Post by Okwes on Oct 9, 2006 10:17:41 GMT -5
Eastern Band translates ‘Thirteen Moons’
by Dale Neal, DNEAL@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
published October 3, 2006 12:15 am
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Charles Frazier has seen his first book translated into more than 30 foreign languages, including two dialects of Chinese.
But he’s eager to see his new novel, “Thirteen Moons,” translated closer to home.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is translating the “Removal” section, including Frazier’s retelling of the Tsali story, into the Cherokee language. Frazier and his wife, Katherine, have given an initial $15,000 to the project.
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The translation may be a first for any new fiction for any Indian tribe, according to Barbara Duncan, education director with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. “In talking with Charles and Katherine, we were talking about the language and the efforts to keep it alive. They wanted to give something back,”
With only about 800 fluent speakers still living, the tribe only has a few years to keep Cherokee from becoming a dead language, Duncan said.
The last speakers of Tuscarora and Catawba languages recently died, and many American Indian tongues are growing extinct. “Language is so important in that it encapsulates the world view of a culture. It’s very hard to get that just from reading,” she said.
Cherokee is a notoriously difficult language to learn to speak, based on a variety of verb tenses with prefixes and suffixes, Duncan said. “It’s just incredible so much information is packed into each verb.”
Frazier’s book will join a small shelf of books available to Cherokee readers, who only had parts of the Bible, some folktales and old 19th-century newspapers written in Sequoyah’s syllabary, the only written alphabet devised among Native American tribes.
Frazier doesn’t speak the language, but readers in Cherokee are impressed by his grasp of the culture. “I was really amazed that he wasn’t Cherokee himself,” said artist and elder Nikki Nations. “He really captured the spirit, the wit, the humor that goes with tribal people.”
Myrtle Driver, who grew up speaking Cherokee and didn’t learn English until she was 6, is working on the translation. An elder who has interpreted at Council meetings, court trials, government hearings and hospitals, Driver had previously translated “The Three Little Pigs” into her native tongue, but Frazier’s novel is a first for her.
Driver said Frazier’s novel is actually funnier in places when translated into Cherokee. “I think that’s the beauty of it all. This is the most tragic story in the history of the Cherokee people, and this story is going to add some humor and take away some of the pain we still feel,” Driver said.
“‘Reader’s Digest’ says it invented ‘Humor is the Best Medicine.’ That’s not true. The Cherokee did.”
Contact Dale Neal at 828-232-5970 or via e-mail at dneal@ashevill.gannett.com.
by Dale Neal, DNEAL@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
published October 3, 2006 12:15 am
Reader Feedback: Comment on this article | Register here
Charles Frazier has seen his first book translated into more than 30 foreign languages, including two dialects of Chinese.
But he’s eager to see his new novel, “Thirteen Moons,” translated closer to home.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is translating the “Removal” section, including Frazier’s retelling of the Tsali story, into the Cherokee language. Frazier and his wife, Katherine, have given an initial $15,000 to the project.
Advertisement
The translation may be a first for any new fiction for any Indian tribe, according to Barbara Duncan, education director with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. “In talking with Charles and Katherine, we were talking about the language and the efforts to keep it alive. They wanted to give something back,”
With only about 800 fluent speakers still living, the tribe only has a few years to keep Cherokee from becoming a dead language, Duncan said.
The last speakers of Tuscarora and Catawba languages recently died, and many American Indian tongues are growing extinct. “Language is so important in that it encapsulates the world view of a culture. It’s very hard to get that just from reading,” she said.
Cherokee is a notoriously difficult language to learn to speak, based on a variety of verb tenses with prefixes and suffixes, Duncan said. “It’s just incredible so much information is packed into each verb.”
Frazier’s book will join a small shelf of books available to Cherokee readers, who only had parts of the Bible, some folktales and old 19th-century newspapers written in Sequoyah’s syllabary, the only written alphabet devised among Native American tribes.
Frazier doesn’t speak the language, but readers in Cherokee are impressed by his grasp of the culture. “I was really amazed that he wasn’t Cherokee himself,” said artist and elder Nikki Nations. “He really captured the spirit, the wit, the humor that goes with tribal people.”
Myrtle Driver, who grew up speaking Cherokee and didn’t learn English until she was 6, is working on the translation. An elder who has interpreted at Council meetings, court trials, government hearings and hospitals, Driver had previously translated “The Three Little Pigs” into her native tongue, but Frazier’s novel is a first for her.
Driver said Frazier’s novel is actually funnier in places when translated into Cherokee. “I think that’s the beauty of it all. This is the most tragic story in the history of the Cherokee people, and this story is going to add some humor and take away some of the pain we still feel,” Driver said.
“‘Reader’s Digest’ says it invented ‘Humor is the Best Medicine.’ That’s not true. The Cherokee did.”
Contact Dale Neal at 828-232-5970 or via e-mail at dneal@ashevill.gannett.com.