Adventures in translation
This was my “wrapped the chain around the axle” moment today.
My assignment this month is to read a long-form essay, understand it, and then read it out loud & record it for my professor. It’s not a terribly difficult essay, but it taxes my brain because it’s a lot of content to read with comprehension well enough to explain it.
Then I came across this word: “chèmètchè-mètrès”.
Having no clue what this might be, I looked it up in my dictionaries (plural).
No entry.
I used Google to search the web. In all the world, this essay is the only place where it occurs.
I have no idea what this word means. I don’t understand the rest of the sentence well enough to guess at the meaning.
But surely this is not the end of my sleuthing!
I realize that the document is hyphenated weirdly anyway. In all the other cases, I know the hyphenated word so I “close it up” without really trying to understand it. But this—this seems like maybe it was trying to be a single word and that the hyphenation went whacko.
Then I look up “chèmètchèmètrès,” which again doesn’t exist.
But I see those two endings “-mèt” and “-mètrès.” I know those endings and how they modify a word.
I split it into two words: “chèmèt chèmètrès.”
I still have no idea what either one means, but now I can find these words in the dictionary. And in the Bible. And in online texts. And in films. It seems almost a common or well-known expression.
It’s a phrase that essentially means “owner-occupied” or “this thing that I made and that I own.”
And now the sentence makes sense because I know this about Haiti: the people are very proud that they created their own language and made it their own.
« Ayiti se yon peyi ki gen yon lang ki rele li chèmèt chèmètrès. »
Haiti is a country with a language that is its very own.
The experience was very good for me. I didn’t go right to my Haitian friends. I tried to figure it out myself, did some work to guess at what might have happened, and then got the meaning. (I did end up getting more context from them after I had “broken the code.”)
But—that journey of understanding was an hour of work . . . and the essay has 5200 words in it.
Wish me luck!
(To be fair, I know about 90% of the words, so it’s just going to be work and not complete frustration.)
Addendum:
What I learned from the learning experience
The essential task here was “do for yourself.” And as I recall the history and culture of Haiti, I see so much of this. There is the konbit, a temporary work team that comes together to work a project.
The konbit leader isn’t assigned by anyone: They emerge as the person who knows how to define a vision and a project, and gather people around to do all the work. The konbit comprises not only the workers, though. It also includes the support people—those who make and serve the meals, those who do the errands, those who provide the money for supplies, those who bring the supplies, and so on.
Then, when the project is done, the konbit disbands and people return to their lives.
The movie “Oliver!” has a scene that this reminds me of: it’s when the Artful Dodger sings “Consider Yourself.” The people of the street, going about their lives, are dancing and singing and participating with all their might and passion. Then, at the last note, they all just . . . go back to what they were doing.
That’s the essence of community help that is not put upon people as “work parties” and not an isolate few trying to get something done.
I see this in how this experience worked to discover what the words meant. I tried for myself to figure it out using resources, my own ability to parse the meaning of an unknown word in its own context, and then through deduction and inference figured it out. By unlocking the proper spelling, the resources that depend upon spelling were able to help me.
And I was able to learn on my own—do for myself—and become smarter and more engaged in the process.
Top photo by Fedya Jean-Baptiste from https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/a-controversial-irrigation-canal-is-a-new-symbol-of-hope-for-haiti/
Bottom photo from https://realhopeforhaiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Konbit-4.jpeg
Essay Kesyon Lang nan Ansèyman Siperyè nan Peyi Ayiti by Dr. Marky Jean-Pierre, Tulane University