Wednesday, December 11, 2013

My very first Ofis field trip (Pidgin RTT)




Often surveyors use Recorded Text Testing to measure how well speakers of one dialect understand a related one. To give you a feel for what it is like, have someone read this story to you. Stop at each number and ask the corresponding question.   This story is told in a mixture of Standard English and Pidgin English by my colleague, Jerry, who works in vernacular media services (VMS) of our group.

My very first Ofis field trip, for Kano, somewhere for Gombe State, abi one village for Gombe State. Na one of they languages wey need Scripture recording for their language (1).  Na three of us go for my ofis. (2) Me, Iliya and team leader John.  We go there, we go there, safe and sound.  We no jam any wahala for road. (3) The people accommodate us well well.  In fact, we dey chop chicken almost every day. (4)  I never really travel go that part of Northern Nigeria before.  I never even know say language like that dey.  Wetin sweet me for the whole trip, for all the recording, for all the meeting the people, for all the work wey we do,  wetin sweet me now, the first time wey I realize how the work of translation dey important. (5) Honestly, na good thing to see how other languages dey praise God in their own culture in their own language.  Honestly, that na my wake up call, because that my first experience, because the whole people come out. (6) Because we do songs, gospel songs, for their language. (7) We think say we go see, maybe a few set of people. (8) Instead we see different choir groups different churches dey come because everybody excited. (9)

1)     Who needed Scripture recording?
2)     How many people went?
3)     What happened on the way?
4)     What did they eat?
5)     What makes him happy about the trip?
6)     Who came out?
7)     What kind of songs did they do?
8)     What did they think they would see?
9)     How did everybody feel?

Answers (there may be some acceptable variation in the responses)
1)     One of the languages
2)     Three people
3)     They didn’t have any trouble
4)     Chicken
5)     How he realized that Bible translation work is important
6)     All the people
7)     Gospel songs
8)     A few groups of people
9)     Excited

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