Translating the Bible into Kibangubangu

TRANSLATING THE BIBLE INTO KIBANGUBANGU PRELIMARY SOCIOCULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES AND PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION

SUPERVISED AND DIRECTED BY
PROF. DR . MUHAMMAD WOLFGANG G.A.SCHMIDT,
INTERNATIONAL FAITH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,
A UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF THE FREE INTERNATIONAL EPISCOPAL UNIVERSITY®,
LONDON, ENGLAND

SUBMITTED BY

Jean Claude Mwinyi Mboka

IN 2005

FROM THE PROFESSOR’S DESK: SOME PRELIMINARY NOTES
his research thesis for a Ph. D. in Biblical Translation published here is in some way unique for several reasons: First, it is an interdisciplinary study drawing on various fields of studies and brings together various skills and competencies from different fields: African Cultural and Historical Studies, Linguistics (and here notably grammatical description), Translation Theory and Practice, and Theology. Second, it deals with the elementary grammatical description of a language which has never be found worthy of some more profound research both in terms of basic linguistic description and in terms of Bible Translation. No Bible Translation exists as yet for this language – Kibangubangu. Third, this study does not only bring together some important basic facts about the language, culture, history and the religious beliefs of the people who speak it – the Babangubangu. It is that it also reflects the more recent history of the area where it is spoken – Maniema Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire of the former Belgian Congo, still a civil-war torn area as it has been some 45 years ago after the Belgians had left. Fourth, and last not least, it was written by an extraordinary man – Pastor Jean-Claude Mwinyi Mboka who fled with his family from this civilwar torn area and lives now with an official refugee status with his family in Nairobi, Kenya. Pastor Mboka is now in his mid-forties, and his and his family’s personal history reflect the kind of tragedy Africa is still suffering from these days: Neocolonialism and the interference by Western industrial powers backing either of the civil-war parties involved for the sake of their own economical interests.

Having to escape and living somewhere else as a refugee; coming from an ethnic group that was ignored and forgotten by not having been found worthy enough for more profound research by linguists and Africanists; having been ignored and forgotten by the richer churches and Bible Translation Societies of the Western industrial world – these are facts related to here and about which we are told here at length.

That a man like Pastor Mboka, himself with his family living under hard and rather inconvenient social and economical conditions, has a vision of bringing the Bible and thus the Good News, the gospel, to his people is a wonder that only God Almighty can work. To have a vision and never to give up despite all the hardships one may encounter is a gift from God Almighty who also at work in this part of the world where people seem to suffer extreme hardship. As an African, Pastor Mboka does not only present academic materials under discussion in his thesis; he goes far beyond this and in the end also wrote his witness in telling about God’s love to this world and its people. I am confident you will as well feel emotionally touched while reading the relevant portions of his work.

Kibangubangu forms part of the linguistic family of Bantu languages. The first and to our knowledge only publication on this language prior to ours is MEEUSSEN, A. E: “Linguistische schets van het Bangubangu” (“Linguistic Treasure of Kibangubangu”, Tervuren, 1954. This small booklet of some 50 pages seems to be the only description of Kibangubangu available up to now.

According to more recent figures, Kibangubangu has between 85,000 to 95,000 native speakers in the Southeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Maniema Province. ¹ The number of speakers for Kibangubangu is estimated somewhat higher by the Summer Institute of Linguistuics². The SIL counting includes the speakers of language groups most closely related to Kibangubangu.³ According to GREENBERG 1966, Kibangubangu would be classified as Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta- Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid, Southern, Narrow Bantu, Central, L, Songye (L.20).⁴ Guthrie classifies Kibangubangu as D 17 (cf. language map on next page).⁵

Based on the linguistic presented in this thesis, one may safely conclude that indeed Kibangubangu is a genuine Bantu language and as such shares many similarities with Swahili, that Bantu language known most widely and researched best. With Swahili and other Bantu languages, Kibangubangu shares its noun-class system so common and typical to all Bantu languages. At the level of verbal syntax, like Swahili it has a distinct conjugation system for verbs in the affirmative and the negative, and personal pronouns have distinct forms in the affirmative and the negative. Many other such traits may be listed here that are both shared by Swahili and Kibangubangu but they would be too many to list them all here.

Swahili is perhaps of the widespread language in the Bantu speaking area in the African continent that is likely to bear its linguistic and sociocultural impacts on less widespred local languages such as Kibangubangu. It may therefore be not too astonishing that one of linguistic findings in this thesis is the linguistic influence from Swahili on Kibangubangu.

This elementary and by no means complete first linguistic description of Kibangubangu is at first a difficult task if no common linguistic standard for this language exists, and no previous normative description of its basic grammar is available. Reverend Mboka did not have any other choice than to be pragmatic in this respect by largely following the linguistic descriptive units and terminology available for Swahili. This may be justified by the fact of many similarities found in grammatical structure of these two languages.

This thesis was written in an environment that to a Westener would be hostile for the purpose of scholarly research – the slum areas of the Nairobi vicinities, difficulties to access the most recent and suitable literature required to accomplish the task of this study under research, and many factors making it more than hard and difficult to study and to do research. To some extent, this may also explain some of the smaller shortcomings that can be found here and there in the text of this thesis. But the main task set as an objective of this research was certainly achieved – the preliminary study of a language in its structure that the Bible is to be translated into the various factors underlying such an enormous project. Here, we find the rudiments of all that can be built on when one day, God willing, the project outlined here may finally be implemented and set to course.

The Bangubanghu are a good a example of a forgotten people of whom we find so many on the African continent. They are small in number of speakers, and their group has been humbled by those around them, and maybe the day when this language may become extinct as so many others before will not be too far ahead. It is a pleasure and a privilege to have a man like Rev. Mboka among my research students who has undertaken a real venture in making a start to bringing about a change for his people and himself. And it is our urgent prayer that others may follow and join him and us in this noble effort.

February 2005 Muhammad Wolfgang G. A. Schmidt

References:
1. http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/search/search.pl.cgi, 1998.
2. http://www.sil.org and their related website ETHNOLOGUE.
3. GREENBERG; J.H.: Languages of Africa, Bloomington-Den Haag, 1963, 1966.
4. GUTHRIE,M.:The Classification Of Bantu Languages, Oxford University Press, 1948.
5. Heine, B../Schadenberg, T.. C./Wolff, E. (eds.): Die Sprachen Afrikas (“The Languages of Africa”), Hamburg, 1981

Foreword
In His Divine wisdom and insight , God has intended to make some people to be “permanent “ blessing to other people. Some playing an active role , others playing a passive one . Some being openly on the scene ,others playing in the shadow.

Our dear wife was among many “helping hands “without which this thesis would not arrive at it completion . She is the one who suggested us to write on the Bible Translation rather than any  other topic as it was our intention.

Professor Dr. Muhammad Schmidt whom our children call “Uncle Muhammad “has been to us a source of inspiration ,and another open stream of blessing. As soon as he received our first E-Mail he promptly responded :answering all our questions ,and giving us –with discretion and humour - all necessary advices, counsels and encouragement. Following his suggestion we have entitled our work:

“TRANSLATING THE BIBLE INTO KIBANGUBANGU,PRELIMINARY SOCIOCULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES AND PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION”.

A. The first chapter gives us a panoramic view of the democratic Republic of Congo in time and
in space; Geographically and historically. It tells us how people adopted themselves to various
changes they accounted in their way of life. It also shows us how a language can be positively
or negatively influenced by another language much stronger or weaker than itself. The
Bangubangu tribe was the model, which served us to experience the theories we wanted to
test. All we had to say was in relation to it.

In this chapter we learnt the characteristic of people, such as:

• Nuance of their names
• Race of physical type
• Language and culture
• Geographical area in which people live
• Political unit in which they are organized

We also learnt that:

• Racial features cannot change but they can become mixed or dominated through intermarriage.
• Language can change completely; that of subordinate group being replaced by that of its rulers.
• Geographical habit can be completely changed by migration, in drift and in conquest (see genesis 10)

B. THE SECOND CHAPTER was in relation with the Bible translation. The exploration study shows what we had at end and what we should have to write on such a topic. It also shows how limited we were and the hard conditions in which we were working. Jobless, in a strange country, without any source of income, managing a household of nine people with studying children, without not enough documentation, too far from the ground, writing in a language in which we are not very fluent, for we speak French better than English. We tried to understand what is animism and how it can effectives and cultures worldwide.

After a brief description of the Kibangubangu, we entered into grammatical description of it, nouns; classes of nouns, verb structures, the conjugation gave us the different variances coming on verbs (moods, tenses, forms, etc). This chapter related also with some problems of translations; we have translated many biblical concepts we have found in books like NAVE’S TOPICAL BIBLE⁶ . Few words were compare to Arabic to see how the noble Quaran2 runs in English words such as Amen, Messiah, Angels, Lord, Ablution, etc.

[...]

1 Cf. http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/search/search.pl.cgi, 1998.

2 171,000 including 85,000 Bangubangu, 30,000 Mikebwe, 20,000 Kasenga, 32,000 Nonda, 4,000 Hombo (1995 SIL). Cf. http://www.sil.org and their related website ETHNOLOGUE.

3 For further details, cf. footnote above.

4 GREENBERG; J.H.: Languages of Africa, Bloomington-Den Haag, 1963, 1966.

5 GUTHRIE,M.:The Classification Of Bantu Languages, Oxford University Press, 1948.

6 ORVILLE J. NAVE, A.M D.D.C.L.D: NAVES TOPICAL BIBLE; A DIGEST OF THE HOLY SCRIPUTURES; THE SOUTHERN COMPANY, NASHVILLE, TENNESSE, 1962.