During my week with the Lubuagan Kalinga team, we discussed various translation issues. There were the normal big challenges of what is the best word in this culture to carry the message of God's "love" in a text like John 3:16. Here the usual word for love can also mean "want." Is it better then to say that the world was so "precious" to God? These are the kinds of challenges that every translator faces.
Here we also encountered a more superficial issue which I had not spent much time thinking about - what terms to use for the many personal names in the Bible. Many languages here in the Philippines face this issue in a unique way because of their colonial history. First Spain colonized the Philippines and for over 300 years the culture was infused by Spanish influence so that most "christian" names used were of Spanish origin. This then was transferred into Bible translations in most major Philippine languages were the usual practice was to use the Spanish names for characters like "Juan" and "Pedro." In a later stage of Philippine colonial history, America came in following the Spanish-American war in the late 1800s and dominated the culture for most of the 20th century. The American period had a particular impact on the northern tribal communities which had largely avoided the Spanish influence. The Americans introduced mass education programs among the northern tribal communities and helped them integrate to a larger extent with the dominant Philippine communities in the lowlands. Again the American influence is seen in the fact that many tribal people carry "American" names like "John" and "Peter." However the Spanish influence coming through the dominant "lowland" culture is also present so that both Spanish and American names are common. Many in the tribal communities feel more positive toward the American period than the earlier Spanish period, so while in most major language translations it was simply standard practice to use the Spanish names for biblical characters, northern tribal people debate this issue and many prefer to use the American names instead. This might be a simple issue of choosing one or the other except for the fact that Ilocano, the major "trade language" in the north and Tagalog, the national languages are familiar to the people and so people may be puzzled if the see the American name used in their translation where the see the Spanish name in the major language versions. I don't think we settled this issue conclusively, but I believe the trend is toward using the names which have come in through American English instead of the Spanish names.
Here we also encountered a more superficial issue which I had not spent much time thinking about - what terms to use for the many personal names in the Bible. Many languages here in the Philippines face this issue in a unique way because of their colonial history. First Spain colonized the Philippines and for over 300 years the culture was infused by Spanish influence so that most "christian" names used were of Spanish origin. This then was transferred into Bible translations in most major Philippine languages were the usual practice was to use the Spanish names for characters like "Juan" and "Pedro." In a later stage of Philippine colonial history, America came in following the Spanish-American war in the late 1800s and dominated the culture for most of the 20th century. The American period had a particular impact on the northern tribal communities which had largely avoided the Spanish influence. The Americans introduced mass education programs among the northern tribal communities and helped them integrate to a larger extent with the dominant Philippine communities in the lowlands. Again the American influence is seen in the fact that many tribal people carry "American" names like "John" and "Peter." However the Spanish influence coming through the dominant "lowland" culture is also present so that both Spanish and American names are common. Many in the tribal communities feel more positive toward the American period than the earlier Spanish period, so while in most major language translations it was simply standard practice to use the Spanish names for biblical characters, northern tribal people debate this issue and many prefer to use the American names instead. This might be a simple issue of choosing one or the other except for the fact that Ilocano, the major "trade language" in the north and Tagalog, the national languages are familiar to the people and so people may be puzzled if the see the American name used in their translation where the see the Spanish name in the major language versions. I don't think we settled this issue conclusively, but I believe the trend is toward using the names which have come in through American English instead of the Spanish names.
