Taboo! (not the game)

Yesterday I (Misha) was working with the three Jita translators, Magesa, Magoma, and Neema (two men, one woman). We were checking their draft of Acts 9 to prepare it for testing in villages and for being checked by a translation consultant. Whenever we check chapters together, the first step I always have them do is to read their draft aloud. 95% of the time, the two listening to the one reading notice little details that need to be fixed. They usually comment on things like misspellings, awkward phrasings that need to be fixed, and where it would help to have a connector word inserted or deleted.

However, a first came up yesterday, and it took me a while to figure out what the problem was. Magesa had just finished reading the first part of the chapter when Magoma said (in Swahili), "We can't have that word for 'friends' in there!" Then he changed languages and kept on talking to his fellow translators in Jita, so I was not able to follow the conversation. All three translators became very animated and had a vigorous discussion in Jita. I kept hearing the Jita word for "friends" (which could also be translated as "fellows", "mates", or "relatives"), so I knew they were still talking about that, but since I didn't understand anything else, I was really quite curious as to what the problem was!

Eventually the translators' conversation wound down and they changed back into Swahili to explain things to me. Neema said, "The word we'd used for 'friends' in verse 7 (which in the NIV is translated as 'men', if you're checking your Bible!) is not okay for a female to say. It is very taboo!" Only men can say that word. Men say 'abhamura', but women say 'abharume'. Men can't say the women's word, and women can't say the men's word."

I asked, "But Acts is written by a man, Luke, so it would be okay for him to have written that word. So would it be okay for a woman to read that word, just repeating a man's words?"

Magesa said quite firmly, "No, a woman could not stand up in front of a church and read that. She could say it if she was with good friends her own age, but not in front of others. It is taboo!"

"Well, if it is taboo for women to say the man's word, could a man possibly say the women's word?" I asked.

They all laughed a bit and shook their heads. Apparently is is even more taboo for men to say women's words than it is for women to say men's words. "Well, what do you all propose we write instead," I challenged them.

Magoma suggested, "How about the general word for 'people'?" That seemed fine to me to me and the other two, so we made the change in their draft. So now in the Jita translation of Acts, chapter 9 verse 7 says, "the people who were with Paul", and we have not broken any cultural taboos.