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Samuel Kpagheri - Togo, Africa
(September 2024)
Samuel Kpagheri - Togo, Africa
(September 2024)
How did you get interested in Bible translation? When I was in secondary school, I was involved in a literacy program in my mother tongue, and the portions of the NT that were translated into this language were sent to me for proofreading. When I was in college, I also translated some booklets such as ‘The Heart of Man?’, ‘Help from Above’ and ‘Who shall deliver me’ into my mother tongue. This gave me a particular interest in Bible translation and when I was asked to join the translation team to translate the OT into my mother tongue, I did not hesitate. Later, when the full Bible was translated into my mother tongue, I felt that I could help others by being a translation consultant.
What gets you excited when you work with others in Bible translation? The first thing that gets me excited is the Word of God itself. Every verse I check with the translator seems to be new to me and I always discover new things in it for myself. Interacting with other people through the Word of God, and trying to understand how their language works is always exciting. When the checking of a portion or a book is done, it is always a great pleasure for me.
What is your consulting philosophy? My first concern when checking is to serve as a facilitator between the translators’ work and the source text. With relevant questions, I help the translators identify what they have done well and what they need to improve in their translation. Besides the clarity and faithfulness of the translation, translators have to read aloud during the checking session to identify the naturalness of the translation.
What translation resources do you really value? I value the resources found in Paratext and Logos, particularly the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia along with the Abridged Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament, UBS Handbook for Translators in English and French, the valuable exegesis found in Translator’s Notes, the meaning lines of Translator’s Notes, and the Comprendre pour Traduire.
How do you continue to grow as a consultant? Continuing studies of Hebrew and Greek, going through former checking reports, and reading translation journals in English and French. I also learn a lot when I teach in workshops.
How do you share your translation discoveries with others? I share my translation discoveries during translation training workshops, consultant checking sessions, interacting with the members of my organisation and churches. Writing articles for journals dealing with translation issues is another way to share my translation discoveries.
Can you share about a time when you realized you were wrong and what you learned from it? I checked the book of Numbers with a translation team, and sent the report of the check to the team. But while going through the report, the coordinator realized that there is an omission of ‘Please, my lord’ in 12.11. He wrote back to me about this omission and I acknowledged with gratitude that his remark was true. I had omitted this clause when I was writing my report.
What are your top tips for someone starting on a career path in Bible translation? First of all, have a good relationship with God and be a Bible student. Be a good reader and love people from different cultures. Be ready to learn and be teachable. Know that a Bible translator or consultant requires spending a lot of time before the Lord for guidance, but also in preparing the material to be translated or checked, hence perseverance is necessary. Finally, humility is one of the important things to cultivate.
Share something that you learned from a mentor or from a mentee? Joseph Koabike has been my mentor and I learned many things from him. One of these is to have a small notebook in my pocket wherever I go and write down things that people say and do. This method has helped me to write down new, strange, unfamiliar things in many cultures, including my own culture, and to discover their meaning.
What do you see as the place of the church in Bible translation? Actually, the church is the owner of the Bible translation. The church's ownership of the direction and outcomes of Bible translation is essential for transformation and lasting impact. The Church plays a key role in ensuring that projects are locally relevant, in relationship-building, decision-making, funding and assurance of the quality of Bible translation programs.
What would you say to young/aspiring translators? Being a translator is a vocation. The translator must be sure that he or she has received the call from God. They must trust God in time of difficulties and attacks of the Devil. As in all Christian ministries, they must know that God is the only provider in all domains. They must also trust God to help him to do the work of translation. He must be prepared to work hard in order to achieve the competencies and skills for the work.
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