Dear All,
Were you aware that translators in the EAO Region are living and working in possibly the most diglossic region in the world? To which you may well respond: fine, but what exactly do you mean by diglossic (adjective for ‘diglossia’)? The simple answer: a place where one language can be labelled H for ‘high’, because it is used in formal spoken and especially written communication (government, speeches, literature, religion...) and has a certain prestige, while another language spoken by the same community can be labelled L for ‘low’, in that it is used for informal spoken communication, e.g. at home, on the street (another way to describe it might be ‘vernacular’) and may or may not exist in written form. It is only ‘low’ in the sense that it may not be officially taught, may not even have a textbook of its grammar, and may be frowned upon if used in contexts where the H version is preferred.
I will give you a personal example.
For some years I taught English at the Catholic Teachers College in Fiji. I was somewhat bemused by the fact that here I was teaching a standard variety of English but my students, all young adults, were not speaking that variety at all and were ‘breaking the rules’ grammatically every time they opened their mouths! It seemed an intolerable situation, but upon reflection I realised that we were in a diglossic situation: standard English (of the kind they had to pass an exam in to be allowed to teach because by law they would be teaching in standard English) and Finglish, the variety they would almost certainly really be teaching in! But they were not allowed to write in Finglish, at least not officially, nor would they even have considered doing that... Finglish was not for writing in and has no grammar book anyway to teach you how to write in it. They would automatically switch to standard English in writing, but not when speaking... a classic situation of diglossia. I was also helped by the head of the Linguistics Department at the university who told me: turn things upside down like an artist does who looks at reality from some unusual position. Consider that they are speaking perfect Proto-Oceanic but using English words to do so. In other words, the underlying grammar had been in existence for a millennia maybe, but the colonially imposed English was a mere century and a bit old. That meant that the speaker could say, using English words, ‘One of my brother [sic] is ill today and can’t come to school!’, or, ‘I sometimes always do such-and-such’, and that would mean something different to ‘I always sometimes do such-and-such’. Proto-Oceanic (or even modern Fijian) grammar, but English vocabulary.
Given that most Salesian translators in this region are dealing with diglossia in real life, it has implications for their translation practice. The Salesian Spirituality Days (both face-to-face and online, in Provinces throughout the world as well) are coming up in January. Do we just stay with the ‘high’ language variant in our local scene all the time when and if translating this material? For example, is it possible that many ADMA members would be more familiar with their local vernacular (if it can be written)? The Best Practice tries to look at this, first by offering a couple of things for the translator to think about if he or she wishes to convey the charism to our classical recipients... young people, especially the poorest of them, and ordinary folk, and then by offering a brief description of diglossia in your country (and have I missed some? Quite possibly).
best_practice_43-diglossia.docx
In Papua New Guinea - there are several languages / dialects that are kept oral - cause they do not wish to share their secrets with the others.
Fr John Cabrido, a former Salesian, now with the Archdiocese of Rabaul, lived with the Pomio people and put down his experience of their traditions and customs. When it was printed, he was asked to destroy every copy, cause their secrets would be shared. And that is something that they did not want.