Compiling and translating Kinyamulenge cow - related proverbs into English: A safeguard of cultural core values.

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.