A New Committee to Give Leadership to the Njyem

Yesterday, Dec. 23, Mary and I returned from the Njyem city of Ngoyla, Cameroon, where we spent 10 days. We introduced the Njyem language committee to the new orthography for their language that we designed and encourage them to try. It is available to anyone with interest in such things at my public drop box, as is described here. On the 18th the language committee board was elected. The President is Aimé Mbɨ. He and the others of his board have a 2-year mandate. Their positions do not entitle them to any salaries. The name of the language committee is CODELAN: Comité de développement de la langue njyem. The authorities of Ngoyla were not physically present during the meeting, but they were invited and gave us a public place to meet in. The committee will meet again in January to approve an action plan. We are going to write a training manual as fast as possible to assist them in meeting their goals.

AIDS Awareness Needed for the Njyem

In February I worked with Collette Nkom on an AIDS brochure that is now available for use in helping the Njyem community resist this terrible danger. You can print the document from Adobe Acrobat on any printer.

The Gospel of Mark in Njyem

In February 2010 we sent a preliminary version of Mark to the Njyem villages. We are now done with a light revision of the whole Gospel, incorporating some new proposals for the writing system. We will be going out to Ngoyla on Dec. 10. You can see the document here, in Open Office Writer format, which works well in Word, as well. We are also taking a summary of the writing system to test out: pg1, pg2 and pg3. If we can convince ourselves that people are learning to write and to read with a minimum of effort, we will do the pedagogical manual that corresponds to this orthographic standard.

Now Available to You!: The Njyem orthography

The Njyem orthography ("writing system") is described in French on 12 half sheets ("A5"). Included in it are some sample texts. This is our attempt to make this available to the Njyem community and to its French-speaking friends. The front and back sides of page1, page2, and page3 make up the entire Open Office document. We returned from Ngoyla Dec. 23 and know now that some speakers of Njyem can become literate and writers using the new system. If anyone in Brazzaville, Souanke or Ouesso can make use of it, please send me news of your experience and the reactions people have to it.

Collaborative Research

We in SIL are all about cooperation, and nothing means more to me than cooperating on the frontiers of science. In that vein, I am posting the zipped-up FLEx project on Swo ("[sox]" in the Ethnologue) that I have been working on for about 2 months. This project will be going dormant if others don't pitch in and make it their shared concern. FLEx is the package of programs that is properly referred to as "Fieldworks Language Explorer". It is free, which by no means indicates that we set a low store of value on it. "Why are you letting this promising project go dormant", you ask. The answer is that we must move back to the Njyem project, which has the potential of taking off.

Room for us in Ngoyla

Researchers have gone to Ngoyla to study the spread of AIDS and its precursors that are in the animal kingdom still, waiting to cross over to people. They have made a building available to us when they are not using it. This will be a big help to us in getting established there.

Collaboration between SIL and the Church

This week many denominations from Cameroon sent their representatives to the training center of SIL to discuss how they can cooperate in completing the Bible translation task here in Cameroon. Pastor Ernest Njyelo of the Nzime translation program attended the 3-day conference. He is a Presbyterian pastor working in the Nzime area.

Maps with better names

On Nov 24 I was asked to represent SIL at a map-making conference here in Yaounde and to talk to people brought in from many countries about the characteristics of the languages in the southern part of Cameroon. Since my background is in the eastern part of Cameroon, I asked a Cameroonian linguist to present the material. We worked on it together and he was very capable, giving the map-makers the help they needed. His name is BINDOM Aime. We are grateful for the Lord's provision of such help. In my brief speech, I urged them to make an effort to use the right names for places. I pointed out that it can sometimes be difficult. Sometimes people refer to a place by means of the name of the clan living in that place.

Encouragements to Continue

I called a speaker of Njyem today and he expressed his surprise that I had his number. Then he encouraged me to ramp up our efforts to bring God's Word to the Njyem, saying that they have a new openness to the "call from heaven" to become disciples of Jesus. We are looking and praying for this sort of reaction. Now we are waiting for the roads to dry out after a crazy rainy season. We are also interested in finding out from Komatu who might be in Yaounde with his zeal.

Where the 4 Language projects are at present

Where are the 4 language projects at present?

• The Nzime: The NT was done in 1998 and is now out of print. On Nov. 20 two Nzimes completed the read-through of Genesis, which is now in second draft. These were Pastor Ernest Njyelo and Student Pastor Olock Aubin. The next step is to have 25 copies for Rev. Njyelo to present to a four-day reviewer's meeting that should happen in Lomie in January. Then we can typeset it and printing it. They also want the reviewers to work on the catechism: "I Belong to God". Olock Aubin wants to finish drafting Exodus and revise it. We are applying to The United Bible Society for a license of Paratext.


• The Badwe'e: Again, the NT was done in 2003. The text of Genesis has been checked and approved for publication. The church is re-reading it prior to publication. Diphath Messia is leading that process to a conclusion.


• The Njyem: Mark is in use, we hope. The rest of the NT needs to be adapted into Njyem from Badwe'e. The need is for speakers in Yaounde who can work on the language with us. The problem with their doing this in Ngoyla is that there is no electricity. We are looking for the Lord's guidance.


• The Swo: The orthography statement I am working on is close to being finished. I am working with Pastor Ossimba on a transition primer, to be used by Swo people who read and write French and who want to begin doing that in their language. On the 15th of Nov., the Pastor had 5 other Swo pastors meet and begin cooperating on the interchurch translation committee. Meanwhile, he is drafting the Psalms rather than continuing with Genesis. (Three chapters were done.)

The Value of Passwords

The XP computer that was stolen in Lomie was returned by the thieves and the only reason we can see for it is that it was protected by a password. We have now cleaned it up (it was dusty!) and put in a new 160 Gb hard drive, adding antivirus software, open office and a typing tutor. Now we have a work-station in our office here in Yaounde for the people who are in need of it. I am thinking that the Lord is about to send us someone. Who that may be is unknown. We could use a volunteer from the Njyem, the Nzime, the Badwe'e or the Swo. We are eager to assist these people-groups in getting the enhanced capacity needed for undertaking their own publication tasks.

Swo Translation Committee

Today Rev. Ossimba met with other leaders of the Swo Christian church and set up their committee that will make literature and recordings in Swo a possibility. They will have their own structure for setting goals and accomplishing their purposes for language development.

The First Edition Fulfilled Its Role

The Nzime people were well served by the first edition of the New Testament, but will be happier with the second, which will have a simplified orthography and Genesis, together with introductions and glossary entries.

Simplified Orthographies

Beginning in the 1970's, we started writing tone marks over vowels so that all tones would be represented in the writing system. More recently, we have seen that this was counter-productive. It was sort of like giving a person a drink from a fire hose. They needed some marks to show them the tones of certain words, but they didn't need accents for every vowel, and when they say them in such profusion, they learned to disregard them. The new orthography is not tone-free but tone-lite. (In French, we call it "allege" in accents.) The original orthography would be useful for people who are not mother-tongue speakers of the language, but there never were many of those. Their needs will be served well by the existing publications. In the future, our publications will be focused on the needs of the mother-tongue speakers.

The Badwe'e New Testament Nearly Sold Out

We only have 8 copies of the Badwe'e New Testament in our office. There is a comparable number in the Somalomo office of the Badwe'e inter-church translation committee. More were purchased by the Roman Catholics of Essiengbot and some are still held in Djaposten. Perhaps no more than 200 remain of the original 1000 that were published in 2003. The publisher was Wycliffe Bible Translators. We are very hopeful that they can have a new publication in a simplified orthography together with Genesis.

Nzime New Testament out of print

Our coworkers in the Nzime project now tell us that the last copy of the New Testament has found its owner and that more are needed. Undoubtedly this has come as a result of the growth of the Hosannah! listening groups. Now we are waiting for the pastors to send the word that it is time to publish Genesis in Nzime along with the New Testament in a revised, simplified orthography. This New Testament was published by The Bible League in 1998. There were 1000 copies done. We are grateful for their vision in standing with us in the effort to bring God's Word to the Nzime people.

Pastor Ossimba's name

The right way to write Pastor Ossimba's name would be sɨmba without the OS at the beginning. This is the way they say "miracle" in Swo, his language. It is a word that also refers to any "amazing exploit". It is hard to know for sure what point those who named him were making. I know that he is too humble to have claimed to do amazing exploits or miracles. Undoubtedly he would say that God has graciously shown how faithful He is in the way that He has used the Pastor for His Kingdom purposes.

Genesis 2:4 to 3:24 in Second Draft

Pastor Ossimba drafted Genesis 2:4 to the end of chapter 3. This morning (Nov. 8) Marie-Thérèse Nanga and I did a revision of the spelling. The pastor will be looking at our work when he comes back from church-meetings in the Swo area.

A Language Map showing Southeastern Cameroon

The arc of our ministry in Cameroon and Congo begins at the south in Souanke, where we have never set foot. That is where Njyem is spoken, however. Our ministry among the Njyem started in 1987. The language is spoken to the north among the Cameroonian Njyem up to the Dja River. Then you are among the Nzime, where we began in 1976. Their neighbors to the north are the Badwe'e, where we began working in 1981. The Swo people are at the left-most end of the arc. We began work among them in 1986.
The total distance of the arc is 200 miles from the beginning of the Swo people-group to the end of the Njyem. That is 200 miles as the hornbill flies; it would be longer if the trip involved roads.

A Quantitative View of Our 38 Years in WBT

I joined Wycliffe December 1972. For me, it was where I found my wife, Mary, and entered into the lives of many people.

Some were in the USA, people who saw some of God's handiwork in me. They wanted to become partners in this adventure.

Others were in Cameroon. Some of these were already looking for God to work in their lives at a deeper level, through their heart languages. Others had their eyes opened gradually as they were persuaded to undertake a new way of being God's people.

We are still on the journey and look for God's guidance, providence and blessing as we help the people-groups of Cameroon know him better.

New Swo Project Workers

Since Monday, I have been working with Marie-Therese Nanga-Ele, a speaker of Swo residing in Yaounde. She comes in the mornings to work with me on refining my beginner's knowledge of Swo and of its grammar. She has a more and more confident attitude about the meaning of little particles that occur naturally in texts. This week we worked on a complete revision of Genesis 1-2:3 which Pastor Ossimba Simon Pierre brought me last night. He wants to take it back to the village in the form of a little tract on Monday, Nov 8. He comleted the translation of Genesis 2:4-3 and I have a copy to keyboard. My surprise was that the Pastor has also made the mental adjustment this week to being a Bible translator. Around Tuesday the writing system "clicked" in his mind and he sensed that he could write the language. He also reported that he ran the calcultations concerning the time remaining before he finishes the Swo Bible(!). So much for those who said a Swo Bible translation was an unlikely need. Things have a way of taking on a life of their own.

Sunday School Materials in Swo

Since we have a chapter of Genesis in "pretty good" condition, we can produce a "shell book" on the six days of creation. The part we are illustrating in the two pictures accompanying this post are for Day Two.

Phonological analysis in Swo

As you can see in the accompanying table, there is complementary distribution between one sound and another in Swo.

The conditioning environment is a following vowel that is "close", as is the case of /i/, in the front of the oral cavity, /ɨ/, in the center of the oral cavity, and /u/, in the back of the oral cavity.

A sound followed by such a close vowel must be strident or fricative, while the sound before the open or semi-open vowels is a simple stop.

The allophones of /p/ are [f] and [p].

The allophones of /b/ are [v] and [b].

The allophones of /t/ are [t] and [ts].

The allophones of /d/ are [d] and [dz].

The allophones of /k/ are [kf] and [k].

The allophones of /g/ are [gv] and [g].

Swo Transition Primer Underway

The Reverend Ossimba says he wants to do the work of writing the first pedagogical book in Swo, their "transition primer".

It will be used by Swo who are literate in French.

The first page done is shown here.

Pastors Meeting

Pastor OSSIMBA Simon Pierre wants to meet with the other Swo Pastors next month to see what they are proposing to do concerning the Swo language and Bible translation project. It is good that he sees that their contributions are needed.

Swo Grammar

Just as unwritten languages have organized systems of sound and meaning (or "phonologies"), they also have complete and complex grammars, in which words exemplify a part of speech and these words are ordered in a complex way.

The sentence shown here made my Swo colleague smile. He said that it is as though he was stammering.

The Swo Need to Understand the Gospel Songs

Pastor Ossimba also said that adults in the church sing Bulu songs that they have no understanding of. They are singing everything with as little comprehension as English speakers when they sing "Kumbaya." How many think it must mean "come by us"? Who can parse it and explain its meanings and applications to a life lived on the edge? The Swo who sing Bulu are in the exact same position as we are singing Kumbaya. They are incapable of translating their Bulu hymns or of feeding their thirsty souls on the meaning held within. But we know that the German nation was as much transformed by the hymns Luther wrote as by anything else he did. The will of God is that they should be worshiping God in their hearts and with their minds. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your hearts to God." Col. 3:16 (ESV)

The Swo Need the Gospel

Pastor Ossimba explains why the Gospel is needed among the Swo in their language. The first reason is that they don't understand Bulu well enough and the other is that they are so poorly taught through that language that they get the wrong meaning as often as the right one. During a Christmas service, Swo children were asked to recite verses from the Bible, and one chose the passage about the baby Jesus being laid in the manger "where animals ate their food". The child, speaking in Bulu, something quite different, that he was laid in the manger "where the cattle killed and ate people." The Pastor surmised that the children probably thought that surviving the evil cattle was Christ's first miracle.

The Stolen-and-Returned Computer in for Maintenance

It is true! The Toshiba XP laptop that had been stolen and then returned is back! Unfortunately, it needs some antivirus protection and it needs to be cleaned of viruses. The hard drive sounds a bit "off", too, so maybe it needs replacing? Francois Medjo asked Brigitte, the head of the Nzime Language Academy, to drop it off. We are very grateful for God's protection of the laptop and the way the computer services department can help us. The head of the department is David Anderson. He is a valued participant in the Bible translation movement. We use Eset antivirus, which now costs as little as $8.25 per PC per year. When we send the new virus definitions out to our coworkers, they protect their computers up the the same level as ours in the capital. The laptop needed a new hard drive and a thorough cleaning out of the accumulations of dust. It is now getting ready for serious work again.

Institutions for the Swo Bible Translation Movement

The Swo people have institutions such as political parties, chiefs, savings societies and such, but they will soon require two more. The reason for this is that they are engaging in two new activities: (A) translating and engaging the Word of God and (B) learning to read and write in Swo. The first activity involves all those who call themselves Christian. They need not all be speakers of Swo, since everyone can pray. The work of translating God's Word and being fed and renewed by it is the work of the Church and it must therefore be the case that an inter-church committee takes shape to execute its work under the leading of the Holy Spirit. Ecumenism is rarely seen in the absence of Bible translation. (I have read this but lost the reference.) The creation of the Swo interchurch Bible translation and Scripture-Use committee is being attended to by a Presbyterian pastor, the Reverend Simon Pierre Ossimba. Its organizational meeting should take place in the first week of November. The second activity involves all those who speak Swo and want to be able to engage with others across the printed page. Imagine not being able to hear from those of another time or place! A language committee has been in the process of being created for 3 years, but without an alphabet or orthography statement, they have been unable to proceed. Now they have at least some of these resources and will begin assuming on their roles.

"Funny" letters

These letters are new for the Swo who read French.

Becoming Literate in Swo

Swo is a well-developed language, by which I mean that its speakers find no problem in dealing with all the issues of life without recourse to other languages. It has a "mature" morphological system, both for nouns and verbs, as well as a highly complex and structured sound-system. That does not mean the speakers can write it, however. I know one speaker who has tried to write personal names in the language and gotten all tangled up in writing the phonetic form of the language rather than its phonemic form. He has not proceeded very far. Others have tried to use the writing system of Bulu. That, too, has been frustrating. In order to help show the Swo people the path forward, we have made a 1-page "alphabet chart" that shows the letters in alphabetical order on one sheet of paper. For each letter, there is a word that exemplifies the use of the letter, and an illustration of the word. Its enduring virtue will be serving as publicity for the innovation, written Swo. It also helps desensitize people to the "funny" characters. This teaches them the number and identity of the characters in their language, and their order in the Swo alphabet, but it is not otherwise pedagogically useful. For them to become literate, however, we will have to write primers for the various audiences: a primer series for complete illiterates and a slim and simpler volume those who are literate in French or in Bulu but who want to read and write Swo. This is a transition primer. We have organized its contents and will be now starting on the first lessons.

Table of Contents for the Upcoming Swo Transition Primer

This is the table of contents for the transition primer that we are planning to write. It is a much smaller one than was needed for the Nzime and for the Badwe'e, owing to the smaller inventory of phonemes and graphemes. Since we are using a phonemic orthography, we spare ourselves the need of teaching the use of allophones.

For example, we teach "d" in radical initial position and use it in radical-medial position, where it has the sound of "r". Were we to use the lettre "r" in that position, we would have been obliged to teach its use in a separate lesson from the lesson on "d".

The Swo Alphabet Chart

The title of this chart is "Letters and Words of the Swo Language".

It is awaiting publication. I think this means a Swo donor has to step forward.

Swo Definite Article Following Relative Clauses

The Swo have a very understated way of identifying a nominal as being the one that has become known through talking about it: They use the word "there", (/tê/ [tɪ14]).

Example: mòdò tê, ([mʊ4rʊ4 tɪ14]) "the person there (known, definite, being talked about".

This way of identifying is the noun as definite does not indicate anything about its noun class.

If a noun is modified by a relative clause, however, the definite article that follows the relative clause does get inflected for the noun class of the noun, however. In the accompanying table, you can see the 8 noun classes followed by the "relative article", an example and a translation. For those wanting to know where the relative pronoun ("who", "that") is, it is a tone change in the first word of the relative clause. An initial low tone in that clause becomes high, showing that it is the beginning of the relative clause. A translation in French follows.

Note that there is an abbreviated form of the relative article for nouns in classes 1,2,3 and 7.

Swo Verbal Morphology

On Day Four, 10/19, Loungo Nang and I began working on the verbal morphology of Swo. One of the reasons is that if I am going to assist them in the creation of literacy materials, I simply must know the entire gamut of expression in Swo, especially how verbs are put together with tense markers, negation markers, and adverbs. We got a really good start on it!

Orthography Statement in Swo

Today (10/19) before lunch we finished a version of the Orthography Statement for Swo, written in French. It is available to any who would like to read it. We made some important additions and corrections on 10/21 as well. Basically, it lays out the phonemes, allophones and graphemes of the language. If that didn't mean anything to you, suffice it to say that it tells linguists and nonlinguists a lot about the language: its letters, consonants, vowels and tones.

The Holy Scriptures in Swo

At long last, the Word of God is being recorded in Swo. Lounga-Nang is excited by the experience of seeing Genesis 1:1-2:3 in his language. He will be taking around Yaounde with him tomorrow to show it to other speakers of Swo. Here is the first page of the sacred text. If you need more, ask.

News about the Badwe'e Translator

Maurice "Janvier" Mvolo Ekoalea has returned to university for the 2nd year of 3. He passed his classes and enjoyed pastoral activities this "summer". Worthy of your prayers and support.

Building a dictionary and parser in Nzime

A long-term goal is building a dictionary in Nzime. This is indirectly useful for the creation of a spelling-checker that can be used with Open Office. As I work through the dictionary, questions arise about the translation of Genesis in Nzime. I send these questions to Francois Medjo who is building a Nzime committee to work on the fine-tuning of Genesis, including the language academy.

Analysis of the Swo Phonology

The work on the Swo language resumed on October 14 at our home in Yaounde. Mr Lounga-Nang, a teacher by training, has spent a hard first day with me, Keith, addressing the issues of how his language should be represented orthographically. He said that he thinks Swo must be harder than any other language in Cameroon, but I think it's probably not that bad. I find it a good work-out to be involved in this activity again after doing this in Nzime, Badwe'e and Njyem. At one point, the dining room table was filled with slips of paper representing all the possible combinations of an initial consonant and a following vowel. (We have 16 consonants and 9 vowels.) At this time we are trying to connect a word with each of these CV, CwV and CyV combinations. We are practicing writing using the phonology-based orthographic system. Our experience in writing has been Genesis 1-2:3. Now the 25 letters have been identified, based on the study of the sound-system. We have done the alphabet chart and are hoping to do some more adaptation of Scripture into Swo. That is motivational for us and potentially for other speakers of Swo, too. Now the work on the dictionary is pushing forward. This will give us access to the lexical riches we need for the translation and help us keep the spelling errors to a minimum.

Prayer Concerns For the Nzime FCBH Project

Faith Comes By Hearing, Annual Report

Christians are generally good in listening to the NT but the filling out of the reports still remains mediocre. People are getting used to filling them out little by little. The leaders of the Christian communities are finding more and more that the program contributes to the consolidation of the faith of the Christians and strengthening their dialog with

the Word of God. The recording helps some Christians and pastors to learn to read the Nzime NT. The catechists and some pastors as well as writers of hymns in Nzime are finding that the listening program helps them better to understand the Bible. It also helps them in the preparation of sermons and of hymns in the language.

A Christian, Ng*** M***, got baptized on account of the listening program in the Presbyterian community of Ampel. In the past, he prohibited his wife and children to go to church, but now he has become very committed to this and is active in the church. With the new policy of working together with church leaders, they are taking more and more the responsibility for promoting the program to their parishoners. Some of them, especially in the area of Messok and Lomie, even help the promoters and their supervisor in their travels and living costs while on the road. More and more Christians are coming to church services on Sunday. The life of the church is taking on a new vitality in the Lomie area. Priests and pastors are taking note of the results of the programs in the lives of Christians.

Open Office Is the Future of Minority Language Groups

Open Office is a free suite of programs that is available to the poor of the world who might not otherwise be able to afford word-processing. One of the attractive features of Open Office, is its ability to make use of spell-checkers from any language. I am building a spell-checking dictionary now for Nzime, which should help in the creation of cleaner documents in the future.

Genesis going to the reviewers

Today I printed out 2 copies of Genesis in Nzime and 2 in Badwe'e. We are close to printing, but we are hoping to give reviewers plenty of opportunity to interact with the text before it goes to press. So this is their big opportunity.

Reading through Genesis in Nzime

Praise the Lord! The two leaders of the Nzime church we hoped to work with are now in Yaounde and we have finished 3 Days of reading and processing GENESIS! We have read and revised chapters 1-43, making lots of decisions about to say about some matters that are new to us, which do not occur in the New Testament (©The Bible League, 1998). I have finished the adaptation of the (checked) text of Genesis from Badwe'e to Nzime. The complete document will now be sent to the translation review committee when ready for them to read and check. These two church-leaders just said that what they need most next are the Psalms, and they want them ALL!

The Budget for the St. Mark's Building Project

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Thanks for your concern.
The parish of Ngoyla lacks a safe and welcoming environment for the resident priest and for his parishioners when they need to come together.
They have an critically-important building project which includes a meeting-place for the church and a the parsonage.
This was proposed by the Priest of the Parish, Father Tarcisius Mpa, who can be contacted at peretarcisiusmpa@yahoo.fr. The Bishop in Doume-Abong Mbang, Jan Ozga, has approved it and authorizes this funding project. For more on this worthy project, see my post here.
If you are ready to help, a donation can be sent to the Reverend MPA through the Bishop.

Do you want to help? Does your church look like this?

Here's a building project to help the Parish of Ngoyla!
The Roman Catholic priest of Ngoyla, Reverend Mpa Tarcicius, has received the full support of his bishop in Abong Mbang and Doume, and together they are asking all who are interested to consider helping him accomplish the task of building the chapel and the parsonage. These are very important if he is to reach out to the Njyem people.

















The chapel, shown above, is in seriously deteriorated condition.

















The parsonage, shown above, is done in the local manner. These houses are not of a standard that is durable or that provides real protection against insects, rodents and bats.

Why cannot the Njyem manage their own parish in Ngoyla with their own funds? Part of the answer to this question lies in the fact that they are virtually surrounded by a forest and wildlife preserve. Economic activity is severely reduced in such a place. Normally, that would include logging and trapping. A palliative proposed by some of the conservationists is "eco-tourism", but it turns out that there are very few westerners spending their vacations in the tropical rainforest of Ngoyla. It means in part that the people are really forced into a much lower standard of living.
Anyone wanting to help can contact me for details as to progress in fund-raising. My email is beavonkeith@yahoo.com. You may also pass on this information to others for their prayerful attention.

New Leadership for the Njyem Language Committee

Last month Francois Medjo went by motorcycle 120 miles from Lomie to Ngoyla and back, one of the main places where the Njyem people, who speak a neighboring language, are located. Last year, we helped them to produce The Gospel of Mark and an order of worship for the Roman Catho­lic Church. After that, we noticed that there seemed to be little movement for­ward. They seemed at risk of losing in­ter­est in this project. Rufine Adjowa, a proud speaker of Njyem living outside of the area, re­quested that Francois pay the com­mu­nity a visit and see what could be done to restart the project. During his visit, he exhorted them about the need for ongoing programs of translation and literacy. They chose some new leaders for this project, in­clud­ing the schoolteacher, Mbi Aimé, and proposed a list of activities for the next three months. These include as­sembl­ing a collection of Njyem pro­verbs and revising a draft hymnbook. A meeting will be held in December to look at what has been accomp­lished. The Roman Catholic priest of Ngoyla, Rev. Mpa Tarcisius, has a big role in the Njyem language committee even though he does not speak their lan­guage yet. He wants to participate in all these activities in the interest of building a viable Bible translation committee. Although these people are mini­mally impacted by the Christian Gospel, several groups of the Njyem who also understand Nzime somewhat have been listening to recordings of the Nzime New Testament. Please pray for a powerful move­ment of God among the Njyem.

Parsing Genesis

In trying to get a high quality publishable text for Genesis in Badwe'e, Mary and I have been using a nifty program called Fieldworks Language Explorer. Produced by SIL programmers, it is now going into its seventh version. What we are doing with this program is called "parsing", which means analyzing every word in Genesis, to see that its spelling and meaning conform to a dictionary that we have been building up. This program is also helping us to prepare a document that can be adapted into other languages. At the same time, we are making a French back-translation that gives a reader of French a global view of the text and allows us to spot any parts of the message that might be missing. Here in Cameroon we receive help from our computer department in making good use of this program. Jenni Beadle and Matthew Lee are available to help us with this resource and teach us aspects of the program that are difficult. Please pray for these programmers and software trainers who "speak fluent Geek", as Matthew describes it, so that we can translate the Scriptures better into Badwe'e and other languages.

What Happens Next? The Adaptation of Genesis

We have helped the Badwe'e translators complete and test a translation of Genesis, and on Sept 20 it was finally checked and approved for publication. The exegetical consultant for this task was Patricia Wilkendorf, who says she never has enjoyed a checking assignment so much. The text will next be adapted into Nzime, where the Christian community is eagerly awaiting it. The interchurch committee has picked two community leaders for this task: Rev. Ernest Njyelo, a Presbyterian pastor, and Jean-Marie Koonzo', a lay leader in the Roman Catholic Church. Keith will support the adaptation process. Pray for us that this process of adaptation which will produce a first draft will go smoothly. The dates for this work are Sept. 28 to Oct. 2. It will be at the SIL center in Yaounde. We are using Adapt It, a program developed and supported by SIL. It is in use world-wide, and it has proven its worth many places, assisting bilinguals to produce first-drafts of a high quality from documents in related languages. Badwe'e is related to Nzime, and this makes Nzime a good candidate for receiving an adapted form of Genesis. When Genesis is adapted into Nzime, the texts in Nzime and Badwe'e will then be published at our expense and distributed among these two people-groups at a small fraction of the true cost. (They are economically very disadvantaged.)

The Gospel of Mark Being Broadcast

Almost three years ago we had a dramatic reading of Mark recorded in Badwe'e. At first these were distributed with Megavoice units to a limited audience. Now, however, these same recordings are being broadcast on a rural radio station in the Badwe'e area. They are widely listened to for 15 minutes every Sunday.

Translating the Word of God: Are you "STILL HIGH"?

When a translation is done, you study the meaning of the source lan­guage—Greek or Hebrew—and then you look for the lexical resources of the target language that convey the same meaning. It's never easy or boring. Often you come up with a good solution only to find a better one later. That is just what happened to us, by God's grace. A Hebrew expression, אֵינֶֽנּוּ, is trans­lated by “is no more”. It occurs three times in Genesis 42:13-36, referring to Joseph. It is a “softer” or euphemistic way of dealing with the subject of death. Elanga Ferdinand, president of the language committee, helped me understand a Badwe'e expression for this: nye aka be kʉ: “he is not high any­more.”Whatever meaning comes to mind when you hear this, for those seeing life through Badwe'e eyes, the words mean that the person in question is no longer above ground. He has been buried and is dead. That is the meaning of this euphemistic expression for them. That is what they understand when they hear that “Joseph is not high anymore.”

"Lamentably, regrettably or unfortunately"

If you have to convey to people the sorrow and disappointment underlying a situation, you must use the lexical resources that are language-appropriate.
In Hebrew, it would seem that the pathos ("sadness") of a situation was represented by repetition of the regrettable proposition that is being narrated. This is found at two places in the text of Genesis.
Gen. 11:30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. (English Standard Version)
Gen. 40:23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. (English Standard Version)
Parallelism is the distinguishing feature of Hebrew poetry, but is also found in narrative discourse, as shown above.
Given our sense that this structure is intended to convey to the Hebrew reader the pathos of the two situations, we look for the comparable expressions in Badwe'e and in Nzime. It turns out that the Nzime have a word, Nzamedwɛha, that lexicalizes the expression "regrettably; unfortunately" whereas the Badwe'e, a closely-related language, have a phrase (A vwa' e) that has the same effect. It can be translated "how lamentable with (or 'for')". They come across very differently when seen side-by-side!

Getting the Meaning Across

In Badwe'e GENESIS, there is an interesting place where an accent rightly-placed will make the difference between Threshing Floor and Threshing Bed. The words for "area designated for use in..." and "bed" are duo (pitches: Low, Low) "bed" class 7 in sg. and class 8 in pl. and duo (pitches: Low, Low-falling) "area designated for use in" class 7 in sg. and class 8 in pl. To make the point that Joseph stopped at Atad's Threshing Floor rather than Atad's Threshing Bed, we add a "grave(Fr.)" accent on the "o" of duò. Now we have to record it and publish it for the Badwe'e people to hear and read. Pray for the funds lacking as we move toward these goals.

GENESIS in Badwe'e: Checked and Ready for Publication

Patricia Wilkendorf has checked the Badwe'e translation of GENESIS. The work is now ready for the first of an unknown number of adaptations into related, Bantu languages. Everyone wants to preach and hear the Word of God about the great beginnings of the cosmos and of God's redeemed community.

The Swo Consonantal System

The Swo consonantal system has taken shape in my thinking and we are now ready to launch the experimental orthography. Pastor Simon Pierre Ossimba is a great support for this work and is very appreciative. Mr. Lounga Nang began working with me Oct.14 on a write-up of the phonology. We are hoping to finish the data collection on Oct.22. I have many of the conclusions already. After some more data-collection, I'll be ready for the formal write-up. After the write-up, we will begin preparing pedagogical materials and texts of various genres in the language. There are three degrees of consonants: Labial: /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/ Labiodental: /f/, /v/ Alveolar: /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /l/, /n/, /y/ Velar: /k/, /g/, /ŋ/. Allophones of these phonemes include: /K/-> [ʔ] / -CV_(V) /ŋ/-> [ɲ] / -_V /D/-> [r] / -CV_(V) /t/-> [ts] / -_V[high]

What the Lord is Doing in Lomie

Fifty Proclaimers with the Nzime New Testament have gone out to Lomie. Francois Medjo will deliver them and create new listening groups in response to the guidance of the Christian leaders in the area. Roman Catholic priests and Protestant pastors alike are looking at this tool as a major means of breaking through to the soul of the Nzime people with the Good News ("Gospel" in old English) of Jesus Christ. Pray for many miles of safe driving for Francois on his motorcycle.

Break-in in the Lomie Office

On August 25 a group of young men were seen around 3 AM near the office of Francois Medjo in Lomie. Shortly thereafter, a door and a window were broken to permit access. Thieves smashed three chairs and tore up papers in a senseless way. They stole 2 reams of paper, 3 laptops, 2 cell phones and a digital camera. They also took 20 New Testa­ments in Nzime and 10 literacy books. They left behind a laser printer. Later they brought back a laptop that was protected by a password.
We are not sure why they wanted the New Testaments, but it is one of the interesting aspects of the break-in. God watches over His Word and sends it to do His will.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10-11
Praise the Lord that one of these thieves has been apprehended. Pray for Francois Medjo as he seeks to retrieve the stolen items and restore peace, order and security to the office.
************************U P D A T E************************
Francois Medjo received word that the leader of the gang was captured. He went to the departmental capital (Abong Mbang) and to the regional capital (Bertoua) to deal with the authorities and the gendarmes. They are now returning to Lomie with the gang-leader in restraints. The gendarmes hope to "roll up" the entire gang and restore order in Lomie.

Imported words for the Bible

There is a constant need to modernize living languages, and Badwe'e is a good case in point. The speakers of Badwe'e feel at ease in adding borrowed words if they contribute to the communication task.
One example that was new to me concerns the word "Mpa'ra". It had two meanings originally: "association" and "pair". (Note: This word is a derivation from the verb "ba'ra", which means "join; add to") The second meaning has now lost acceptance and is being expressed by a borrowed word, "pia", which comes from "pair [English]" or "paire[French]".
The Nzime are not so quick to incorporate words from European languages. Instead, they sometimes borrow from other Bantu languages.
Their word for "pair" is "mpa' ", which is distinct from all other words. Their word for "association" is either "mpa'ra" or "kwan", which is borrowed from a neighboring African language, Ewondo.

The Nzime Language Academy

Anzyom Brigitte (shown second from the right) is the president of the "Nzime Academy" that is working on keeping their language from becoming relegated to a future as limited as its past, one in which there is an inability to write or read and so to impact their environment and future generations. In the past, minute-taking and reporting on meetings would only be in French ("pulasi"). Now, however, their confidence as writers and pride in their language has lead them to write their minutes in Nzime.

The following is a part of the minutes that they took in Nzime:

"Anziom Brigitte a nʉa lwib lɨ egʉa paʼla bʉr sa bɨh bé sa mya pihe yɨ. Syɛɛla yaa, yé a si mvol buobuo bʉr lɨ egʉa mpʉ gwɨhla Academie di etye, ndu e sa yé di epʉgʉ gwɨm esa yɨ. Tɨ', yé si nyin ó, Academie, yé ó gwɨhla di egwɨm mepwaʼ me kul bʉr o nzime. Yé lɨ esaa menzɨ me di ó, bʉr o nzime bé pɔʼa lɨ egʉʼla ndu e l'ekamle e lwib nzime. Academie, yé lɨ esaa menzɨ di ó, lwib nzime, yé bwaʼaa ndu e l'etiʼe mpʉ lwib pulasi ndu e lwib ngɨlis. Ebe no ó, bʉr o bʉm yaa di esaa mekan medwan di edumo le bisa bidwan di epyal tʉŋlʉ bitwiʼ ndu e metum me nzime lɨ esu e mepwaʼ me bʉr o nzime yɨ."

One of their concerns is to develop the Nzime language as a more adequate language for expressing new ideas of importance to the life and changing customs of the Nzime people. As they desire greater progress and development, they look to ways of making their language a resource. In the above text, they use the word " mepwa' " to express "progress/development". This is a nominalization of the verb " bwa' "meaning "to be big."

The Swo People on the path to a new future

There is a new blog on the internet entitled "Nouvelles du peuple Swo". The point of this website is to enable speakers of Swo to exchange information and documents in and about their language and culture.
The Swo people have two dialects, and in one dialect the language is pronounced "So".
At the present moment, it is the Reverend Simon Pierre Ossimba who serves the Swo people in the role of website manager.
He says that it is important that the Swo people become confident users of their language in all manners, including writing and reading.
In addition to being a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (EPC), Rev. Ossimba works in the Ministry of Basic Education.

Nzime Catechism Going Forward

A Presbyterian pastor, Rev. Ernest N., Said that he finds the catechism a valuable resource for his preaching. He has been using its questions and answers to help his congregation in Messok master the important concepts of the Christian faith. These are supporting the biblical texts that are the basis of true doctrine.
He wants a printing of 200 catechisms to be done by early next month. We are trusting God to make this possible. The plan he has is that two of them would be placed in every chapel throughout the district ("consistoire" in French). We are praying for this to take place in an God-honoring manner.
I have taken the 64-page booklet to a printshop here in Yaounde and they hope to have it ready in 1 to 2 weeks. I asked them to try for 1 week, so we could get it out to the Presbyterians meeting in Zoadiba for their annual leadership training session, Aug. 18-22.
Another important rendez-vous is Sept. 13-26, when lay preachers will be meeting in Zoulabot 1, a town on the eastern border of the Nzime region, on the way to Yokadouma. The lay preachers should find this tool very helpful as they meet with those seeking to know the truth in God's Word.

New insights into the Swo phonology

A consonant is sometimes followed by a fricative in Swo. For example, some words are "b" followed by a vowel and others are "bv" in that same position.
What is growing clear is that the affricates (bv, pf, kf, dv, etc.) are all followed by a "high" vowel, /u/. I am going to be looking to see if the affricates are also found before the equally high vowels /i/ and /ɨ/. The barred "i" is high, central, unrounded.
So far, this looks very similar to what is happening in Badwe'e and in Nzime. In those languages, there is "oral cavity friction" accompanying a consonant when the following vowel is [+high].
These are subphonemic alterations in the pronunciation of a consonant.
If the Swo language truly has predictable affricatization before high vowels, the presence of the affricate would not be need to be marked.
The data would suggest this to be true. On Aug. 6, Pastor Ossimba and I observed that the affricate "ts" in [tsɨrɨ], "meat, animal", is indeed coming before a high vowel, /ɨ/, [high, central, unrounded]. It obeys the rule, therefore, that a stop becomes affricated before a high vowel, such as /i/, /ɨ/ or /u/.

So Phonology Underway

The So people are showing evidence of considerable interest in their language and are reporting that more and more people are asking how they can be involved in determining their own future. They want a future in which they can write to each other and even to future generations.

They can do this only if they have a written language.

Pastor Simon Pierre OSSIMBA and I worked this afternoon on the phonological description of their language. I began by giving him a brief lecture on phones, phonemes and graphemes.

The concern we first addressed is to understand their inventory of vowels. We are in the process of collecting words that can reflect to us how many letters are in the inventory of phonemes.

So far, we are making good progress and seem to have tentatively identified the following vowel system:

Genesis being brought to completion

Genesis is an exciting and troubling book to translate into Badwe'e. Our team is struggling and finding their efforts rewarded by success. Our part in this is the exegetical check and the pre-publication check. We are hoping to get another consultant check in August.
This is likely to be a spot-check.
Part of the pre-publication spot check involves doing a "free" translation of the Badwe'e text into French.
After that, the next part is a "parse" of each word into its components. Words are dissected and prefixes, roots and suffixes are displayed in such a way that the computer "understands" them.
This is bearing fruit in another way: the dictionary is being built up.

Dictionary development in Badwe'e

The process of language development includes dictionary-making. We have not helped the Badwe'e people do their dictionary yet, so we are preparing one for them to add to and improve.
It is over 3000 words in length.
We are confident of the completeness of only one part of the dictionary, the adjectives. This is because the adjectives of Bantu languages are usually a "closed set". Otherwise stated, they are few in number. The other words used do qualify a noun are nouns.
The 12 adjectives in Badwe'e have the following meanings:
"light" and "dark"
"small" and "big"
"same" and "different"
"new" and "old-fashioned"
"cold" and "hot"
"genuine"
"complete"
I hope that the rest of the dictionary can become somewhat more complete now.

"Genesis" in Badwe'e is now being checked

Mary and I are comparing the Badwe'e translation of Genesis with the Hebrew text and finding many ways to assist the Badwe'e translation team in improving it. One of our advantages is knowing about those "literary devices" that were used by the human author of Genesis to lend prominence to the part of the text that was deemed most important.
Another important literary device is backgrounding. It may be hard to recognize for someone unable to read the Hebrew.
Fortunately, our main Badwe'e translator is now going to seminary and is learning Hebrew.
We expect that the benefits from this will be a more exact translation, which also maintains its high standard of clarily and naturalness.

Community Mobilization

The So community has completed a period of reflection about the need of a written form of their language and of a translation of God's Word. They have sent some members of their com­munity to a program which was held by SIL and by CABTAL at the SIL training center. Please pray that they will re­turn from it with a new under­standing about how a whole com­mu­ni­ty can be involved in the Bible Translation task.

Janvier Ekoalea Succeeding in Seminary

Janvier Ekoalea is praising the Lord for a largely successful conclusion to the first year at seminary. Keith and he have had conversa­tions about the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek texts. We are grateful for the in­struction that he is receiving and see this as a very promising new develop­ment in the Lord's work.

New Literacy Campaign

Keith and Mary helped the Badwe'e and Nzime language com­munities complete new literacy manuals in the first quarter. Pray for new interest in becoming literate with a simplified writing system.

A Catechism Being Tested

Three pastors in the Presbyterian church have inaugurated the use of a catechism that we have prepared with the Reverend Ernest Njyelo. These were pub­lished in a test edition of 25 copies and are being used within these three parishes.
The catechism is a translation of Rev. Harold Kallemeyn's work, entitled "I Belong to God".
One point that we see being made in the catechism is that Africans need to understand themselves as covenant-keep­ing participants in three families. One is the ethnic group, but the other two are the Church and the human community. We hope to print a larger number of these books in June.

Sunday School Guide and Daily Devotional Book Prepared for Publication

The Badwe'e scripture use team was approached by the Presbyterian Church literature committee to translate the denomination's Sunday school materials and daily scripture meditations into Badwe'e. The team was able to complete this and is now in the process of getting them published. The Presbyterian Church contributed a considerable sum toward the publication of these materials to be used by pastors and lay preachers. Please pray that the publication process will soon be completed and that they will be delivered to the remote Badwee area. We pray that this will contribute to the spiritual edification of the Badwe'e people.
One of the people who was instrumental in doing the translation of this book was a young man, called Diphat, who is still twenty. He is the son of Janvier Ekoalea who was the main translator of the Badwe'e New Testament. One of the challenges that Diphat had was to make certain the all the expressions for key terms used in the NT also were incorporated into the devotional readings.
One example of this is that the local people, who were evangelized in a neighboring language, had understood the idea of forgiveness to be merely that of "putting up with", and many of them still use a Badwe'e word for that. They tried to get Diphat to put it into the devotional book. However, with the arrival of the NT, a key term expression for "forgiveness" had been introduced which was a little long, consisting of about five words, but which more accurately expressed the gracious act of God by which sin is put away and remembered no more. The new and more Biblically correct terms are now incorporated into the devotional and Sunday school materials which will be distri­buted and used soon.

The Gospel of Mark Reaching toward the Goal

Colette Nkom and I finished the roughing out of the Njyem translation of Mark yesterday and we are now far along on the path of getting the rest of our future publication to the printer:
What remains before us to finish is:

• The front-matter: A foreward and preface
• The glossary
• The study questions that will go throughout the book
• A recording of the text
• Proof-reading by speakers of the language. Most of these would require the recording to make sense of the text, since almost no one is literate yet in the language.

Please pray for these matters to be concluded well.

Dedication of the Nomaande New Testament

Autorités administratifs, traditionnels et religieux,
Honorables invités
Mesdames et messieurs:
L'essentiel du travail du conseiller en exégèse est de faire les rapprochements entre la retraduction du texte biblique, en nomaande, et le texte biblique de la langue grec. J'ai eu l'honneur d'intervenir souvent au sens de vérifier la traduction du Nouveau Testament en nomaande. Bien que je ne suis ni Nomaande ni Grec, j'avais un attribut qui me rendait capable d'exercer ce devoir de conseiller en traduction, la crainte de Dieu. Je voulais que le produit de cette collaboration soit la Parole de Dieu et non de l'homme. C'est pourquoi je cherchais à vérifier que la traduction nomaande n'enlevait pas un seul mot du texte originel et qu'elle n'y ajoutait pas de mot de plus.
Enfin sommes-nous arrivés au moment de fêter la fin des travaux intensifs que votre équipe de traduction avait consentis de faire. Ils n'ont pas lâché le travail. Nous à la section de la traduction biblique de la SIL sommes engagés à vérifier, à la place de notre maison de publication, le contenu de la traduction. Arrivés à ce point, nous pouvons vous certifier que cet œuvre est la parole de Dieu, véhicule par excellence de la sagesse de Dieu et moyen de communication divine. A partir de quoi, Dieu parsème dans nos cœurs la semence que germe et produit en nous la vie éternelle. C'est le don de Dieu, qui s'est assuré par la communication en toutes les langues du monde que ses vrais enfants à lui naissent et prennent de leur Père céleste les traits de son caractère.
Nous ne nous arrêtons pourtant pas à la traduction du Nouveau Testament. La Bible de Jésus étant l'Ancien Testament, nous sachons que le NT que nous dédicassons aujourd'hui trouve sa place et son contexte dans l'AT. Notre croissance spirituelle ne peut pas longtemps rester normale tant que l'AT ne se trouve pas traduit à côté du NT.
Il convient donc à nous tous de nous consacrer à l'œuvre de rendre aussi beau et claire les récits et psaumes de louange du peuple de Dieu duquel appartenait Jésus à sa naissance. Nous y sommes greffés et nous occupons les places d'honneur par la grâce de Dieu. Occupons-nous donc de la traduction de toute la Bible et de sa lecture quotidienne. Que le message de Dieu prenne place dans nos cœurs par la foi, dans nos communautés, foyers et conversations. Que Dieu soit satisfait par les preuves de la présence de sa parole dans nos vies.