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1/28/2012

The catechism in Njyem

People are more familiar with the word "cataclysm" than "catechism". That's where we have gotten as a culture.
Sad!
The catechism was the original "Guide to following Jesus." This is a way of construing the Gospel from within the worldview of a people-group. Their questions are answered from a biblical perspective. It is a pastor's task.
The structure of a catechism is simple and very profound.
The question: What do you believe about "x"?
The answer: We believe "y".
The scripture text. This is the best part. The part the Holy Spirit promises to anchor in peoples' hearts. Often, they memorize them.
The catechism is now done in first draft, adapted into Njyem from Nzime.
The Njyem people are indiscriminate, always wanting what their neighbors, the Nzime, have. Now they too can read about what the Bible contains and why it matters above all that they should become followers of Jesus Christ... Jesus the Messiah.

1/14/2012

Map of the Njyem area

The map shown here uses wavy lines for rivers and straight ones for roads. Ngoyla is shown as "Meko'o melɛl", which means "Three stones", and Souanké is shown as "Nsʉa-nkee", which means "On the other side of the Nsʉa River".
Two ethnic groups are indicated: the Nzime, to the north, and the Fang to the west. To the south, they are in contact with the Bekwel.

1/13/2012

Jesus is the Avenger

The Njyem have determined that the right way to characterize Jesus is their "Avenger". That is the translation of mikuna-bʉr. This is made up of a nominalizing prefix mi- (cl.4, which in a few cases refers to a single person), the verb -kuna, meaning "avenge", and bʉr, "people".
Everyone wants an Avenger to defend their interests in the event of an attack by a powerful enemy. The enemy most to be feared is Satan, or the devil.
There is a grain of truth in this attribution of a title to Jesus. The Bible says, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (I John 3:8) It also says, "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." Hebrews 2:14-15
Does this need to be balanced against other texts? I think it might need that, especially given the fact that our sins have created an enemy of God, whose justice requires the punishment of the sinner, or of his perfect substitute.

1/12/2012

Contrafactuals

When a linguist seeks to break out of mediocrity and make headway into expressive power in a new-to-him/her language, often (s)he will look at areas like his/her use of contrafactuals.
Today, Teresa Noumabouk gave me one in an essay she wrote, which I have shown in the window below this one:
ǃYesus-Krist, nye adi, ansye ɨ si nyɔꞌɔ wa, mpe bʉr, bé ankʉ to bee ciꞌ ɨ mih me Nsɛm Sɔŋ.
"If Jesus Christ had not come to this earth, people would not have been able to see life in the eyes of ("before") God the Father."
I have been looking at all the contrafactuals in the New Testament, overt and implied, and have broken them into 2 groups: Those with negation in the first, conditional part and those without negation. The contrafactual shown above is clearly in the first group, since there is negation in the conditional phrase: "If Jesus Christ had not come to this earth..."
The puzzling part is that there are two negations there: the first is before adi, "not remain/stay", and the second is before ansye "not come".
The second part of the contrafactual always begins with mpe, which means something like "then the following would be true, except for the fact that it is not." The truth is that we can "see life in the eyes of God the Father!" I am so glad for Teresa, that she has gotten the message of life in Christ.
I am now attempting to see that all these contrafactuals get the best translations they can. Then the other parts around them will be much easier to fill in.

Yesus-Krist, nye é Mikuna-bʉr

Mʉr, nye ɨ lejala ne lekœꞌ œ́, mpu Nsɛm di ɨ lekwɛl yi, nebe é, Nsɛm a ntɨh mwɔn we é, nye ntaa nse kwɨr bʉr tʉŋʉ lebyeb, nse kœb é, yi kɔbla. Ciꞌ bimpam ga bina, yé a be é, abu mbɨa ciꞌ, nebe é, bé a kœkœꞌ œ́, tʉŋʉ lebyeb ne lekaŋ bensɛm beswih. To kumo ne bʉr be Ɨsraɛl, mbi bʉr Nsɛm a twɔr wi.Nɔ ɔ́, Yesus-Krist a nse jwe é, ɨ lense kwɨr ga mɨna tʉŋʉ lebyeb. Nɔ ɔ́ mɨna bé ɨ lejala je ga nye menyʉl ga mɨna, ne biciꞌ ga bina, ne sa yiyɛh mɨna di é, mɨna sa ga á saꞌ yi, yi beꞌ ɨ dyoo le, nebe é, nye a jwe é, ɨ lɔb ga wina.
Ɨ jɔɔ nye a kwɨr ga mɨna yi, yé a baabe ne mɔnɨ, ngʉ gol, ngʉ byʉʉ bisa biswih é byé bɛm ndama bi. Yé a be é, nfe ne mecio me. Ɨ lɔb waa é mɨna jala ne leje menyʉl ga mɨna ne biciꞌ ga bina, ne sa yiyɛh di é, mɨna sa ga á saꞌ yi, yi beꞌ ɨ dyoo me Yesus-Krist, di Mikuna-bʉr nyɔ. Yé é wasa á, mɨna to bwɨ ga ciꞌ ɨ mih me Da.
ǃYesus-Krist, nye adi, ansye ɨ si nyɔꞌɔ wa, mpe bʉr, bé ankʉ to bee ciꞌ ɨ mih me Nsɛm Sɔŋ.

Térèse Noumabouk, silo Jadɔm

1/11/2012

Transition Primer in Njyem Ready for Testers

If there is anyone out there with DropBox, they can get the transition primer we are done working on.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16109934/NjyManTrans-booklet.pdf
It is for mother-tongue speakers of Njyem who are literate in French. In 64 pages (A5), it teaches the fundamentals of the Njyem writing system. It assumes the knowledge of characters which are also found in French and used in both languages in the same way.

Adaptation of New Testament

Terese Noumabouk and I are done adapting Matthew from Badwe'e into Njyem. This means
that we are now 26.5% done with the preparation of a first draft of the Njyem New Testament.
One of the problems we run into is that the Njyem language seems more rich than the Badwe'e in some respects, which means that more distinctions in meaning have to be made as adaptation proceeds.
Three examples will help prove the point: 1.) In Badwe'e, all crowds are the same. One refers to a crowd as "emɛl e bʉr". In Njyem, it is necessary to know if a crowd has a collective purpose and
identity. If it has a collective identity, it is called "nyee bʉr". If it is simply a mass of people, it is "mwa bʉr".
2.) In Badwe'e, actions that are either promptly-initiated or quickly-executed are all described by the adverb "kpahbe". In Njyem, an earlier distinction continues to be maintained, with promptly-initiated events being characterized by the adverb "kula" and quickly-executed events being described by "kwɛh".
3.) In Badwe'e, all things that "surprise" you (twɨra) are the same, but in Njyem, if one is "scared and surprised", the verb is "letwɨra", while if you are caught off-guard and surprised, the verb is "lesɔga".

1/08/2012

Njyem in a state of language change

The problem with the Njyem is that they have 3 neighboring languages causing their language to shift: Fang, Nzime and Bekwel. We think that we know there is a village that is out of the range of any of these: Djadom. I imagine that we’ll be staying in that village and that we’ll be processing all the vocabulary and verbal constructions we can, using FLEx, and maybe standardizing the language better.
It is a real problem to have such a language-in-change. The people sense that it is really endangered.
A lot of them are leaving the center of the language area and going to the peripheries, where they experience more language-change. Others leave the area entirely.
We will probably find that Djadom has only a small population.
We hope that what we are doing will speak to their hearts.

The Keyboard is Coming

As we prepare for our next visit to the Njyem area, we are thinking about the difficulty of maintaining our computers, some of which have great demands on electric power. There is one notebook computer that is a power-sipper, however, and we are getting it ready for daily service as a place to revise our Scripture portions.
It has two dead keys, though, so we have ordered a keyboard to be sent out by DHL. This will come with the first-class US mail that has been accumulating in our account with
MyUSA.Com, who gives us great assistance.

The Batteries for our Truck Camper

We just got 2 36-amp 12-volt batteries for our truck-camper, which means we can take it on its return voyage to the Njyem area.
It may become the camper's final voyage.
We recharge the batteries with solar panels and use the power for lighting in the evening and for powering our computers.

Matthew done In 1st Draft

Working with Teresa Noumabouk, Keith has completed the first draft of Matthew's Gospel in Njyem. This brings the pct of the NT drafted to 26.5 %.
The immediate goal is now finishing the catechism in Njyem.
After that, we resume work on Genesis.