by John Ellington, UBS Translation Consultant
PARIS, France — The Parole de Vie Bible, which is particularly easy to read, was devised for reading aloud in church and for family use, but it will also be of great value in two less obvious situations.
Many fellowships in Africa still do not have the opportunity to use a translation of the Bible in their local dialect. In such cases, they read a translation in another language the congregation is familiar with, and someone translates this directly into the local dialect. Certain translations have a style and vocabulary which is difficult to translate into African dialects ex tempore – but that is far from the case with the Parole de Vie Bible.
Thanks to its simplicity, interpreters will have much less difficulty in finding equivalents in their own languages. Thus, even listeners who cannot read will gain a better understanding of the holy Scriptures.
The other use of this new translation of the Bible in Basic French has to do with the written translation of the Bible in African languages. Translators use all sorts of tools to arrive at a good rendition of the Bible text; translation manuals, commentaries, atlases and Bible dictionaries.
Not everyone has access to the Bible texts in Hebrew or Greek and where they do not, they compare different French translations and choose the version which expresses the sense of the text most clearly and which will serve as a model for their translation.
Because the Parole de Vie Bible uses short sentences, with conjunctions to underline the author’s chain of thought, it is going to provide a model for many translators in French-speaking Africa when they want to express the Bible message for their readers in simple terms. (WR 357/21 - 1/2.01)