Culture and Language Influence Each Other
Language works to shape socialization paradigms for any group of people, within any social organization. It allows them to appropriate their social spaces and rituals in a more profound and intentional manner, bringing about an elaborate cultural value system. Essentially language shapes realities. The value for language especially around aspects such as religion continues to permeate across society and its implication have had profound consequences mainly because they allow the appropriation of religious values to specific socio-cultural value system. The following essay outlines how language has affected Christianity (assuming Christianity to be a cultural value system). Christian practices and Christianity in general as a religious culture changes from one region, to another, this is because of language change (through translation) that has led to appropriation of canonical authorities first established in the scripture to meaning and practices that reflect social norms of the translator.
Translation of the Bible, for instance, to eurocentric languages, and the consequent conversion of the global south through missionary work and colonization altered most societies in the global south to eurocentrist perspective of the world. The consequent rise in vernacular translation in the 21st century, is reversing the trend, and making people appropriate Christianity to their own cultural system formations. Sanneh outlines that “when we take translation seriously, we find that the rules according to which the enterprise succeeds or fails are generally determined by indigenous paradigms.” In the context of Bible translation to other languages the essence of translation creates distinct religious/ cultural practices that could all be justified as Christian values relative to the people’s language and cultural value system.
Take the example of the Quran. Research outlines that in Islam, the notion of translation is identified to make the Quran lose it canonical authority (Sanneh). As such, potential to change religious practices. But, since it has largely been maintained in Arabic, Islamic practices have more or less remained similar throughout the world, permeating across race, gender, and geographical locations. The same cannot be said for Christianity. Masondo outlines that “Christianity seized to be solely a white man’s religion. … The success and growth of Christianity among Africans was greatly dependant on translation” (88). Translation extended the power and appropriation to other societies.
Extending the power of scriptural status to other languages can be considered to have profound consequences. Sanneh questions whether the translation of the Bible from Hebrew or Latin, to English, German, French and other european languages, were an elaborate ploy of cultural espionage to transform most Africa, Asian and North and South American territories to have eurocentric mindset, and adapt Christianity. While this was initially the case in Africa and the rest of the world the rise in vernacular translation has worked to create a new philologic perspective. Masondo outlines that “Africans managed to translate foreign concepts into local idiom and used these idioms as a means to acclimate beliefs and practices into indigenous life” (88). Thus appropriating Christianity to their own culture, creating distinct value system separate from those in the west, or east.
By translating the Bible to their own languages, these European societies too brought their own very different experiences and meanings to bear on the transmission and reception of the Bible. As such, altering the authorial context, to aspects relatable within their own cultures and shaping the word in their own individual paradigms. Sanneh “whether or not it [translation] is encouraged by political realities; the translation enterprise thus assumes a central role for mother-tongue speakers” (97). As such, working to cater to their social norms and practices.
This become elaborate during transmission of the Bible to the global south, as more and more societies, were attuned to adapt to eurocentric norms in their socialization process (as well as maintaining their own cultural values). Creating a mix between two dominant values. When given the power to translate to their African vernacular Christian value system also changed to become more attuned to their indegenous social value systems and cater for their cultural practices. In South Africa, aspects such as abaphansi basifulathele, a term used to describe the fact that ancestors had given their back to the community for shunning cultural practices were adopted into the new Bible translations (Masondo). The indegenous paradigms become elaborately outlined in new Christian cultural practices, this can also be said to have been the case for European translations of the Bible from Latin.
Conclusively, language affects culture and vice-versa. Assuming Christianity to be a culture, translation of the Bible from its initial form, allowed it to lose canonical authorial context in favor of the translator cultural value system. Making their own Christian experience closer to their social, cultural and political belief systems. This is an aspects that cannot be said for Islam, as lack of translation, has seen Islamism, retain its unique value system across the world, changing the cultures as a whole. Christianity, which has allowed translation, has seen the essence of the religion become changed from one region to another.
Works Cited
Masondo, Sibusiso. “Indigenous Conceptions of Conversion among African Christians in South
Africa.” Journal for the Study of Religion, vol. 28, no. 2, Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa (ASRSA), 2015, pp. 87–112, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24805693.
Sanneh, Lamin. “‘They Stooped to Conquer’: Vernacular Translation and the Socio-Cultural
Factor.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 23, no. 1, Indiana University Press, 1992, pp. 95–106, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3819952.
