Poetic Translation with the Kaaps
Last week, we had our first Psalms that Sing workshop with Kaaps musicians. The team spent a week delving into the psalms, exploring the emotions and poetic expressions, orally and poetically translating them into Kaaps, and then creating performances based on the translations. It was a really exciting and special week!
Psalms that Sing is an initiative that started in response to the issue of translating biblical poetry. Especially in Oral Bible Translation, translating biblical poetry using narrative and prose strategies doesn’t work. So, a team was put together and has been working on psalm guides and a workshop program to guide local musicians and poets as they translate the Psalter.
The Kaaps are an urban people group found in many suburbs of the Cape Flats. They are a colourful and entertaining people, known for their local verbal art and music. Afrikaans developed out of their creole Dutch- and Malay-based contact language. Descended from Sumatra slaves imported by the Dutch around 1650, they have historically been oppressed by several races. More recently, though, there has been a surge in identity and in peace with surrounding groups.
The group that gathered for this first psalms workshop started off sceptical, but ended the first day with such excitement. By the end of the week they were talking about never reading or hearing the psalms in the same way ever again. They had been opened up to them in a new way, using the oral process of getting to know and creatively internalising a psalm each day. They also talked of having their language and culture liberated, through the oral process of translating each psalm into true poetic Kaaps – the Bible in Kaaps.
As an exceptionally talented group of people, the team blessed us as facilitators with their compositions throughout the week. Whether it was a small theme-based poem or song, or a full musical performance based on the complete Kaaps translation, they threw themselves into every aspect and created some beautiful music.
I think I speak on behalf of the whole team when I say that I’m so excited to start the next workshop in December, and to see where the psalms take us next.
By Helen van der Walt
