14/11/2023
Yesterday I had the immense honour to meet and speak with Father Phanourious, who has been the primary translator of Orthodox Christian worship into the Kalenjin language since 1995. Father Phanourious' translations have been praised for their clarity, beauty, and singability.
Father Phanourious told me that he works from an English base text, with reference to the Kiswahili version. He writes his translations by hand into a notebook, and discusses them with colleagues, before handing them over to a typist. Fr Phanourious then reviews and corrects the typed copy, which is then reviewed by His Grace, Bishop NEOFITOS who is a native speaker of Kalenjin and a theologian who knows the Greek originals. After corrections are made and the draft is approved, the the typed copy is sent off to be printed.
Father Phanourious' excellent and conscientious quality assurance process is exactly the sort of thing that the Liturgical Translation Program of the Orthodox Christian Mission Center hopes to support and develop. With insight from the discoveries of translation scholarship, and with handbooks that explain the meaning of the Greek originals in detail, Father Phanourious could oversee a team of translators who could work much more rapidly than one individual. With the participation of a Translation Consultant (which I am training to become), the team could identify and correct errors in meaning much earlier in the process. Review of early drafts by users (priests, cantors, parishioners) could identify potential misunderstandings as well as provide insight into the "usability" of a draft. Pilot testing of a limited run of books can further identify areas of improvement before a large number of copies is printed. Doxa (the computer program that undergirds Digital Chant Stands) can automatically generate the PDFs to send to a printer to make hard copies.
And His Grace, an eminently qualified scholar, has so much work on his plate in addition to translation review. The process we hope to provide should ensure that, by the time a draft makes its way to His desk, He will find it very close to perfect already, and will not have to devote many hours to making corrections.
Father Phanourious told me that he does not have the original handwritten copies of all of his translations, nor can all the computer files be found. Part of our work will be to digitize extant printed texts and store them in the DCS, so that they are not lost forever!
The possibility of a Kalenjin language Liturgical Translation Project is, unfortunately, still a few years away. I eagerly anticipate the day when Father Phanourious and I, along with an entire team, can begin this work in earnest!
