[Xmca-l] Re: Translations - Shona and Russian

[Carol Macdonald]

>From Carol, a brief remark

I was enchanted by Zaza's description of what we would in South Africa call
"deep" Shona.  Our African (Bantu) languages are highly idiomatic, except
for very literal everyday contexts especially between two people using them
as a lingua franca. I have just never seen it laid out like that. Thank you.

In some way it is a more enchanting form of indirect speech which we use in
English, except ours is less poetic. (I don't use idioms very much when
using English as a lingua franca.) And we find African languages, apart
from the basic foundations extremely difficult to learn. I have been able
to learn the pragmatics only.

If Zaza is right, and I think she is, then it should give people like David
pause for thought. Just think for example of what is involved in
translating poetry for instance, as an extreme example.

That's all.


----------------------------
Carol A Macdonald Ph.D (Edin)
082 562 1050
Editlab.Net
The Matthew Project: Reading to Learn






On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 at 20:53, Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com> wrote:

> Zaza,
>
> I had no idea that one could translate books without really speaking the
> original language, as David claims about himself.
> Nor did I realize the extent to which translating is about reading between
> the lines, along with the lines themselves. Such an interesting topic . . .
>
> Perhaps of interest:
> 1. A brief anecdote from David about a current Korean translation/summary
> project: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGU5zV6zbLI__;!!Mih3wA!Wxo2HIJ4xQoM16_xfPQoB6Vq3LueCzwd-CXPG4yvPGVtvfrIMwCnaSGWxoyP4GxnejBCag$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGU5zV6zbLI__;!!Mih3wA!XQxtj2IoXb7_362eZ5KfjzUbcujo3z8eN1rDP2n6Qw-EPNOKDlCOfjzQOwnnShti9Nhkyw$>
> (re: Vygotsky on emotions)
> 2. An old xmca post on translating Vygotsky into Korean:
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_05.dir/msg00509.html
>
> I thought these were neat to hear about and maybe enjoyable or others as
> well.
>
> Anthony
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 3:30 PM Zaza Kabayadondo <
> zaza.kabayadondo@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm moving this to a new thread...
>>
>> Thank you for your question, David. I didn't realize people were using
>> Google Translate. It's great for some languages - not so much for anything
>> from Southern Africa at least as far as I've observed.
>>
>> Yes, I do speak Shona. I like to distinguish between functional Shona and
>> idiomatic Shona. Functional Shona is literal and idiomatic Shona is
>> literary (though spoken). I'm not a Shona linguist so I'm making up terms
>> for the distinction I perceive but there might already be a convention for
>> how Shona linguists describe the difference. Functional Shona is what you
>> will hear people using on the streets. It is a more literal or explicit way
>> of speaking and very similar to European meaning and sensemaking. In
>> functional Shona you might say "I am tired." "She arrived yesterday." It
>> some contexts it is considered rather crass to speak so directly of your
>> feelings, wants, needs. I contrast this to idiomatic Shona which is a
>> version of the language our elders spoke, it reflects pre-colonial Shona
>> culture and thinking because it "beats around the bush". You would rarely
>> directly ask a question, everything was a metaphor, a vague suggestion,
>> never explicitly spelt out. It is more diplomatic, more evasive, and can be
>> problematic when it comes to talking about social or political issues. Tuku
>> sings in this idiomatic style. Tuku's song *Bvuma* is the best example
>> of his style of which allows for double entendre (He is saying "Tolerance
>> has faded" but he could also mean "Just accept that you're old."
>>
>> Todii is about HIV/AIDS. Originally, "utachiwana" meant any virus or
>> germ, the underlying cause of an illness, but over time the only virus
>> people talk about is HIV. (In "Hutachiwana" the "h" is a modifier
>> emphasizes you mean "the virus"). The style is call-and-response which is
>> typical in Shona folk music, both traditional and contemporary. The call
>> and its response should be read as one sentence.
>>
>> As for the lyrics in question:
>> Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa newaugere naye...(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>> *Translation: How it must hurt to be raped by the one you live with...**If
>> you have a virus *
>> Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa neakabvisa pfuma** ...(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>> *Translation:** How it must hurt to be raped by the man** who married
>> you ...**If you have a virus *
>> **The literal meaning is "by the one who paid roora (lobola/bride price)"
>> Achiziva unahwo hutachiwana...(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>> *Translation: When he knows you have the virus...If you have a virus*
>> Ende uchiziva unahwo hutachiwana...(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>> *Translation: **And you know you have the virus...If you have a virus*
>> In the last two lines the response almost implies "hypothetically, let's
>> say you have a virus." And for me this is really where the song touches on
>> the sensibility of HIV/AIDS as it was experienced in Zimbabwe in the moment
>> of the song. Not knowing who has it, suspecting who has it etc. Tuku was
>> masterful with his play on words and structure.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 2:56 AM David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Zaza--
>>>
>>> Dude, I don't really speak Russian either, as Nikolai and Anna will tell
>>> you (we only speak English). In my translation work I spend a lot more time
>>> on Google Translate than I would like, and that's why I burden the list
>>> with the queries you mention from time to time.. But I bet you speak Shona,
>>> or at least understand a little.
>>>
>>> So maybe you can help. I'm using this tune from the late great Tuku
>>> (Oliver Mtukudzi) in a class I am giving on sex education in Korea. I've
>>> been told that it doesn't really mention AIDS/HIV explicitly, and I get
>>> that--in fact, that's one of the reasons why I think it's useful for making
>>> certain parallels between pandemics and also discussing HPV and other
>>> issues I want to talk about. But I don't quite understand THIS verse--maybe
>>> you can help me?
>>>
>>> Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa newaugere naye
>>> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>>> Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa neakabvisa pfuma
>>> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>>> Achiziva unahwo hutachiwana
>>> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>>> Ende uchiziva unahwo hutachiwana
>>> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>>>
>>> So "Kana uinahwo utachiwana" means something like "If you get infected".
>>> But what is the reference to being raped by your roommate?
>>>
>>> On the subject of this thread. Like voter fraud, racism is a very
>>> serious charge, and the right has successfully made hay out of its
>>> seriousness. But as with voter fraud they have made even more hay out of
>>> rendering the charge unproveable, by removing its class content and
>>> rendering it a purely subjective inclination. This is why, I think (I
>>> hope), Arturo and others tend to raise this sort of thing in private
>>> off-list material that is so much at variance with their public writings
>>> that it fairly attracts the charge of hypocrisy or at least political
>>> timidity. After all, if you really suspect your interlocutor of racism,
>>> it's incumbent on you to keep your mouth and not just your eyes open. But
>>> you've got to put money where your mouth is: you have to provide some
>>> evidence (e.g. the paper that Harshad circulated on the list not too long
>>> ago). There are important scientific issues we need to discuss which are
>>> actually not unrelated to the one that Arturo was reacting to: whether you
>>> can accurately judge the language proficiency of a person by their race or
>>> national origin (as I have done in the second paragraph above). Not
>>> unrelated. But not identical to either, else I would not have written that
>>> paragraph.
>>>
>>> Here's an example. A dear colleague of mine, who like the vast majority
>>> of people in this country is not white and wouldn't know deficit
>>> linguistics from a surplus, has just written a paper on why Korean children
>>> tend to drop articles (i.e. "a" and "the"). He begins with the Chomskyan
>>> premise that all nouns must, according to universal human grammars which
>>> are hardwired at birth, be realized by "determiner phrases". What that
>>> means is that a noun phrase like "the cat" is not really about a cat--it's
>>> about "the", and the "the" is modified by "cat" (What kind of "the-ness" do
>>> you mean? The cat kind!)
>>>
>>> But it's THIS, and not Vygotskyan, Hallidayan, or Bernsteinian
>>> developmentalism, that is deficit linguistics. I won't say it is racist,
>>> because unfortunately that term has lost its scientific content and become
>>> nothing but a thought crime. But I will say that people who speak languages
>>> without articles or languages that emphasize nouns over determiners (e.g.
>>> Korean, Chinese, Russian) are not born with a birth defect (or "null spell
>>> out", as the Chomskyans say).
>>>
>>> Does Shona have articles or not? Do you know?
>>>
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY0JssD8Hzc__;!!Mih3wA!Wxo2HIJ4xQoM16_xfPQoB6Vq3LueCzwd-CXPG4yvPGVtvfrIMwCnaSGWxoyP4GwtFrfRVg$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY0JssD8Hzc__;!!Mih3wA!QePX9kKiZVk8QmwFWMwYJblxjbu3_Pd2XeZXyOV1YZVr6VOrUaRfbuTZlUpgqPtWWiBSSw$>
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Sangmyung University
>>>
>>> New Book with Nikolai Veresov
>>> L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works, Vol. I: The Foundations of Pedology
>>> Translated with Prefatory Notes and Outlines by David Kellogg and
>>> Nikolai Veresov
>>> See free downloadable pdf at:
>>>
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007*2F978-981-15-0528-7__;JQ!!Mih3wA!Wxo2HIJ4xQoM16_xfPQoB6Vq3LueCzwd-CXPG4yvPGVtvfrIMwCnaSGWxoyP4GwVp-7aHA$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007*2F978-981-15-0528-7__;JQ!!Mih3wA!QePX9kKiZVk8QmwFWMwYJblxjbu3_Pd2XeZXyOV1YZVr6VOrUaRfbuTZlUpgqPuZA6tlEA$>
>>>
>>> Forthcoming in 2020:
>>> L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works, Vol. II: The Problem of Age.
>>> Translated with Prefatory Notes and Outlines by Nikolai Veresov and
>>> David Kellogg
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 6:02 PM Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> P.S. To my best understanding (very minimal, no doubt), the subject
>>>>> matter of Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory is the *development
>>>>> of human higher psychological functions*. (How that is "left,"
>>>>> "right," or otherwise is beyond me.)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Political propensities can be discerned across some (adult)
>>>> developmental stages.
>>>>
>>>> Huw
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>> --
>> To schedule up a 30 minute call using Calendly:
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://calendly.com/with-zaza__;!!Mih3wA!Wxo2HIJ4xQoM16_xfPQoB6Vq3LueCzwd-CXPG4yvPGVtvfrIMwCnaSGWxoyP4GwvwDyd2w$ 
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://calendly.com/with-zaza__;!!Mih3wA!RxBugkPeSU52iebyZbytaRN6b8sia_hpIDOL6pIpcLsKG3mACdIY-Pl17TPuYPBbMKqBLQ$>
>>
>
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