Chaz Mortensen works in the Americas Area of SIL. After helping complete a translation in the Northern Embera language of Panama and Colombia, he has worked as a consultant in four other varieties of Embera and in three languages of Guatemala. He has been married to Helga for 33 years. They have three children (two married) and one grandchild.
Concurrent Consultant Checking in Multiple Languages
Abstract
The development of new consultants in the Bible translation community has not kept up with demand. Our current consultants need a method that yields a greater payoff for their efforts.
In an Old Testament project in Guatemala, consultants have responsibility for multiple translation teams that are not closely related yet who work on the same books at the same time. The teams prepare back-translations for those books that will be checked at quarterly sessions. To prepare for the sessions, the consultant checks each back translation concurrently and the simpler issues are dealt with. The workshop is used to discuss more difficult issues and for training.
A seemingly novel idea, the consultants present topics daily to benefit all translation teams. This reduces the need to organize separate training workshops.
The obvious advantage to concurrent checking is that consultants can check a text in multiple languages while studying the exegesis once. Paratext enables one to put flag notes in the respective back-translations. Checking the same book in a second translation adds only 30% more time over checking them separately.
During the workshops, however, the teams who are best prepared have to wait for others to make revisions. Also, waiting for each team to answer comprehension questions consecutively causes delay. Nevertheless, concurrent checking gives translators greater camaraderie, stretches funders’ dollars further, and yields greater accomplishment for consultants.