Keyboarding at SIL

Last Monday Joyce and I went to work. Well, I probably should put “work” in quotes since it isn’t wage-earning work and is totally voluntary. Let me tell the back story. I know you may already know this but a little review will keep it all straight.

Wycliffe is an organization that recruits, trains, and sends people (think missionary) to other nationalities to translate the New Testament into their “heart” language. I’m sure there are variations around the world so I’m going to focus on Mexico. There are hundreds of indigenous languages and various dialects spoken in Mexico. Many (most) of these are spoken by a local community with the village just over the mountain (or down the road or down the river) speaking a variation of that language – but a vary distinct variation.

Missionaries have been going to those villages, learning the heart language, and then translating the New Testament into that language. Bibles were printed and the people were taught to read. This takes, on average, about 30 years – a career for a missionary couple. Years ago this was all done on paper. Then came the computer which simplified the process.

The agency that sends the missionaries (now think translators) is called SIL – short for Summer Institute of Linguistics. Long story here and I don’t know all of it. Suffice to say that we are at the Mexico Branch Office of SIL – Wycliffe. This is in Catalina, Arizona at the extreme north end of Tucson. There are jobs here for hundreds of volunteers but usually only about 100 to 110 at the peak. These do not all work all the time at the same time. Some only one day a week, or only in the mornings. Some of the jobs are sewing, quilt making, rug making, furniture repair and refinishing, carpentry, simple house repair, yard maintenance, making snacks for everyone, stamps, and keyboarding. There used to be an auto repair but the IRS shut them down because of some obscure law. I’m sure there are other jobs I’m not thinking of. Joyce is working in stamps and we’ll tell about that another time.

There are four computers in this small room but it works out okay. The company is enjoyable.

I am doing keyboarding. When I was here before – can you believe it was 4 years ago? I can’t! – I put into computer some of the New Testaments that were pre-computer. We used the printed Bible as our copy text and keyed in the appropriate characters. It took several years to complete all the New Testaments in all the languages that had been previously translated.

They have now finished this process and we are keyboarding Old Testament Summaries. The OT is not translated in its entirety but rather a summary is written and that is translated into the particular language.

I need to pick up a loose end here. I mentioned heart language. That is the language that belongs to that village. They might speak Spanish but that is an imposed language. It is like an American Indian whose heart language is Navaho. He also speaks English but Navaho is the language that speaks to his heart.

So I (and others) are keyboarding the language of the Seri people. They live along the Gulf of California on the mainland side about half way down the Baja. There are about 650 to 1000 speakers of this language. It was once endangered but is now rebounding. The July 2012 issue of the National Geographic has an article on the “Vanishing Voices.” The Seri language is one they featured. Lots of pictures. Check it out. Ed and Becky Moser went to this area in 1951 to begin the long process of translation. They finished the New Testament, an Old Testament Summary, a dictionary, and some other material. Ed died several years ago and Becky died a month or so ago. Their daughter Cathy and her husband Larry Marlett have been updating and revising these works. Four years ago I edited a book on the Seri language for Larry. Now I get to keyboard the OT summary.

Here Joyce is hard at work sorting stamps:

Our schedule is very “demanding.” We go to chapel at 8:00 (if we want to). Work from about 8:45 to 10:00, take a break, work until noon. Go back to work at 1:00, take a break at 2:30, and quit at 4:00. All of this – if we want to. Monday thru Thursday. Friday is a day off. So for about 5 1/2 to 6 hours a day I type away. Here is a sample. It comes from near the beginning of the Old Testament. Can you recognize a couple of words?

Cmaam tiquij Eva impah. Adán xah Eva xah ziix z iti imaaiha xo ziix z iij cöpahiitax hant z iti tmoiiha. Taax isolca coi ziiz quih imiipe taax isolca coi iti tmahcama taaxah aa itahma aama. Yooz quij cmique quih cöiixi ac hipi isoj quijo yaaiha.

All I can tell you is that it is something about Adam and Eve and that the word “Yooz” is God. It occurs many times and is always capitalized. You notice a lot of repetition and a lot of qu and z and x? My left little finger has never had so much work! The computer has a special program in it that lets me enter the two dots over the “o” by pressing the colon (:) and then the oh. To get the glotal like over the “a” I press the back slash (/) and then the a. These are called diacritics and this language has very few. Some have lots and others have LOTS. It took me all week (minus a few of the above mentioned hours to get a haircut and do laundry) to type 30 pages (some with pictures). Generally it takes me about 12-15 minutes to type a page and 20 minutes to check the page for errors. Another person is also entering the same information. Later we will compare our work with a special program that shows any discrepancies. We will correct these using the original book, but I haven’t done that yet.

Why is all this done? For preservation. To make possible the printing of more Bibles or Summaries as “on demand” printing. That means they can have printed only as many as are needed – one or two if desired. Another reason is that these computerized New Testaments are available on the internet. You – yes, you – can find a portion of the Bible in the heart language of your new neighbor, co-worker, friend, whoever. You can print on your printer as much as you want to give to them as you talk to them about spiritual things.

Yesterday we wanted to stay close to “home” so I would have more time to finish the Senior Adult Newsletter and work on this blog post so we went to church nearby – The First Baptist Church of Catalina. It was a good service, very much aimed at older folks. The Pastor’s sermon was “Understanding Imputed Sin.” I won’t comment.

Here is our setup on Jim’s RV pad:

Weather? The first part of last week was fabulous! Highs near 80*. At the end of the week we got a storm from Mexico that dumped rain Thursday and Saturday. Now we are getting a storm from Canada that is bringing cold weather and a little rain. They say it will snow at higher elevations tonight and are warning us about ice on the roads for tomorrow morning. I’ll leave you with this picture I took Saturday late afternoon. It is looking southeast. The mountains are the Santa Catalinas.