Translating modern jargon into ancient languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

February 26, 2006    
TRANSLATING MODERN JARGON INTO ANCIENT LANGUAGES
 BY BOB WEBER
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Features/2006/02/26/1463664-cp.html 

  INUVIK, N.W.T. (CP) - She sits at the back of the hall, listening to experts
from far away talking in a language not her own about the fate of the bush she
has roamed all her life.  

  Elizabeth Greenland, 86, is desperate to understand what a proposed
$7-billion natural gas pipeline and energy development could do to the
Mackenzie Delta homeland she loves. In the past, she couldn't, her English
being unequal to the technical terms and bureaucratese beloved of such
hearings.  

  But now, thanks to sustained efforts to adapt the languages of hunters to the
concepts of technocrats, Greenland is figuring things out.  

   "I can't understand the hard words," she says as she holds an earpiece
offering simultaneous translation.  

   "I didn't even know what's going on. I didn't know nothing about it.  

   "Now I hear those girls talking in my language. Now I know what's going on."
 

  "Those girls" are a dedicated group of women - and at least one man - who are
determined that nobody in their communities will be left out of hearings on the
Mackenzie Valley energy proposal because of language barriers.  

  "We want our people to know," says Mary Teyna of Fort McPherson, N.W.T., a
native Gwich'In speaker. "We want our people to have the information."  

  Teyna and her colleagues Robert Kuptana, Rosie Albert, Agnes White, Emma
Robert and Bertha Francis work from 9 a.m. to as late as 10 p.m., interpreting
the testimony of company and government officials, as well as regular citizens,
into Gwich'In and Inuvialuktun.  

  When they're not doing that, they often appear at community events or on
local radio shows. At a recent hearing in Fort McPherson, Francis even helped
out with the catering.  

  Concerned there wouldn't be enough to feed supper to everyone at the meeting
- McPherson has no restaurant - Francis got up at 7 a.m. and whipped up a
savoury vat of caribou-head soup.  

  The hardest part is finding ways to explain concepts that have no aboriginal
equivalents. How do you explain "sustainable development" to someone who
doesn't know there's another kind?  

  "There are things that are so new that we don't even have any terms for the
language they use in the hearings," said Kuptana, an Inuvialuktun speaker, who
learned English as a boy when his parents were sent to Edmonton to be treated
for tuberculosis.  

   "There's a lot of terms that the oil companies have that we don't," says
Teyna. "We have to really be descriptive."  

   "Footprint," for example, becomes "They leave a mark there."  

   Abstract concepts are made concrete and the strange is made familiar.  

   "Development threshold" is related to over-hunting. The word used for oil
and gas pipeline is the same one used for stovepipe.  

  New terms are derived at workshops held by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental
Impact Review Board in Yellowknife. Every year, translators from across the
N.W.T. gather to discuss concepts likely to come up in energy development,
mining or environmental assessment.  

  The goal, says board director Vern Christensen, is not so much to come up
with new words as to make sure interpreters have the same understanding of what
the English words mean.  

   The actual translation is likely to vary according to context and local
dialect.  

  After four such annual conferences, the board has compiled a widely used
glossary of terms that translates back and forth between English and Gwich'In,
North Slavey, South Slavey, Chipewyan and Dogrib.  

  "It's vital for successful environmental assessment," Christensen says. "The
board is not going to get the quality communication if they don't have the
opportunity that goes with having good translation."  

   Translators, however, are aging. All those working the Inuvik hearings are
at least in their 60s, and the slow fade of some aboriginal languages makes
recruiting new interpreters difficult.  

  "(Current translators) are nervous about retiring," Christensen says.
"Language retention in the communities is a huge issue all over the North."  

   For now, however, the interpretation is good hands. Feisty, funny women like
Bertha Francis have plenty of talk in them yet.  

  But as she heads into another long day of untangling the jargon of technical
experts and consultants, she can't help making a little wish.  

   "Why can't the white man just talk like us? It would make things so much
easier."  

   -  

  INUVIK, N.W.T. (CP) - A few terms commonly used in environmental assessments
of mining and energy developments in the North, retranslated into English from
their aboriginal equivalents:  

   Crown land - Land that is not settled, the federal government is the boss of
it (Gwich'In)  

   Environmental assessment - Rules to prevent damage (Dogrib)  

   Ore - Good rock (Chipewyan)  

   Gold - Expensive rock (Gwich'In)  

   Risk analysis - Thinking maybe (South Slavey)  

   Acid rain - Rain water with bad medicine (Chipewyan)  

   Fragmentation - The land changed (Gwich'In)  

   Monitoring agency - The ones who watch (Gwich'In)  

   Mineral rights - We are the boss of what is under the ground (Gwich'In)  

   Expert adviser - Person expressing their wisdom (South Slavey)  

   Development proposal - Agreement is made to create jobs (Dogrib)  

   Source - Glossary of Terms, the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review
Board 
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