Translation into Chulym, an act in linguistic palliative care

The man of the moment, Aleksandr.

Let's get back to the Chulym language and people. According to Aleksandr there are 600 registered Chulym people in Tomsk Oblast and around 150 registered Chuylm people in Krasnoyarsk Krai. The villages they live in are along the same Chuylm River system. The villages in the Krasnoyarsk territory and Tomsk Oblast are not connected by road. So to travel between them would mean 2-3 days travel via the highway in the south.

Of the 150 in the Krasnoyarsk territory, 100 of them live in the village of Pasechnoe and the other 50 in surrounding villages.

Of the 100 in Pasechnoe there around 20 "speakers" of the Chulym language. I do not know how many speakers there are in the Tomsk Oblast.

Having had contact with a few endangered languages already, and having done a lot of reading on the topic, and having spoken with world experts like the late Stephen Wurm (speaker of 40 languages including Evenki) and having attended conferences on endangered languages in my time, I guess I have developed a few opinions on the topic. Without a doubt Chulym is the most endangered language that I have come into contact with, and is certainly up there among the world's most endangered languages. My thoughts on the topic continue to evolve, and this latest trip has given me a lot of food for thought.

Our traveling team managed to sit down with Aleksandr on Sunday to record some stories with him. This proved a much more difficult task than we had envisioned. There were reasons for this though. Aleksandr had worked very hard over the last year to translate some texts that Tim had given him. Through the help of our linguist friend from Tomsk he was able to use a written script.

I had hoped that we might be able to develop an oral feel to the stories that we were recording. My idea was to translate phrase for phrase from Russian to Chulym. This process has worked very well among many oral peoples around the world. But when it got down to brass tacks this was very difficult for Aleksandr. Phrase by phrase, he managed to record one story, with the help of his writings. Once this initial recording had been made, we played it back to him with the Russian edited out. In fact we played the recording back to him over ten times, so that he could hopefully get comfortable with it, and get his memory going. It was a short story. We had hoped that he would be able to record it a second time, completely orally without the help of writing.

Aleksandr sat there and looked at his notes. He had worked so hard on them. It was just too big a step for him to put them down. His wife remarked (I wish she hadn't) that he sounded like a first grade student reading. He challenged her to read the text in Chulym. (She, not being Chulym.)

We did not want to pressure him, and realised that there was not benefit in trying to push through. Tim and I discussed ideas and together we came up with the idea of getting outside and recording the same story in the context of nature, as the story was about creation. Sitting in the living room had too much of an academic feel to it.

Aleksandr was tired and needed a break. He went to the kitchen for a cup of tea. I went and sat down for a chat with him. This was when I learnt many things about the socio linguistic context of the language. Aleksandr explained to me that after thinking in Chulym for about 20 minutes he started to get a head ache. He was trying to recall words that he rarely ever uses.

The part that surprised me was when Aleksandr explained to me that he hasn't really spoken his language for 40 years. He is nearly 60, but Chulym is not a big part of his daily life. But make no mistakes, it is still a big part of his identity. I asked him if there were other speakers in his village. He told me there are about 20. I did not ask about their ages, but my guess is that they would be similar in age. I asked him if he ever spoke Chulym with these other speakers. Aleksandr's answer was that they exchanged a few phrases with each other when they saw each other, but never sit down to a conversation in Chuylm.

Knowing something about orality and how oral languages work, I continued my line of questioning. I was aware that some linguists (made famous in their Sundance Film Festival, film "The Linguists") had visited a Chulym village in recent years to do research. They claimed that there are 5000 words in the Chulym language. Instead of just saying to Aleksandr, "there are 5000 words in your language" I phrased the question differently. I told him about the documentary and the claim that those linguists had made. Let me qualify, that for an oral language, 5000 words is a lot. A living oral language is choc full of word pictures, metaphors and idioms. Simple words are used to describe concepts through stories. These stories have fossilised idioms that remind people of the meaning behind the story. We have many in English such as "don't look a gift horse in the mouth", "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink", "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Oral languages usually have hundreds, even thousands of these idioms and metaphors. That way they can have a lot more than 5000 concepts, while using only 5000 words. When I asked Aleksandr about the number of words in his language, he referred to the work that he had done with our linguist friend from Tomsk. They had arrived on a figure between 1000 and 1200, but no higher. I am certainly curious about this discrepancy.

I continued my questioning to ask about idioms in Chulym. I thought, surely an oral language like Chulym would have so many that Aleksandr could remember some. I explained a Russian idiom as an example "not any fluff, not any feather" which means "good luck".  Aleksandr said that Chulym had none. Now of course, Chulym as a living language would have had countless idioms. But combined with the fact that Aleksandr has not spoken Chulym actively for 40 years, and that he does not recall any idioms, it hit me square between the eyes: Chulym is already not a living, breathing language. Contrast this with the fact that in Kellog, even the Ket speakers above 40 were carrying out entire conversations with each other in their language. (Despite the fact that they are forbidden to use it in church services, which of course makes my blood boil over.)

I have spoken of the concept of linguistic palliative care before. When training at SIL, we had discussions on how languages were chosen for bible translation projects. SIL has a process that would eliminate many Siberian languages from the list. I have a deep passion for Siberian peoples, and know that God loves them and their culture. I know that language and identity are very closely intertwined for people. Think of a language like a patient. A patient may have a case of cancer. The cancer affecting the Evenki language could yet be turned around. The cancer affecting the Mohawk language in Canada has been pushed deep into recess. The cancer affecting Welsh and Gaelic looks to be defeated. The cancer affecting Chulym is a terminal case on its death bed.

When a patient has cancer and is dying, do we leave them to die in isolation and pain? No. We make every attempt to alleviate their pain, to make their passing as love soaked as possible. I am convinced that is how we need to treat people who are losing their languages, whose language is already past the point of no return.

Tim has the desire to make a video for the Chulym people. The video will include stories in the Chulym language. Stories of love and creation. Stories in Chulym speech, with Chulym, Russian and English subtitles. Tim already made a video of the last trip to Pasechnoe, with interviews from Aleksandr. Aleksandr loved this video. Such a project would be a blessing to Aleksandr, to his Chulym "speaking" friends and to other Chulym speakers in the Tomsk Oblast. It would also be a blessing to their children and grandchildren to hear the language and read Russian subtitles. It would give them a sense of connection to their heritage. This is love in the midst of suffering. This is a very bright example of the gospel in action.

I am convinced that this is the most important goal of any translation project. The process, the journey itself is an act of love and discipleship. The goal of the gospel is never to provide somebody with a "fire insurance certificate". The goal of the gospel is to introduce them to the Living Saviour, who gives Living Water, who draws people to himself. If I speak in the tongues of men and angels and have not love, I am but a clanging cymbal. If I translation a thousand verses, stories and Psalms and have not love.... I am nothing... it is not the gospel.

Linguistic palliative care needs to be understood in the world of Christian linguistics. This is what the Chulym and many Siberian peoples need.