Abstract:
Human beings have various ways of communicating between them. Proverbs are one of the
ways. Like other world communities, Banyamulenge also communicate using this form of
language. This work entitled: Compiling and Translating Kinyamulenge Cow-related Proverbs
into English: A Safeguard of Cultural core Values aims at compiling Kinyamulenge cowrelated
proverbs and translating them into English. Banyamulenge are mainly cattle breeding
people living in the DRC, in south of South Kivu Province. Banyamulenge have strong
attachment to cow and believe that they can hardly survive without it. Their literature is mostly
oral. Little has been written on Banyamulenge, for that reason, I have thought of bringing my
little contribution to making this literature move from orality to written form through translating
some Kinyamulenge cow proverbs into English in order that new and future Banyamulenge
generation can read them for culture sustainability. Also, foreigners interested in their culture can
resource themselves to this document.
I conducted this research in the DRC (Bwegera) and Rwanda (Kigali, Butare and Kayonza)
where I could find some senior men Banyamulenge informants. The target population was
Banyamulenge men aged between 58-82 having experience in cattle breeding. I collected
proverbs through an interview. I consulted other written documents and online information to
complete my research. I selected 50 most popular and often used proverbs provided by my
informants. I’ve come across quite a good number of difficulties while conducting this research,
but the topmost being the lack of enough written documents on Banyamulenge.
The analysis of the data resulted into the following findings: The semantic analysis revealed that
these cow related proverbs are not mere proverbs but rather contained social messages aiming at
educating the community and therefore sustaining the core cultural values. Their translation into
English required scientific techniques like equivalence, literal, modulation… I have found that
equivalence technique was the most used technique.
I would eventually recommend that more researches should be conducted in the field of
translation to complement this work that actually has not been exhaustive for culture
sustainability.
