Trials in Translation

"You have to have a word for it!" I said in mounting frustration.

"Sorry, Pastor. We don't," said my friend.

When I took linguistics in college, I had no idea I'd be sitting in a grass hut in the middle of a jungle, trying to figure out an unwritten language. Finding the right words was like mining for gold. It took a great deal of effort, and so far, I was not very rich.

In 1994, my wife and I, and our eight-year-old son John, volunteered to plant a church among an unreached people-group called the Alangan. They live on the western side of Mindoro, an island in the Philippines, named for a goldmine.

The Alangan are not far removed from a stone-age people. Back in their mountain retreats, they still use homemade clay pots to cook their food, and handmade flint knives to hunt and build their shelters. Those villages closer to the lowland Filipinos use hand-forged machetes and aluminum pots. But outside these progressive niceties, they both live much the same as they did hundreds of years ago. They forage for food, fish the nearly fished-out streams, and practice a kind of slash-and-burn farming on the steep mountain slopes to grow upland rice, sweet-potatoes, and corn. In between harvests, they subsist on what they call nami, which is a kind of poisonous cassava root that must be processed for several days in order to remove the cyanide. Their wardrobes consist of a loincloth made from bark cloth or flour-sacks.

We quickly determined that these people spoke a distinct language, and not simply a dialect of Tagalog—the Philippine trade language. And deep! Their language has more levels than people have skin color. Just when we thought we were speaking Alangan fairly well, they dropped down a level, and we started language-learning all over again.

We often met lowland Tagalogs who claimed they spoke Alangan. But as time went on, we discovered they simply "Tagalogized" their "Alangan." Even today, I doubt there are more than a dozen outsiders who truly know and speak Alangan. Most people simply don't take the time to learn it. And of course, no one had developed it into a written language.

Their legends and stories hint at a Polynesian and Indonesian history. In fact, some of their words are identical, so obviously they must have some common, ancient ancestry. But that wasn't helping the present translation difficulties. To make matters worse, we were able to identify among them only two people who could read Tagalog—out of about fifteen thousand people! How were we going to plant a sustainable church without leaders who could read the Bible? It seemed an insurmountable problem.

For several months, our mission team wrestled with the problem. First, we decided against translating a complete Bible into their language. With Tagalog being the national trade language, wouldn't it be better to teach them to read their country's language? After all, if they ever went to school, they would be required to read and write Tagalog. However, we decided to produce bible study lessons, evangelistic series, and study helps, in their own Alangan language.

The downside of this decision was there is not a good Tagalog translation. There is an excellent one called Ang Biblia, which was translated in the nineteen sixties. It uses so many long-forgotten Tagalog words that even the Filipinos have a hard time understanding it. However, it is a very accurate translation.

The other Tagalog translation is a loose paraphrased Good News Bible, which uses modern Tagalog, but it is impossible to use in deriving doctrines. There have been numerous rumors as to other translations "in the process." However, to date, we have not seen them available to the public. So we used both translations. The "easy-read" we used for worships and devotions, and the difficult one for serious study. Church leaders were taught to read "old Tagalog," so they could preach and teach church members. They often had to study with a dictionary next to their Bible.

Another difficulty soon arose. The Alangan people-group extends from the western side of Mindoro, all the way to the east coast, in a band running across the middle of Mindoro. Overseas Missionary Fellowship, (OMF), had been working since the nineteen-fifties with the eastern Alangan, and they had translated a New Testament. When we were able to buy a copy, we were thrilled! Here was a partial Bible in the Alangan language!

We began to read it to the people. But very shortly, they came and said, "Pastor," please go back to reading the Tagalog to us. This translation is too hard for us to understand!"

"Why is that?" I asked incredulously. "You're Alangan, and the people on the east-coast are Alangan. Surely you must speak the same language!"

"No, Pastor, we don't," they replied sadly. "We recognize some words, but we speak enough differently that it is easier for us to understand Tagalog."

We investigated, and it was true. East-coast Alangan was significantly different than the fifty-mile-away west-coast Alangan. And to make it even more difficult, the Alangan spoken in the northern part of the tribe was different than what was spoken in the southern part.

We finally decided on what was an "average," where both north, and south, and west-coast Alangan could understand what we were saying. Then we got to work on developing an alphabet.

We wanted anyone who could read Tagalog to be able to read Alangan. So we used the same alphabet, and simply used three extra vowels to represent those sounds which don't exist in Tagalog. The result was that with a little basic instruction, a Tagalog reader could read Alangan.

We then began to translate a set of Bible-study lessons. My frustration mounted rapidly. How do I translate "righteousness," "glory," "justification," or "sanctification," I wondered? My language helpers and I would spend hours trying to grasp the meaning, and reduce them to Alangan words. It wasn't working.

I also began to realize that if you can translate something into another language, you truly understand it. But if you cannot, you don't really understand it. I had to first know, and understand my topic, before I could translate it.

My genetic makeup did not endow me with a large reservoir of patience, (you can ask my wife if you don't believe me). One day, I'd had enough. "You must have a word for 'trust,' I insisted. "It's impossible for you to communicate effectively without it."

"No, Pastor. We just don't have a word for that."

"I don't believe it," I replied. "Let me tell you a story. Let's imagine you're walking along a jungle path next to a cliff. Suddenly, you slip and fall off the edge. As you plummet down, you manage to grab hold of a small tree that's growing out of the cliff. You're hanging there, your whole life depending on that little tree.

"Above you, someone shouts, 'I have a rope! Hang on!' Soon a rope appears, dangling next to you. You now have a choice. Do you let go of the little tree and grab the rope, or do you stay hanging onto the tree? If you grab the rope, you have to have faith that the person on the other end can lift you up."

Their faces lit up with comprehension. "Oh, you mean agsampet, Pastor! Yes, I guess that is a word for faith."

From then on, whenever we came to a difficult word, I would tell them a story to illustrate the meaning I was driving at, and we would successfully come up with a word. As day after day passed, and story after story poured out of my mind, I was able to slowly build up a lexicon of useful and critical words that I needed to effectively share the gospel. For me, this was the key to unlocking the Alangan written language.

By the time we left our Alangan family eight years later, we had translated more than six books into their language, including Mark Finley's Studying Together, Steps to Christ, and other materials. We also completed three complete bible study sets that would lead people from worshiping spirits, up through baptism into the Seventh-day Adventist church, and on to nurturing and growing them into leaders.

We had taught more than two hundred people to read, and today, we still have a thriving elementary school that teaches more than forty children every semester. When our Alangan students transition to public high-school, they usually score in the top ten-percent of their class.

We now have almost a hundred students who have finished high-school, and we have two college graduates. One has a degree in agriculture, and has the distinction of being the first known Alangan ever to hold a college degree. The other has passed his national board exams and is a certified elementary education graduate. He is now the principle and teacher of our elementary school.

Looking back over the months and years we spent deciphering the Alangan language, we can see that it was true "gold" we had mined. It was all worthwhile.

Today, there are over fifteen ordained lay-pastors, ministering in nine churches scattered over the eastern Alangan tribal land, and hundreds of baptized Adventist church members.

Was it all worth it? Absolutely!

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Tim Holbrook has worked many years as a cross-cultural missionary and church-planter, and as the Field Director for Asia projects for Adventist Frontier Missions. He currently is the director of Philippine Frontier Missions USA, which focuses on planting SDA churches in Asia. He is also the editor of Adventist Affirm.