Microsoft Word - ANALYZING AND UTILIZING RECEPTOR LANGUAGE.doc

Analyzing and Utilizing Receptor Language Proverb Forms in Translation

Bible Translation 2003, Dallas, Texas

A revised form of this paper is being submitted to The Bible Translator.

Pete Unseth pete_unseth@gial.edu

Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics and SIL International

1. Introduction

Proverbs have been translated and borrowed between language and cultures for millennia. Even the ancient Latin proverb Asinus ad lyram ‘A donkey with a lyre’, meaning “something futile”, can be traced back to a Sumerian source, more than 2,000 before the Romans (Taylor 1996). But translating proverbs well is never easy.

Translating proverbs is unusually complex: exegeting proverbs is challenging and then finding or creating appropriate artistic forms in the receptor language is a special problem. Proverbs are often the shortest poems in a language, so translators who translate proverbs should think of their task as translating poetry.

Unlike most narrative and hortatory passages, in proverbs the form of a proverb is an integral part of the meaning. If the hearer/reader does not understand and feel that a passage is a proverb, they will miss some of the meaning. This indissoluble link between form and meaning in proverbs prompted Williams to title his article on Biblical proverbs “The Power of Form” (1980).

Often Bible translators find themselves telling people “Meaning is more important than form.” But with proverbs, the form is part of the meaning; that is, to try to translate the “meaning” of a proverb without translating into the form of a proverb is to translate only part of the meaning of a proverb. For proverbs, the form is part of the meaning.

This paper is not about the study of the use of proverbs in the discourse structure of the source language or the RL (Receptor Language). Nor does this paper addres who uses proverbs with whom, and in what context. Nor is this about how to exegete proverbs. My goal here is to simply present some specific ideas on how to explore the structure of RL proverbs in preparation for translating proverbs into the RL, then give some proposals for application of the findings in a given language. Several earlier authors have advocated utilizing RL proverb forms, including Hatton (1976), Salisbury (1994), Schneider (1994), Wendland (2002) but this paper aims to develop this approach in more detail. In doing so, I lay out a more systematic method by which to do this.

To prepare for translating Biblical proverbs, I suggest a three-phase plan. These same steps can be usefully applied by translators who are mother tongue translators and also those who are working in some capacity with languages which are not their mother tongues.

1. 1. Collect a number of proverbs in the RL (200 is not too many)

2. 2. Analyze the techniques used by the RL in forming these proverbs

3. 3. Practice deliberately applying these techniques in translating non-Biblical proverbs, then later Biblical proverbs.

The first step is not complicated, and can be quite enjoyable, whether performed by a native speaker or an outsider. Even the very act of collecting proverbs can be useful for multiple reasons and the resulting collection is of interest to a variety of people (Unseth in press).

The second step, analyzing the RL techniques used in forming proverbs, requires an open, curious mind. The study of proverbs around the world has shown that there is a set of artistic devices that are commonly used in most languages, including rhyme, alliteration, meter, assonance. This paper presents an expanded list of possibilities, but investigators will have to be alert for other possibilities in the language they are studying.

The third step is the more challenging, casting the meaning of the source language proverb into a form in the RL that uses some of the RL’s typical proverb structures. To demonstrate the application of RL proverbial forms in translation, examples of proverbs translated into English will be given, comparing translations that have tried to apply proverbial techniques and some that do not. Those that follow such an approach generally increase the aesthetic effect, and thereby the impact of the proverb. My non-systematic study of English translations suggests that the translations by Knox and Moffatt show more sensitivity to this approach than most others.

Some may think that they do not yet need to study RL proverbs, assuming that proverbs are found only in the Old Testament book of Proverbs. However, they are found in various books of the Old and New Testament, e.g. 1 Sam. 24:13, Ez. 16:44, Lk. 4:23, John 4:37, 2Pt. 2:22.

2.0 Analyzing techniques used in forming proverbs

After a large number of RL proverbs are collected, the techniques used by the language in forming these proverbs should be analyzed. The proverbs might be analyzed by those outside of the core translation team, such as teachers, church leaders, literature scholars, etc.

Languages around the world each have their own patterns that they use in forming proverbs. However, many languages will draw heavily from a common list of techniques, in addition to some features that may be unique. The two major categories of techniques used in forming proverbs are those that rely on sound and those that rely on structure. Of course, many proverbs will utilize more than one technique, and often from both of these two major categories. In some languages, rhyme and alliteration may be standard. In some languages, the great majority of proverbs are grammatically built on a couplet structure. Each language will have its own preferences and tendencies in these matters.

Proverbs should also be analyzed for how much information they include or withhold. In many languages, one of the hallmarks of a proverb is that it makes the listen (or reader) stop and ponder the meaning, rather than clarifying all of the symbolism and multiple senses of words.

2.1 Techniques based on sound

Proverbs differ from other more prosaic forms of speech in that they are fixed forms, the words being invariant, (more or less). Part of what makes these proverbs easier to remember is their sound, often a pleasing or memorable combination of sounds. Commonly used techniques for using sounds aesthetically in proverbs include rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and meter.

Rhyme: Proverbs in many languages will employ some use of rhyme. This rhyme may occur at the ends of natural phrase breaks, or at multiple points in a proverb.

Alliteration: Alliteration is a pattern in which the same consonants are repeated, though the vowels may differ. Many languages use alliteration in proverbs.

Alliteration does not always involve totally identical consonants. If not identical, consonants may be similar, what phonologists call members of a “natural class”. For example, the consonants m, n, ñ and  are all nasal consonants; a proverb that used a high proportion of these nasal consonants would sound more alliterative, which in many languages would be considered aesthetically preferable. Some other natural classes of consonants include labial founds (m, b, v, p, f), sibilants (s, z, sh, ch, etc,), and ejective stops (p’, t’, k’). Alliteration can be amply seen in the following Amharic example, where labial consonants are repeated:

zmm balä af, zmb aygäbabbätm “The mouth that is silent, no fly enters it.”

Assonance: Assonance is a pattern in which the same vowel is repeated, though the consonants may differ. Note the Amharic example: yälämmänä mänämmänä “The one who begs grows thin.” (There is also alliteration and rhyme, as well, making it very euphonious (by Amharic standards).

An extreme example of assonance in a proverb can be seen in the following Oromo proverb from Ethiopia:

kan mana baala, a?laa gaala

in house leaf, out camel

‘He is (only) a leaf at home, but (big as) a camel elsewhere.’

The proverb uses the word baala ‘leaf’, to indicate that the person is small and insignificant, and gaala ‘camel’ to indicate that a person is large and important. The proverb could just as logically have used the word ‘pebble’, ‘bean’, or ‘gnat’, but the word ‘leaf’ baala was chosen because it contains only the vowel a, making the vowels of the proverb completely assonant and much more memorable. A similar proverb exists in Arabic, but using different nouns. The Oromo translator of this proverb deliberately and artistically chose “leaf” and “camel” to achieve complete assonance, changing the nouns while preserving the point of the proverb.

Assonance may be artistic even if it is not complete. As with alliteration, a proverb may have partial assonance by use of similar vowels, vowels forming a natural class, such as back, round vowels u and o. Again, the use of even approximate assonance may be judged to be more aesthetically pleasing. This can be seen in the Kyrgyz version of Prov. 23:20, below, where the vowels a and o predominate (vowels and consonants in this transcription are not meant to be phonetically precise). Note that both lines begin with two examples of a, then have a final word with o (and a final rhyming -un).

araketch tamaq soolordun arasinda bolbogun. a a a a oo o u a a a o o u

Meter: Many proverbs have a pattern of meter or rhythm, often based on stress patterns,

e.g. iambic, trochaic. If a proverb has two or more lines, these lines may have not only matching stress patterns, but also matching numbers of syllables in each line. In English, this can be seen in the iambic proverb

“The BIGger they ARE,
the HARDer they FALL.”

Tone: Languages that use tone can also use tonal patterns artfully to enhance the poetic beauty of proverbs. This might take the form of a couplet with identical tones, e.g. HHLLHL, HHLLHL. Tone can also be used in more complicated ways, such as HHLL, LLHH. (I regret that I have no actual examples, but I have heard of tone being used in this way.)

Combinations of these techniques:

Combinations of several patterns of artistry help make a proverb memorable and keep it current in a language. When several of these sound-based techniques are combined in the same proverb, it becomes more memorable and more aesthetically valued.

Parallelisms:

There are a number of different kinds of parallelisms, so it is important to note what kinds of parallelisms are used. It may be that a language never uses one of the types of parallelism that is common in Proverbs, such as synonymous parallelism.

In studying parallelisms, it is important to note what kind of conjunctions are used, many languages omitting overt conjunctions in the desire to make proverbs dense. For example, note the lack of a conjunction between the two elements in the following Amharic proverb:

“A word from the mouth spoken, an egg from the hand broken.” Many Amharic proverbs built on a parallelism have no conjunction overtly marking the logical relation between the two elements. It is up to the listener/reader to discern the logical link between the two clauses.

One must also note which element of a parallelism comes first, e.g. the positive or negative, the reason or the imperative, the topic or the comment. Where one element of a parallelism is a statement about a topic and the other is the application based on the first, it is important to note which element comes first. For example, note the following Amharic proverb: “Burglarizing with a cough, praying with a grudge.” The point of the proverb is to remind people about how to pray, not about how to steal. In Amharic, the two elements of a parallelism are generally in this order, the “point” of the proverb coming last.

Comparison parallelisms: (2 parts or even 3 parts) “The one who asks finds, the one who trades profits.” (Amharic)

Contrasting parallelisms: “A lie may help a person pass the day well, but not the night.” (Oromo)

Contrasting parallel imperatives: “Drink the bitter medicine, but rub butter on your teeth.” (Oromo)

Questions and answers: “What does a blind person need? Light. What does a sick person need? Healing.” (Amharic)

Rhetorical question

“Who can remove meat from the jaws of a lion?” (Amharic)
“Whose fault is it that the chicken doesn’t have teeth?” (Isthmus Zapotec)

Quotations:

“ ‘The ground is nice, too,’ said the old woman, falling off her horse. “ (Oromo) The analysts should note whether proverbs use direct speech, indirect speech, or both.

Positive imperative

“Drink the bitter medicine, but rub butter on your teeth.” (Oromo) “You yourself plant it and see!” (Oromo)

Negative imperative (also a parallelism)

"Don't reject all the criticism, don't accept all the praise.” (Oromo)

Reason-imperative

"There are worse, don't divorce your wife!” (Amharic)
“Don’t yearn for old age, because you get it for free.” (Texmelucan Zapotec)

Note that in these two languages, the order of the reason and the imperative is opposite.

Doubtless there are more categories of grammatical structures than I have listed here, and certainly there could be more subcategories under “parallelism". However, these categories serve to adequately illustrate the point.

Non-canonical grammar

Many proverbs are found to be not fully “grammatical” in some way. Sometimes affixes are omitted to reduce the number of syllables in order to match the metrical pattern of the other half of a couplet. For example, note the rhymes at the ends of the two lines in the following Ethiopian proverb ‘I have a cow in heaven, but I haven’t seen her milk’:

lam alläñ bäsämay

wätätwanm alay

This rhyme is only achieved by omitting the usual negative suffix from the verb at the end of the second line, in addition to omitting words such as gn ‘but’. An Ethiopian linguist friend of mine once demonstrated how awkward sounding the second line of this proverb becomes if it obeys the usual rules of grammar, producing the unpoetic but grammatically canonical form wätätwanm gn gäna aycce aläwk’m. Similarly, some affixes were omitted for the sake of meter in a poetic version of the Gospels in Swahili (Noss and Renju 2003).

Other ways of bending the grammar include altering word order, such as fronting a locative ahead of an object to rhyme the end of a phrase. Conjunctions are often omitted and sometimes only dependent verb forms were used. One of the motivations for these non-canonical grammatical forms is to shorten the proverb, part of whose impact is derived from its very terseness, such as the one already cited above. Also, grammar is sometimes bent to achieve a certain meter.

Motifs

In addition to the grammatically based structures listed above, languages that use proverbs will often have a number of proverb that follow a general pattern or motif. For example, there may be set patterns such as “Better X than Y”, or “X is the mother of Y”.

Introductory formulas

Some languages have one or more formulaic introductions for proverbs. Schneider gives standard Tsonga examples of these, including “Those of old have spoken and said…” and “There is a proverb which says…” (1986:132). Spanish proverbs are often introduced with the phrase “El que nace [para]...” (Arora 1998). Though such lengthy introductions would be inappropriate to repeat in the book of Proverbs, one could very well be appropriate when a single proverb is used conversationally in Scripture. For example, 1 Sam. 24:13 is translated by the RSV as “As the proverb of the ancients says…,” which could easily be rephrased to fit a standard Tsonga proverbial introduction.

Being alert for undiscovered possibilities

In studying local proverbs, we should be alert for linguistic features that we have not noted or understood before. For example, Hall reported some verb tenses that had not been noted previously were discovered in proverbs (1953:28). Similarly, in studying Pendau riddles (likewise, a specialized genre), Quick came to understand a special copula that he had hardly ever noted before (2003).

3. Application

Collecting proverbs is often pleasant; analyzing them presents some challenges; but consciously applying the results of RL techniques in translation is more difficult.

Conscious use of RL proverbial patterns is greatly assisted by access to an analyzed collection of proverbs, even for native speakers of the RL. The list of RL proverb techniques would then serve as a source of ideas and suggestions on matters of form as the translators translated proverbs into that language. Translators of poetic passages should be “alert for ways to build poetic language back into [their] translation” (Peacock 1981:1).

Translating a few proverbs will quickly show translators that this is a different genre than narrative! Before translating Biblical proverbs, it seems to me preferable to practice translating other non-Biblical proverbs. When translating non-Biblical proverbs, translators may feel less constrained by the usual tendency to unthinkingly and mechanically transfer the Source Language form into the RL.

There are a brilliant examples of translators structuring a proverb in the RL using a different technique, even changing the some details of the SL form, all for the sake of the RL art. For example, compare the German and Finnish forms of a proverb below, the Finnish having been borrowed from the German (Kuusi 1998b):

Führe ein Schwein bis an der Rhein, es bleibt ein Schwein. “Take a pig to the Rhine, he comes back a pig.”

Vie sika Saksaan, tuo sika Saksasta, sika sika sittenkin on “Take a pig to Germany, bring

a pig back from Germany, a pig is still a pig.” The German form refers to the Rhein River, achieving a rhyme. The Finnish form refers to Germany (Saksa) instead, setting up repetition of s, i, a, and k. Kuusi observes, “If it were a question of an academic test of German translation, the examiners would no doubt consider such freedom of interpretation a punishable offence. The anonymous translator was, nevertheless, right” (1998b).

In translating proverbs, there is no general requirement for the translator to preserve the particular technique or rhetorical device used in the SL (Source Language) when translating into the RL. Rather, it is more important to seek an appropriate aesthetic technique in the RL, (while striving to keep the meaning, of course). A proverb that is highly alliterative in the SL may very well be translated into a form that uses rhyme in the RL. In such a case, the translator is preserving the meaning and artistic form, but not using the same artistic form as in the SL. Not surprisingly it is easier to approximate the SL grammatical form of a proverb in the RL than it is to preserve any particular sound-based artistic form in the RL.

The sound-based aesthetics would be the hardest to convey into another language, the grammatical techniques less so, and the image based ones would be the easiest to translate (though one still has to cope with the usual types of translation problems, such as the fact that there may be no snow or goats known in some areas, etc.)

Proverbs based on images rather than parallelisms (such as the ones cited above about the rocks under the pot or the bald-bottomed baboon), may be less daunting to translate, but a translator should still look for opportunities to render even these into artistic forms appropriate for proverbs in the RL. That is, in a language that likes alliteration in proverbs, if a non-alliterative proverb from the source language, (such as the ones just cited), could be translated into the RL in an alliterative form, that would seem preferable to a non-alliterative form. As a poor example, the proverb cited above about the baboon might be alliteratively translated into English as “The bald-bottomed baboon blindly belittles her buddy.”

3.1 Sound based techniques

A study of English proverbs quickly shows a set of sound-based aesthetic techniques for forming proverbs. These include the usual techniques of rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and meter. The deliberate application of these in translating Biblical proverbs into English is shown below. Hopefully you will agree that (at least some of) these restructured proverbs are aesthetically preferable to the form in the RSV.

3.1.1 Alliteration

A deliberate effort to use alliteration produced a more aesthetic form of Proverbs

19:7. Compare the first form that follows the SL structure unimaginatively, and then my

Alliteration may be strictly word initial, or word internal and final. Note the

sibilants (s and sh) in Williams’s translation of the following proverb: Prov. 10:5

Williams a shameful son sleeps in the hay through harvest.” “A son who gathers in summer is prudent,

“A sensible son makes hay while the sun shines,

RSV but a son who sleeps in harvest brings shame.”

Below are more alliterative proverbs:.

Prov. 11:4	“Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”	NIV
	“Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”	RSV
Prv. 12:11a	“Till field and fill belly”	Knox
	“He who tills his land will have plenty of bread”	RSV
Prov. 11:8	“The righteous are delivered from trouble, the wicked dive into trouble.” (or “delve”?)	PEU
	“The righteous is delivered from trouble, and the wicked gets into it, instead.”	RSV
Prov. 17:1	“Better a crust with quiet, than a feast with a feud.” or “than a house full of feasting with feuding.”	PEU
	“Better is a dry morsel with quiet, than a house full of feasting with strife.”	RSV

In the alternatives for Prov. 15:17, note how the first and third alternatives each

Alliteration may run through the whole proverb (as in Prov. 19:7 & 10:5) above, or there may be separate spans of alliteration in each half of a parallelism, as in 28:6, below. Note also that the first line has two consonants being repeated, both p and (less

prominently) r. Prov. 28:6

PEU than a wealthy one with wicked ways.” “Better is a poor man who walks in integrity

“Preferable a poor person on pure path,

RSV than a rich man who is perverse in his ways.”

Though some alliteration may be pleasing, too much can form tongue twisters.

3.1.2 Rhyme

The use of rhyme is common in English proverbs, such as “Birds of a feather flock together” and “Haste makes waste.” Even if the rhyme is not exact, it can still be effective, as in “A stitch in time saves nine.” Notice how this is much more aesthetically pleasing than the equally logical “A stitch in time saves ten.” Note the rhymes in the following examples.

Prov. 11:22	“A pig with a pearl necklace is like a woman pretty but reckless.”	Williams
	“Like a gold ring in a swine’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.”	RSV
Prov. 15:17	“Greens with harmony beats beef withou ’ny.”	PEU
	“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.”	RSV
Prov. 17:7	“Talk about virtue is not for a churl, much less are lies for a noble soul!” (Note alliteration of l.)	Moffatt
	“Fine speech is not becoming to a fool, still less is false speech to a prince.”	RSV

Sometimes, we can do more than merely rhyme the end of a word, but rhyme

3.2 Grammatical restructuring

A grammatical form, such as a rhetorical question, is much more likely to be transferable to the RL, if the RL uses such a grammatical structure in forming proverbs. Translators will more often feel free to use a different form of sound based verbal art, but when encountering proverbial forms that are based on a grammatical structure they are reluctant to consider RL grammatical alternatives, being more likely to transfer the SL grammatical structure into the RL.

However, transferring grammatical structures can be a trap. For example, the SL may use negative imperatives freely in proverbs, but RL proverbs may typically mitigate the force of such messages by using other, less direct grammatical forms. In the table below, compare the different grammatical forms that all convey the same basic message, variations of a Persian proverb “Don’t carry two melons in one hand.” In some of them, the imperative force is greatly mitigated, in other it is strengthened.

1. “Don’t carry two melons in one hand.”	8. “Wisdom is shown by not carrying …
2. “Don’t ever carry …”	9. “Only a fool tries to carry …
3. “Let nobody carry …	10. “Never carry …
4. “You should not carry…	11. “Can you carry … ?
5. “Wise people do not carry …	12. “Do we carry … ?”
6. “Nobody can carry…	13. “How can you carry … ?
7. “It is not wise to carry …	14. “Do you see anybody carry … ?

The following show more radical grammatical restructuring of this same proverb:

2 noun phrases	“Two melons, one hand.” or “One hand, two melons.”
noun phrase with prepositional phrase	“Two melons in one hand.” or “For two melons, a single hand?” (as irony or a question)
NP & PP with negative, no verb	“Never two melons in one hand.”
Rhyming couplet	“One hand, one thumb, two melons, it’s dumb.” or “Four fingers, one thumb, two melons, not done.”
Different form of grammar	“One hand cannot carry two melons.” or “One never sees two melons in one hand.” (no verb “carry”) “You’re trying to carry two melons in one hand.” or “It’s (as impossible as) carrying two melons in one hand.”
Different noun and number	“You can’t carry two/three pumpkins/cantaloupes/papayas/grindstones/chickens in one hand.” “You can’t carry ten eggs in one hand.”
Different verbs, not “carry”	“Two melons take two hands.” or “One never sees two melons in one hand.” “You can’t catch two chickens with one hand.”

As an example of grammatical adjustments, I rephrase a Biblical proverb into the pattern illustrated by an Amharic pattern mentioned above, simply two noun phrases placed side by side with the listener expected to understand the logical connection between the two.

"A quarreling wife, drizzling rain.” (Proverbs 19:13b)

In some languages, some synonymous parallelisms are better translated without

People may or may not prefer the restructured rendering, but it is an example of keeping the basic meaning of a proverb found in a parallelism while translating without a parallelism.

With some deliberate thought in this direction, translators can utilize RL artistic forms and phrase many Biblical proverbs into forms that are appreciated as artistic proverbs in the RL. But all this requires a conscious knowledge of the techniques used in RL proverbs, something best gained by systematic collection and study of RL proverbs.

A number of principles have been given for the translation of proverbs with more attention to verbal artistry. Below, I present different translations of several Biblical proverbs, showing how they have become more striking with attention to the principles presented here.

The following proverb has a built-in two-part structure, and many translators have found ways to make its structure sound like a typical English proverb.

1 Sam 24:13	“Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness.”	RSV
	“Wickedness comes from wicked people.”	God’s Word
	“From evildoers come evil deeds”	NIV
	“From evildoers, evil deeds”	PEU

Note that the last one is the shortest, resulting from a deliberate effort to be terse. To see the importance of being terse in English proverbs, compare the Living Bible

The Living Bible’s rendering of the above proverb is so long and deliberately clear that it does not strike one as a proverb in English. It may contain the same information as the original, but because of its length it lacks proverbial artistry in English. Remember, for proverbs the form is part of the meaning, so such examples fail to convey the appropriate genre, thereby missing some of the meaning.

3.2.1 Reordering parallelisms

Many language use parallelisms in forming proverbs, but we must be alert to notice the order of the parallel elements and strive to match the natural order of the RL. This is not distorting the meaning of the source text, but matching the grammar of the RL.

Peter Kirk sent me the following example of dealing with reordering parallelisms: “It is interesting that she [n.b. mother tongue translator] was less prepared to make the higher level adjustments such as reversing the lines of a proverb, e.g. to fit the pattern in the language that the negative comes before the positive (always "not A, B", never "B, not A"), but when I pointed out particular places where it might be better to reverse the

lines for this reason, she was usually ready to take my suggestion.” Presumably, this

Note that the mother-tongue speaker of the RL did not automatically make the adjustment. She profited from a timely reminder of what had been found by analyzing RL proverbs.

Again, some languages use fewer types of parallel structures in proverbs, so it may be preferable to restructure some proverbs from a parallel structure to a non-parallel form.

3.2.2 Conjunctions

Many parallelisms in Proverbs are marked in English with “but” or some other overt conjunction. In the Hebrew, there was often/sometimes no overt conjunction (except the usual vav), but translators into English have often found it helpful to make the logical relation between the two lines more explicit, adding a conjunction, as in Prov.

14:5: “A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.” Translators should be alert to the possibility of translating such parallelisms without overt conjunctions if this is a standard RL technique and if the meaning is clear to the listener/reader. Or, they may need to add conjunctions in the RL where there are none in the SL.

Compare the following verses, where Moffatt has no overt conjunctions, forcing the hearer/reader to think and discover the logical relation between the parallel parts:

Prov. 14:4	“No oxen, no corn, good crops come from work done by the ox.”	Moffatt
	“Where there are no oxen, there is no grain; but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”	RSV
Prov. 11:22	“A golden ring in the snout of a sow, and a pretty woman without sense”	Moffatt
	“Like a gold ring in a swine’s snout, is a beautiful woman without discretion.”	RSV

By contrast, Texmelucan Zapotec seems to use a conjunction where a more natural English translation would use none: “Don’t yearn for old age, because you get it for free.”

3.3 How clear should a proverb be?

Notice that some Biblical proverbs are very clearly intended to make the listener/reader stop and ponder, such as Prov. 26:4,5: “Answer not a fool according to his folly…Answer a fool according to his folly...”. (See Wendland’s (2002) discussion of translating this passage from Proverbs in Chichewa.) The beginning of Proverbs specifically points to the fact that proverbs are not always easily or quickly understood, especially Prov. 1:5,6, explaining that this is written that “the man of understanding acquire skill to understand a proverb…”

In most languages, one of the hallmarks of a proverb is that it makes the listener (or reader) stop and ponder the meaning, so translators would be wise to restrain themselves in their desire to translate every proverb in a way that is instantly clear. In languages that frequently form proverbs that have a degree of non-transparency, translators should consider allowing a certain amount of symbolism, metaphor, and obscurity. Efforts to explain too many metaphors in the Toura translation project caused some to complain “You are telling the solution with the riddle” (Bearth 1979:12). It should still be possible for listeners/readers to arrive at the meaning after some thought, as in the example with “raises” and “razes” from Prov. 14:1, given earlier, but a proverb does not have to be as clear as a narrative passage. If the translated form of a proverb does retain some non-transparency, it is important that the form of such proverbs is clearly proverbial so that readers/hearers are alert to the need to look for multiple levels of meaning.

An example of a proverb that has been translated in a way that clarifies a figure by removing the figurative form, is the Living Bible’s rendition of Prov. 17:14. In many languages (including English), such a translation no longer strikes the hearer/reader as a

Many proverbs are underlyingly hortatory, though their form may be indicative. Consider Prov. 21: 23, where the real point of the proverb is to urge the hearer/reader to be careful what they say, “He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.” In translating such proverbs, it is important that the underlying hortatory message is understood by the hearer/reader, realizing that there is something else underneath the simple form.

4. Example where RL techniques have been deliberately employed on a wide scale

The deliberate utilization of RL proverbial forms when translating Biblical proverbs can be noticed at various (too often isolated) points in various Bible translations, such as the NIV’s rendering of Prov. 11:4

“Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath,

but righteousness delivers from death.”

However, the most extreme and consistent use of RL forms may be the recent translation of the Proverbs into Kyrgyz (all information on this was told to me by Danny Vail of the Assemblies of God mission who works with the Kyrgyz team). The book of Proverbs was translated into Kyrgyz by a translator named Askar, following Kyrgyz proverbial structures in such a way that they can be sung in a traditional manner. Not surprisingly, the translator was freer than some would choose, such as adding a vocative term of endearment “my foal” to go with “my son” in Prov. 23:19 (presumably adding it to improve the meter). This translation of Proverbs was so well received in Kyrgyzstan that it was adopted for use in schools across the country!

Hatton (1976:230) reported that a translation committee in Thailand, after a study of Hebrew and Thai proverbs and poetry, decided to translate much of Proverbs into a

¹George Cotter, a Maryknoll priest in Ethiopia, has gone to great lengths to find and use local Oromo proverbs that parallel Scripture, using this as a way of winning a hearing for the Gospel (http://www.maryknollafrica.org/ComCotter.htm). He has even published a volume containing the four Gospels together with similar Oromo proverbs in a parallel column (1991).

poetic form called suphaasit. In this way, they were able to use a set of verbal art forms that are familiar and culturally appropriate to express proverbial sayings.

References

Arora, Shirley. 1998. "El que nace para tamal… a study in proverb patterning. De Proverbio: An Electronic Journal of International Proverb Studies 4:1.

Bearth, Thomas. 1979. Should We Tell the Solution Together with the Riddle? Notes on Translation 77:11-14.

Cotter, George. 1991. Gurra Miti Qalbi Male: Wangela Goftaa Yesus Kiristosif

Mamaaksa Oromo / The Ears are not Important, it's the Mind that Counts: The

Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Proverbs of the Oromo. Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia: United Printers.

de Waard, Jan. 1971. Selected problems from the prophets with particular reference to Bamiléké. The Bible Translator 22.4:146-154.

Dobrovol’skij, Dmitrij and Elisabeth Piirainen. 1999. ‘Keep the Wolf from the Door’: Animal Symbolism in Language and Culture. Proverbium 16: 61-93.

Hall, John F. 1953. Mossi proverbs and their use in translation. The Bible Translator 3:27-29.

Hatton, Howard. 1976. What is special about your language? The Bible Translator 27.2:224-230.

Kuusi, Matti. 1998a. Basic images and formulae. De Proverbio: An Electronic Journal of International Proverb Studies 4:1.

Kuusi, Matti. 1998b. Research problems in loan-proverbs. De Proverbio: An Electronic Journal of International Proverb Studies 4:1.

Noss, Phil and Peter Renju. 2003. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s Scripture Translation in Swahili tenzi verse. Paper presented at Bible Translation 2003, Dallas, TX.

Peacock, Heber. 1981. A translator’s guide to selected Psalms. New York: UBS.

Quick, Phil. 2003. Riddles of death: the structure of the tangke-tangke riddle game used at Pendau memorial services. ms.

Salisbury, Murray. 1994. Hebrew proverbs and how to translate them. Biblical Hebrew and discourse linguistics, ed. by Robert Bergen, 434-461. Dallas: SIL

Schneider, Théo. 1986. From wisdom sayings to wisdom texts, part 1. The Bible Translator 37.1:128-135.

Schneider, Théo. 1994. Proverbs in translation: Critical remarks from a southern African perspective. Perspektiven afrikanistischer Forschung/Perspectives de recherches africanistes, ed. by Thomas Bearth, Wilhelm Möhlig, Beat Sottas, Edgar Suter, pp. 343-353. Köln: Rudiger Köppe and Bern: Société Suisse D’Études Africaines.

Taylor, Archer. 1996. The Study of Proverbs. De Proverbia 2.1. (Reprinted from Selected Writings on Proverbs by Archer Taylor, edited by Wolfgang Mieder, pp. 74-83. 1975. Helsinki: Suoamalinen Tiedeaktemia.)

Unseth, Peter. in press. Collecting, using, and enjoying proverbs. Word and Deed.

Wendland, Ernst. 2002. “How to answer a fool”: The wisdom of rhetoric and the rhetoric of wisdom in Proverbs 26:1-12, with special reference to Bible translation. Old Testament Essays 15.1:504-538.

Williams, James. 1980. The Power of Form: A Study of Biblical Proverbs. Semeia 17:35-58.

Prov. 14:1	“Wisdom raises her house, folly razes hers.”	PEU
	“Wisdom builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.”	RSV
Prov. 14:12	“There is a way which seems right to a man, but it leads (a man) right to death.”	PEU
	“There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”	RSV