Browsing by Author "Wendland, Ernst R."
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- ItemBible translation - A lighthouse and a library for the promotion and preservation of language and 'Literature' in Africa: the example of Chinyanja(Stellenbosch University, Faculty of Theology, 2004) Wendland, Ernst R.In this article I explore several implications of the thematic metaphorical terms “lighthouse” and “library” with reference to three translations of the complete Scriptures that have been made in the Chinyanja language of Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique. How did these translations, one begun over a century ago, serve both to promote (enlighten, show the way, reveal the rocks) and also to preserve (act as a reservoir and repository for) the language and culture of the Chinyanja-speaking peoples of this south-central African region? My survey describes some of the major challenges, difficulties, and setbacks encountered along the way in contrast to certain outstanding successes that were achieved and new initiatives undertaken during this long history, which continues to be written in the new millennium. Several linguistic aspects of this progressive development are briefly examined in a comparative manner with reference to a number of Scripture passages as they appear in the most literal and most idiomatic Chinyanja versions. I conclude by summarizing the potential of mother-tongue Bible translation for enlarging, by way of preservation and promotion, the overall communication resources of any given language-culture, especially one that does not have a great corpus of published literature.
- ItemMarked word order in the book of Joel(Department of Ancient Studies, Stellenbosch University, 2010) Van der Merwe, Christo H. J.; Wendland, Ernst R.The function of BH word order (or more specifically clause constituent order) patterns has received considerable attention during the last two decades. Recently, Lunn (2006) provided an innovative explanation of how the relative frequently occurring instances of fronting and double fronting in poetic texts could be explained. In this paper marked constituent order patterns in the book of Joel are analyzed in terms of the information structure of the strophes and stanzas in which they occur in order to determine whether Lunn’s model also applies to the poetry of the book Joel. Using their own semantic-pragmatic model for explaining constituent order, the authors establish that, on the one hand their findings concur with those of Lunn, but on the other hand, they do not need to resort to the “uniquely poetic” principles formulated by Lunn.
- Item'My tongue is the stylus of a skilled scribe' (Ps 45:2c ): if so in the Scriptures, then why not also in translation?(AOSIS, 2013) Wendland, Ernst R.In this study, I survey seven characteristics of the poetic-rhetorical style of Psalm 45, with special reference to the ‘sound effects’ (phonological features) of the Hebrew text. This leads to a brief discussion of the translation of this psalm in Chewa, a Bantu language of southeastern Africa. How ‘skilful’ does this version sound in the vernacular, and why is this an important aspect of the translator’s task in order to ensure that the ‘good word’ ( דּ֘בר ט֗וֹב ) of the Bible is faithfully as well as forcefully transmitted? Suggestions will be offered to indicate how the current standard Chewa versions might be improved so as to ‘stir the heart’ ( ר֘חשׁ לִבִּי ) of listeners also today. The results of the present study may be instructive and/or applicable in varying degrees to similar projects that aim to render the biblical text poetically, rhetorically and oratorically in the language of translation.