translation was not a revision, but an independent translation. The question remains why so many revisions were done to the 1909 translation. Dr DT Keta (in an interview with Makutoane & Naudé, 2009) gave the following as an answer to this question: • A translation needs to have a revision(s) to correct the literal translation made by the previous translators. For example, the 1909 translation was more literal than dynamic. Through revisions, a translation was developed that would be more explicit but also dynamic. • Language change gave rise to the necessity to review the 1909 version. • Language is an important element of culture and is not stagnant. It is controlled by changes in culture and environmental developments, such as people adopting the Western culture. • Changes in Sesotho orthography had been made. • There was a need to create a deeper and more understandable theological meaning to the prospective audience with a new cultural background. • The translation had to deal with the concept of colonial interferences. Based on these considerations, it was clear that a new translation was considered undoubtedly necessary by the Sesotho-speaking audience. There should be no further revisions, but a new translation. This Sesotho translation, based on the principles of Nida and Taber (1974), was published in the Lesotho orthography in Maseru on 15 October 1989 and in the South African orthography in Bloemfontein on 12 November 1989 as described above. It was a dynamic or functional equivalence translation similar to other Bibles of the first generation of the Fourth Great Age of Bible Translation. The primary concern of these translations was meaning and readability. Colonial interferences: Indigenous but still colonial The concept of ‘colonial’ in ‘colonial interferences’ means the usage of foreign linguistic items or words which had interfered with the process of translation, in this case the translation of the Bible in Sesotho. It should not be understood in a more universal or general manner that carries a negative connotation of ‘the oppression of Africa by the Western Superpowers’ or ‘the imposition of Western values and institutions on indigenous African system’ (Adamo, 2005: 2). The concept of ‘colonial interferences’, or ‘foreign ideas’ as Masoga (2004: 155) defines it, is to be understood in a positive sense because during the translation of the Bible in Sesotho, these interferences became part of the culture and language of the prospective audience, in other words the translated text was indigenised. The notion of an ‘indigenous text’ was advocated by Masoga (2004: 143): ‘The Bible relates to the communities that read it, using their indigenous contexts to interpret this indigenous text’. Masoga was emphasising the notion that the indigenous wisdom, knowledge, science, and technology that the indigenous communities bring to the text (Bible) must also be acknowledged. Adamo (2005: 3) agrees with Masoga when he says, ‘… the value of any biblical studies depends on its relevance to the life of the members of the communities where it is applied,’ but it must also be understood as the way in which the missionaries had empowered Sesotho as a language. This outcome of empowerment will be demonstrated in what follows by contrasting the 1909 and the 1989 translations. The following Sesotho terms are neither loanwords from the Biblical Hebrew source text, nor direct translations of the source text culture. They seem rather to be derived from the Afrikaans language as the comparable Afrikaans expressions show. The 1989 Sesotho translation involved explicitations in the form of phrases rather than single words. These explicitations have clear indigenous features and the English back translations demonstrate that they belong to the target culture. In 1 Samuel 17: 5, the Biblical Hebrew kobaˁ nəḥošet (bronze helmet) is translated as ‘heleme ya koporo’ (copper helmet) in the 1909 translation. The word ‘heleme’ is derived from the Afrikaans word, helm (helmet)


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and ‘koporo’ from the Afrikaans word, koper (copper). It is similar in sound to the Afrikaans koperhelm. The Biblical Hebrew refers to bronze and not copper. The 1909 translation does not reflect the source text culture and so cannot be a foreignisation. The 1989 translation uses the indigenous katiba ya lethose (the copper hat). The same situation is repeated in the following cases: the word ‘dikamoreng’ (Nehemiah 10: 37) is a derivative of the Afrikaans word kamers (rooms), while the 1989 translation has matlung (houses). The word ‘kristale’ (Ezekiel 1: 22) is related to ‘crystal’ in English and kristal in Afrikaans. The 1989 translation has leqhwa (ice) which is a better translation of the Hebrew. The word ‘teronko’ (2 Chronicles 16: 10), derived from the Afrikaans word tronk (jail), is used in 1909 despite the available indigenised word tjhankane (prison) used in 1989, although the dictionary also suggests it may have been derived from the same Afrikaans word, since traditionally the Basotho probably did not have such a place of detention (Paroz, 1961). In 1 Samuel 3: 3, the phrase, bəhêkal yhwh (ˀǎdōnay) (the tabernacle of the Lord), is translated as ‘tabernakele ya Jehova’ (1909) and ‘tempele ya Morena’ (1989) reflecting the Afrikaans interferences. A better indigenised translation of this phrase can be suggested: leaho/sebaka sa boteng/ bodulo ba Morena (dwelling place of God). As indicated, Moshoeshoe acknowledged the importance of acquiring the skills of farmers, settlers, hunters, and adventurers, who increasingly moved across his borders from the south. For commodity production on farms and for trading, a kind of pidgin language developed to achieve communication between Dutch/Afrikaans-speaking farmers and the speakers of Sesotho. When translating the Bible into Sesotho, this was the terminology the translators of the 1909 translation used. It presents colonial empowerment of the dominated target culture by the hegemonic culture of the translators, whereas the 1989 translation represents a process of indigenisation of the source text culture. However, the influence of the 1909 translation was pervasive in the sense that many Sesotho words that are common today entered Sesotho from Dutch/Afrikaans by way of the 1909 translation. Bible translation and indigenisation The Bible is an indigenous text, read by indigenous people, from an indigenous perspective, and it has at least two indigenous levels. The first level concerns the indigenous process that led to the creation of the Bible as a text. Most of the biblical text originated through oral communicative processes and finally reached the point of being fixed in written form. On a second level, the Bible relates to the communities that read it, using their indigenous contexts to interpret this indigenous text. The interferences in the translation became part of the culture and language of the prospective readership. It represents a process of indigenisation of the source text culture and translated text. The colonial interference is clearly noticed in both of the two main translations of the Bible in Sesotho, namely the 1909 and the 1989. The use of foreign words, phrases or sentences is more prominent in the 1909 translation than in the 1989. This made the 1909 translation more difficult and complex than the 1989 translation. In trying to deal with the problem, the 1989 translation used more simple language although not simple enough, because it was only meant for readability and not for oral listeners. There is a hermeneutical circle between the Bible and missions. A particular reading of the Bible led the missionaries (for example of the London Missionary Society (LMS)) to Africa, and their concern to promote the Bible led to the translation and printing of the Bible in indigenous languages (most famously, to Moffat’s Setswana translation). Inevitably, the availability of the Bible in indigenous languages led to new ways of understanding the church and missions from the perspective of the south. By translating and printing the Bible (for example at Kuruman and elsewhere), the missionary societies (for example the LMS) participated in a movement that ultimately led to its demise as a colonial mission society. The work of the missionary and Bible translator (for example Moffat) can therefore be seen as both the climax of a certain way of understanding missions and the planting of the seed for a new way of doing so. In this way, it signals not only what Europe contributed to Africa, but also what Africa would ultimately contribute to Europe (De Gruchy, 2009).

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Conclusion Islam did not encourage the production of translations of the Qur’ān for the benefit of those who could not read it in the original. On the contrary, some Muslim authorities condemned the attempt to make such translations as impious or even blasphemous. The translation of the Qur’ān is therefore ‘regulated translation’. According to Robinson (2000), regulated translation involves strict controls on who translates, what is translated, how it is translated, for whom it is translated, and whether and with whom the translation is shared and discussed. Concerning Bible translation, the history of religion shows that the masses demanded and obtained vernacular translations of sacred texts. Examples of this include the Septuagint for the Hellenised Jewish community in Alexandria and the Vulgate for Latin-speaking Christians of the 4th and 5th centuries. The regulation of translation is typical of the earlier Bible translations of the period of the missionary societies. It results in literal translation, which has the effect of keeping the sacred text largely incomprehensible to the masses. During the period of the Bible societies, the belief was that the Bible should be accessible to the masses by means of dynamic-equivalence translations. The translation of the Bible is the one publishing success story in the third world. It seems that the printed or written word embodied the primary oral culture. In the past, the Bible and its translations into the indigenous languages of the colonised represented colonial empowerment. In recent years, however, the status quo seems to have changed. By means of a process of indigenisation of the translated versions of the Bible, these translations have come to prescribe and dominate biblical dialogue, the nature of the colonial encounter between the source text and translations, and the target audiences, by commenting on the cultural mechanisms of ownership, resistance, and indigenisation as vacillating media of oppression and liberation. Notes 1 Precise figures concerning Bible translation efforts in Africa are difficult to obtain, but the following are representative. In Nigeria, for example, one organisation alone has 82 active Bible translation projects. Another organisation working throughout Africa has 528 active Bible translation projects, with another 800 to 1 000 projects projected for the future. 2 Unfortunately, documentation about the quality and type of these translations as well as detailed information about revisions of these translations is a desideratum, which we hope to rectify in future. References Abou Sheishaa MAM. 2001. A study of the fatwa by Rashid Rida on the translation of the Qur’an. Journal of the Society for Qur’anic Studies 1. Available at: http://www.quranicstudies.com/articles/ language-of-the-quran/a-study-of-the-fatwa-by-rashid-rida-on-the-translation-of-the-quran.html [accessed 1 December 2011]. Adamo DT. 2005. Reading and interpreting the Bible in African indigenous churches. Justice Jeco Press & Publishers Ltd. Ahmadi MA. 1953. Kurani Tukufu, Pamoja na Tafsiri na Maelezo kwa Kiswahili. Nairobi: East African Ahmadiyya. Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. 2011. Al Islam: The official website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Available at: http://www.alislam.org [accessed 1 December 2011]. Al-Hilālī, MT & Khān MM. 1996. Interpretation of the meanings of the noble Qur’ân in the English language. Riyadh: Darussalam. Arberry AJ. 1955. The Koran interpreted. London: George Allen & Unwin. Augusto HM et al. 1973. Al Kurani ti a tumo si ede Yoruba. Beirut: Dar Alrabiah. Ba O. 1982. Le Coran Français–Peul. Paris: L’Harmattan ACCT. Baker MA. 1961/1981. Die helige Qur’an. Durban: Islamic Propagation Center. Batalden S, Cann K & Dean J. (eds). 2004. Sowing the word: The cultural impact of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 1804–2004. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.


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