WYnet Camp - My Presentation

Last afternoon, I made a presentation on the Jamaican Creole Translation Project at a WYnet, Caribbean, camp. I knew I was going to be asked not a few questions so I prepared myself beforehand. Now, I did not leave for camp with the aim of reeling off answers off the top of my head - I could have; I went with the purpose of helping the campers come up with some answers for themselves. And how did I go about doing that? Well, firstly, I had the campers tell me all their concerns about the Project, each of which I wrote on a whiteboard – I commented on one of their “concerns.” (My original question was “What problems have you got with the project?” The campers however didn’t like the expression “problem with;” they said they only had concerns. I thought that was great.)

After I had scribbled the concerns on the whiteboard, I gave the campers a mini exercise – to translate Matthew 6:5-13 from a simplified Greek-English interlinear I had prepared into Jamaican Creole! Campers were divided into several groups, each of which was assigned a specific number of verses to translate. At the end of the exercise, everyone came together and, a representative from each group read what his/her had translated.

Following the presentations, discussed the problems encountered together and critiqued some of the translations. Believe me, it was a most beneficial and exciting exercise. I shall do it again.

It was after all this that I returned to the campers’ genuine concerns. By this time, they were in a position to re-examine their unease. Of a truth, they found out:
1. The text in Jamaican aids understanding
2. Jamaican has got structure
3. Serious Bible translation isn’t a casual endeavour – euphemisms are taken into consideration
4. Reading and writing Jamaican is easier than reading and writing English...