Halfway down the Danube

Where's your diglossia now?

Recent conversation on a new Bible translation:

K: "You got the Gullah Bible? Dude. What's it like?"

Me (considers): "It's like a really twisted Lenny Bruce routine."

Here's a bit of Acts -- in Gullah, De Postle Dem -- chapter 13, verses 6 through 12.

Dey gone all de way cross de islant til dey come ta Paphos. And dey meet one root man dey wa name Bar-Jedus. E been a Jew dat call esef a prophet, bot e ain been fa true. Bar-Jedus beena stay longside de islant gobna. Dat gobna name Sergius Paulus, an e been a man wa hab sense. Now de gobna sen fa Barnabas an Saul, cause e been wahn fa yeh God wod. Bot de root man Elymas (dat be de Greek name fa Bar-Jedus), e gone ginst Barnabas an Saul. E try fa mek Gobna Sergius Paulus stop bleebe pon Jedus.

Now Saul, wa dey call Paul too, e been ful op wid de Holy Sperit. Saul gone an look haad at Elymas. E say, "Ya de Debil chile! Ya fight ginst ebry good ting! Ya haat full op wid bad trick an ceitful ting. Ya ain neba gwine stop try fa change de Lawd true way eenta a lie, ainty? Now den, de Lawd done pit e han ginst ya. Ya gwine be bline. Ya ain gwine see de sunlight fa some time."

Same time Elymas eye gone daak. E staat fa wanda roun, da look fa somebody fa hole e han an lead um, cause e bline. Wen de gobna see wa happen, e bleebe pon Jedus. E been too stonish wen e laan bout de Lawd.

Just for comparison purposes, here's Clarence Jordan's "Cotton Patch" translation of the same passage into a different Southern dialect:

Next they went to Tuscaloosa, where they ran into a joker named "Reverend Jesus." He was a phony white preacher who was a friend of the mayor, Sergent Powell, a shrewd guy himself. The mayor sent for Barney and Saul and wanted to hear what the word of God was all about. However, Reverend Ellis (that was his real name) strenuously objected and did his best to sidetrack the mayor from the faith. Then Saul (or Paul as he was also called), running over with Holy Spirit, looked him in the eye and said, "You crooked creep! You low-down louse! You son of the devil! You full-time phony! You habitually twist God's clear message out of shape. All right, now listen, the Lord has put the finger on you and you'll be as blind as a bat for some time." Right then and there he was completely socked in and started wandering around looking for somebody to lead him by the hand. The the mayor, seeing the way things had turned out -- and shook up by the teaching of the Lord -- began to live by the Unseen.

Incidentally, in Jordan's translation, Jesus is from Valdosta.

Posted by coyu at April 4, 2006 04:03 AM