Bamboo Tracking

Contents

• Bamboo Videos

• What are Translator's Notes?

• What is the Bamboo Project?

• Various Translation Resources

• Bamboo Workshops - Past and Upcoming Workshops

• Bamboo Progress Tracking - 26 OT Books (16,757 total verses)

The purpose of TN is to help the translator:

• understand the overall message of each book of the Bible
• understand how the different parts of the book fit together
• understand in detail the meaning of the original text
• be aware of parts of the text that can be difficult to translate and
• consider other translators’ suggestions about how to express the meaning of the text.

Each verse has a display, providing at least two alternate ways of expressing the meaning of the source line. There are also notes explaining interpretive and textual issues. TN aims to (1) address issues of meaning (word, phrase, clause-level) with clear explanations in simple English, (2) identify translation difficulties and strategies for translating them, and (3) to give various translation models.

TN divides into two sections, the (1) Notes which discuss the issues and give explanations issue by issue, and the (2) Display (meaning lines) which synthesizes all the issues into multiple translation models. These models express the meaning of the verse using a variety of vocabulary, structures, and translation strategies. The Notes discuss textual issues and/ or interpretative issues. The proposed guidance on interpretative issues is that which is supported by a majority of major Bible versions and commentary support – this is similar to how consultants deal with translation issues in a specific local translation team. Since the English versions are generally produced by teams of recognized scholars, TN puts more weight on what the majority of English versions say than what any one individual may feel is a valid interpretation. The Display (meaning lines) provide several alternative renderings of the English NIV source line.

Over the years that the Translator's Notes have been available, they have proved invaluable for translation teams around the world. They are the single most widely requested resource that SIL produces, well appreciated by translation teams. Instead of every translation team around the world having to do all their own exegesis, skilled translation consultants do the heavy lifting of sifting through the Biblical text, providing suggestions on the intended meaning, and giving notes on potential “issues” (both textual and interpretative) in each passage.

• Email TN with your input - they would like your feedback on "What helps?" and "What doesn’t?"
• Your critical comments and suggestions are very welcome. TN wants the Translator’s Notes series to be practical and helpful to translators. Please help them by letting them know: (1) things you find to be helpful in the Translator’s Notes that you are using (including the Guidelines), and (2) things you feel should be done in a different way.

What is the Bamboo Project?

The main issue for the highly acclaimed TN series, is that they are not yet available for all the books of the Bible! There are still 25 books of the Old Testament without Translator's Notes. It takes a lot of hours and effort to write Translator's Notes. So in an effort to speed up the process, SIL International Translation started the "Bamboo Project."

This is a new development within global translation resources - a process for accelerating the completion of the Translator's Notes (TN) series, focusing on the remaining 25 Old Testament books that still lack a Translators Notes volume. It is called “Bamboo,” since bamboo represents the many good qualities of this program - versatile, lightweight, beautiful, flexible, highly interconnected, fast-growing, and indigenous to many parts of the world.

The aim is to recruit additional writers and editors from all over the world, training them to author Translator's Notes for these remaining OT books. These new authors work in small teams guided by experienced mentors, first preparing the TN Display and then the TN Notes. They author in Paratext, thus making it possible to incrementally release the output rather than waiting for the entire book to be completed. With the Lord's help, this task can be finished sooner rather than later.

This approach will accelerate the production of a crucial first part of the Translator's Notes, making them available more expansively and collaboratively within the Paratext environment. This includes:

• Incremental Publishing – quality resource materials put out when ready (piecemeal), without waiting for the entire volume to be completed. Published incrementally and electronically within Paratext and Translators Workplace (TW Logos).

• Iterative On-line Authoring – working online within Paratext and providing digital publication of quality resources in such a way that many people can provide input and make revisions on a regular update cycle.

• Expanded, Collaborative Authoring Team – gathering a diverse and global community of authors, who are Translation Consultants, good exegetes and Bible scholars. These authors come from all over the world, bringing their unique perspectives. Because of their experience in translation, these authors can think like a translator, seeing what specific items in the Biblical text would be a potential problem for local translators.

The Bamboo work structure consists of:

• Author Teams: two-three translation consultants composing the first TN draft, then revising these drafts with input from their Reviewer.

• Reviewer: mentoring and overseeing the work of one "author team," and providing critiques of the draft. When the reviewer feels the TN draft is ready, they forward it to the Editor for a final check.

• Editor: oversees two or three reviewers and their author teams, providing feedback on their TN material. When it meets quality standards, they get the TN document ready for publication as a new resource in Paratext and TW Logos.

The cyclical Work Flow for each Bamboo TN book consists of:

1. Author Draft
2. Peer Review
3. Editor review and revision
4. Author final revision
5. Editor final review and approval
6. Formatting check and preparation for DBL
7. Upload to TW and Paratext

Email Brian Migliazza if you are interested in joining the team and working part-time or full-time with the Bamboo Translator's Notes program.

Translation Resources Links

• Translator's Notes - a synthesis and distillation of recommendations based on the exegetical and translation specific concerns for each book of the Bible - designed for the local Translator

• Exegetical Summaries - a summation of exegetical questions/issues that are raised verse-by-verse for each book of the Bible as represented by leading scholars and commentaries - designed for both the local Translator and the Consultant

• Semantic and Structure Analyses - an analysis of the topics, themes, and discourse devices used for a book of the Bible; attention given to discourse segmentation on the basis of linguistic analysis of the original language texts - designed for the Consultant/ Scholar

• Translation Insights and Perspectives (TIPs) - a collection of translation issues for each book of the Bible (by Jost Zetzsche)

• Inclusive vs Exclusive Pronouns (TIPs) - A TIPs tool making a listing of (almost) all occurrences of first person plural pronouns in the Old Testament and looked at how two languages that use clusivity (Jarai and Adamawa Fulfulde) deal with each occurrence. Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”).

• Paratext TNDD Views - Mark Penny (Language Technology Senior Consultant) and Ian McQuay (Digital Publishing Coordinator) created this additional tool for Paratext, designed to help content creators and checkers to VIEW (but not edit) the TNDD Paratext Project data in different ways.

  • TNDD-table view -- This displays up to four columns.
  • TNDD-1st-mng-line -- This displays the 1st meaning line preceded by the verse reference.
  • TNDD-2nd-mng-line -- This displays the 2nd meaning line and is similar to the 1st line.
  • TNDD-3rd-mng-line -- This displays the 3rd meaning line and is similar to the 1st and 2nd line.
  • TNDD-tag-errors -- This aids content creators to see that there is a markup error that PT does not catch.
  • TNDD-word-count-1st-mng-line - This counts words per sentence. It marks sentence counts of more than 17 in orange and more than 30 words in tomato-red.
  • TNDD-word-count-2nd-mng-line - This counts words per sentence. It marks sentence counts of more than 17 in orange and more than 30 words in tomato-red.

• TN in Other Languages - a list of some other LWCs which have some volumes of TN

• Map Creator - this free map program can be used to put maps in the notes portion of TNs. It is fairly easy to use, but it is also somewhat limited in the variety of maps available. Use the program to take all or a portion of what they have and then add labels, arrows, dots, lines and any other map-like things to it, so that you can make a jpeg to put into your document.

• KTOT - the Key Terms of the Old Testament (KTOT) project has (as of April 2020) articles for 37 terms. Because it is not yet fully integrated into Paratext, it is not included in the release version and must be downloaded and applied separately. Go to this link, click on the “Extras” tab, scroll to the very bottom of the page, then download the <KTOTSLD.p8z> file, by clicking on the file name “KTOTSLD."

• Hebrew Resources for Bible Translation Workers webpage

Bamboo Workshops

• #1: 4-22 Nov 2019 - Nairobi, Kenya. 18 new TN authors trained. Hosted by BTL at Ruiru Conference center

• #2: 25-31 Aug 2021 - Boston, MA, USA. mini-Bamboo workshop. Hosted by Gordon College

Bamboo Poem

Bamboo Progress Tracking

1. Genesis 26-50 - 817 verses/ 24 chapters

2. Exodus 7-40 (except 25-28) - 1,060 verses/ 29 chapters. Editor: Randy Groff. Author: Steve G

   • Sep21 completed chapter 7 (Steve G)

3. Leviticus - 859 verses/ 27 chapters. Editor: Glenn Machlan. Author: Natalie C

   • Jan22 completed chapter 6 (Natalie C)

   • Nov21 completed chapter 5 (Natalie C)

   • July21 completed chapter 4 (Natalie C)

   • May21 completed chapter 3 (Natalie C)

   • Mar21 completed chapter 2 (Natalie C)

   • Nov20 completed chapter 1 (Natalie C)

4. Numbers - 1,288 verses/ 36 chapters. Editor: Glenn Machlan. Authors: Meg B and Royson D

   • Mar22 completed chapter 5 (Meg B)

   • Jan22 completed chapter 18 (Meg B)

   • Nov21 completed chapter 4 (Meg B)

   • July21 completed chapter 3 (Meg B) and chapter 20 (Royson D)

   • May21 completed chapter 19 (Royson D)

   • Mar21 completed chapter 2 (Meg B)

   • Nov20 completed chapter 1 (Meg B)

5. Deuteronomy - 959 verses 34 chapters. Editor: Glenn Machlan. Author: Marlute vD

   • Jan22 completed chapters 4 and 6 (Marlute vD)

   • Sep21 completed chapter 3 (Marlute vD)

   • May21 completed chapter 2 (Marlute vD)

   • Nov20 completed chapter 1 and 18 (Marlute vD)

6. Judges- 618 verses 21 chapters.

7. 1 Kings - 816 verses/ 22 chapters. completed Nov 2021. Editor: Helen Kelly. Authors: Jamuna R, Samuel N, Bruce S, Ruby M, Paul H, John M, Bonifacio P

8. 2 Kings - 719 verses/ 25 chapters. Editor: Helen Kelly. Authors: Jamuna R, Samuel K, John A, Festus A, Jeremiah O

   • Mar22 completed chapters 18 (Festus A) 23, 24, 25 (Jeremiah O)

   • Jan22 completed chapters 7, 8, 9 (Samuel K), 10 (John A), 22 (Jeremiah O)

   • Nov21 completed chapter 12 (John A)

   • Sep21 completed chapter 17 (Festus A)

   • July21 completed chapter 21 (Jeremiah O)

   • May21 completed chapter 4 (Jamuna R), chapter 6 (Samuel K), and chapter 16 (Festus A)

   • Mar21 completed chapter 3 (Jamuna R), chapter 11 (John A), and chapter 20 (Jeremiah O)

   • Jan21 completed chapter 5 (Samuel K)

   • Nov20 completed chapter 1 (Jamuna R) and chapter 2 (Jamuna R)

9. 1 Chronicles - 942 verses/ 29 chapters. Editor: Mack Graham. Authors: Bernard A, Vincent H, Jo P, Katharina H

   • Mar22 completed chapter 17 (Vincent H)

   • Jan22 completed chapters 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (Katharina H) and 27 (Jo P)

   • Nov21 completed chapter 5 (Bernard A), chapters 8 & 9 (Jo P), chapters 12, 13, 14, & 20 (Katharina H),

   • Sep21 completed chapters 3 & 4 (Bernard A), chapters 6 & 7 (Jo P), and chapter 11 (Katharina H)

   • July21 completed chapter 2 (Bernard A) and chapter 10 (Katharina H) and chapter 16 (Vincent H)

   • May21 completed chapter 15 (Vincent H)

   • Mar21 completed chapter 1 (Bernard A)

10. 2 Chronicles - 822 verses/ 36 chapters. Editor: William Hanna. Authors: Bruce S, Paul H, Samuel K, Samuel N, Jamuna R, Ruby M, John M

    • Mar22 completed chapters 13, 34, 35 (Samuel K), 15 (John M), 21 (Samuel N), 31 (Paul H)

    • Jan22 completed chapters 10, 12 (Samuel K), 26 (John A), 29, 30 (Paul H)

    • Nov21 completed chapter 1 (Jamuna R), chapter 8 & 9 (Samuel K), chapter 11 (Ruby M), chapter 14 (John M), chapter 20 (Samuel N)

    • Sep21 completed chapter 4 (Bruce S)

11. Ezra - 280 verses/ 10 chapters: Editor: Ron Radke. Final Reviewers: Joanna P and Peter Y.

    • Jan22 completed chapter 9 (Peter Y, Jo P)

    • Nov21 completed chapter 8 (Peter Y, Jo P, Samuel N)

    • Sep21 completed chapter 7 (Peter Y, Jo P, John M)

    • July21 completed chapter 4 (Jo P, Samuel K, Peter Y) and chapter 5 (Bonifacio P, Jo P, Peter Y)

    • May21 completed chapter 6 (Vincent H, Peter Yuh, Jo P)

    • Jan21 completed chapter 2 (Peter Y, E Chome, Paul H, & Jo P) and chapter 3 (Jo P)

    • Nov20 completed chapter 1 (Peter Y & Jo P)

12. Nehemiah - 406 verses/ 13 chapters: begun at Nairobi Nov 2019 workshop #1. Editor: Steve Christensen. Final Reviewers & Authors: H and Jonah K.

    • Mar22 completed chapter 5 (Festus A)

    • Jan22 completed chapter 3 (H)

    • Sep21 completed chapter 2 (Jonah K) and chapter 4 (Mathews K)

    • May21 completed chapter 1 (H)

13. Job - 1,070 verses/ 42 chapters

14. Psalms - 2,461 verses/ 150 chapters

15. Ecclesiastes - 222 verses/ 12 chapters

16. Isaiah (chapters 40-66) - 526 verses: Editor: Helen Kelly.

17. Jeremiah - 1,364 verses/ 52 chapters

18. Lamentations - 154 verses/ 5 chapters. Editor: Mack Graham. Author: Katharina H,

    • Mar22 completed chapter 1 (Katharina H)

19. Ezekiel - 1,273 verses/ 48 chapters

20. Joel - 73 verses/ 3 chapters: completed July & Nov 2020. Editor: Helen Kelly. Authors: Bernard A, Paul H, Bruce S, and Jamuna R.

21. Amos - 146 verses/ 9 chapters. completed Mar 2021. Editor: Mack Graham. Authors: Mathews K, Joanna P, Vincent H, Bernard A

22. Obadiah - 21 verses: completed Jan 2021. Editor: Glenn Machlan. Author: Roman K

23. Nahum - 47 verses/ 3 chapters. completed Jan 2022. Editor: Glenn Machlan. Author: Roman K

24. Habakkuk - 56 verses/ 3 chapters. completed July 2021. Editor: Glenn Machlan. Author: Roman K

25. Zephaniah - 53 verses/ 3 chapters. Editor: Glenn Machlan. Author: Roman K

    • Mar22 completed chapters 1, 2 (Roman K)

26. Haggai - 38 verses/ 2 chapters: completed Mar 2021. Editor: Mack Graham. Author: Mathews K

27. Zechariah - 211 verses/ 14 chapters. Editor: Mack Graham. Author: Mathews K

    • Jan22 completed chapters 6, 7, 8 (Mathews K)

    • Sep21 completed chapters 3, 4, & 5 (Mathews K)

    • July21 completed chapter 2 (Mathews K)

    • May21 completed chapter 1 (Mathews K)