A Little-Used Bible Translation: Sociolinguistic Considerations and Implications for Other Translations in a West African Context

Preference for the Bambara Bible

The Jula Bible was published in 2007 by the Bible Society of Burkina Faso. This Bible is ecumenical. A Catholic edition exists, differentiated by its inclusion of the deuterocanonical books. Whilst attending literacy classes at my church, I learnt that many prefer the 1996 Bambara version published by the Bible Society in Mali. Bambara, the lingua franca of neighbouring Mali, is closely related to Jula (Eberhard, Simons, and Fennig 2023). However, Jula is itself “a widespread lingua franca” (Storch 2013, 148), so why would a Jula translation not be used?

People might use the Bambara translation for several reasons. First, they may simply not know that the newer Jula translation exists. I attended church services at churches of eleven different denominations and observed how different languages were employed during the services, including how Scripture was used. After each service, I had a discussion with the person who interpreted during the service. To my great surprise, four out of seven interpreters who answered this question did not know there is more than one Jula Bible translation. News about the “new” translation has simply not spread to all denominations.

Secondly, newly published Bible translations have a history of not being accepted straightaway. Informal discussions with local church and literacy leaders and average churchgoers revealed that many have simply gotten accustomed to the Bambara translation. One church interpreter told me in May 2024 that the Bambara version is easier to use. Yet when comparing passages across the two versions, he admitted that Jula speakers would understand the Jula version better. He explained that he finds the Bambara version easier to use as he has been exposed to it since childhood. Hymn books, which are popular, and teaching materials are based on this version. Having a hymn book based on a different translation is confusing, several individuals pointed out. Additionally, one pastor mentioned that if pastors have been trained in using a Bible in Jula, that Bible is the Bambara Bible. Continuing Bambara Bible use would be easier on several accounts, allowing for consistency.

However, people clearly differentiate between Jula and Bambara. When learning Jula, I was given Bambara materials due to a lack of Jula materials. I quickly stopped using these as people insisted that what I was learning was “not our language.” These comments were based on more than just my bad pronunciation. Many said that terms in the Bambara Bible are often hard to understand, that “our Jula is less heavy.” Sanogo (2013, 269–74) helpfully lists some of these differences. Phonologically, there are consonant variations, for instance between l and d: a la (Jula) / a da (Bambara) “put him to sleep.” Examples on the morphological level include time-aspect morphemes, for example, a bi taara (Jula) / a be ka ta taa (Bambara) “he is leaving,” and derivatives, such as sukaro bi min na (Jula) / sukaroman (Bambara) “something sweet.” Lexically, some words have different meanings in Jula and Bambara, such as dioula (Jula) “Jula (ethnicity)” and dioula (Bambara) “trader.” Jula and Bambara also sometimes use different words to express the same meaning, such as malo (Jula) / kini (Bambara) “cooked rice.” There are numerous differences between Jula and Bambara. Why then use the Bambara Bible when Jula is otherwise clearly differentiated from Bambara?

One attraction of the Bambara Bible is its book names. People appreciate the Bambara book names due to the ease of transfer with French, meaning they are easy to find. The Jula book names resemble the French names less (see appendix), requiring an effort on the reader’s part to learn them afresh.

The Bambara translation might also be preferred because people don’t deem this “vehicular” (Sanogo 2013) or urban Jula suitable for a Bible translation in the same way as the more “formal” standard Bambara. A discussion with a local senior literacy leader revealed that when the Jula Bible first came out, people said that this “street Jula” was not suitable for the Bible.

Another reason some prefer the Bambara translation is the quality of the Jula translation itself. Various missionaries see this as the main issue. The end of John 3.16 reads o ka ɲɛnamaya banbali sɔrɔ “they will gain eternal life” in Bambara. In the Jula version however, the word for “life” is replaced: o ka nii banbali sɔrɔ “they will gain (an) eternal ____.” Nii has the following possible definitions: “soul, spirit, life, vital principle” (Niggli 2016, s.v. “nii”). The word for Holy Spirit uses this same nii: Nii Senu. This Jula rendering could be misleading as the Christian’s bodily resurrection is clearly affirmed in Scripture (see 1 Cor 15). Besides theological concerns, some are hesitant about the length of words in the Jula translation. For instance, here is John 3.21:

Nga mɔgɔɲuman b’a ta kɛ yeelen na, waasa mɔgɔw k’a ka kɛwaliɲumanw ye, a be minw kɛ Ala sago la. (Jula)

Nka mɔgɔ min bɛ tiɲɛ kow kɛ, o bɛ na kɛnɛ la, walisa a ka kɛwalew k’a jira ko u kɛra ka kɛɲɛ ni Ala sago ye. (Bambara)

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (NIV)

Despite these issues, one missionary attempted to switch to the Jula Bible. In a discussion with her in November 2023 she told me that people refused to get used to it and found it hard to understand. After four years she went back to using the Bambara version. According to her, a lack of literacy is the real issue preventing people from using the Jula Bible.

Another significant reason for preferring the Bambara Bible is denominational preference. Some evangelical denominations are hesitant to adopt the translation because of the Catholic input, as a discussion with a missionary in November 2023 highlighted.

Availability and timing are also crucial factors in determining which translation is used. The Assemblées de Dieu (Assemblies of God) have a Mooré-speaking background. Up until recently their services all had translation from French into Mooré, not into Jula. However, they have now started translating into Jula, as I witnessed when visiting a service. A discussion with an interpreter at one of their key churches revealed a clear preference for the Jula Bible. He said the Jula translation was done for people in Bobo-Dioulasso, and so it should be used here. He is even mobilising others to use the Jula Bible. Timing is key: the Jula Bible only became available in 2007. Any church who wanted to use a Bible in Jula before this time would have had to use the Bambara Bible.

Why do some in Bobo-Dioulasso prefer the Bambara version when others say that Bambara is difficult to understand because it is “not our language”? My hypothesis is that availability, denominational preference, and personal habits are the most significant factors in determining which Bible is used.

All this said, neither the Jula nor the Bambara Bible was used during the service in six out of the eleven denominations I visited. In three of these churches, the Bible was only read in French, with no translation. In the other three at least some verses were translated into Jula on the spot. As no Bible in Jula was present in the services of more than half of the denominations I visited, the place of written Jula Scripture in a church service needs to be questioned. In the remainder of this article, “Jula Bible” refers to either the 2007 Jula Bible or the 1996 Bambara Bible.

Church: “Occupied” by written Jula?

In the language ecology of people living in Bobo-Dioulasso, how much space does Jula take up? And what type of space is this? The Sustainable Use Model (SUM; see Lewis and Simons 2016, chap. 1) encourages such questions. The SUM can only go so far in assessing LWCs as it targets L1 use. The question of functions (Lewis and Simons 2016, chap. 4) is key in considering Jula Scripture use. The form of the language needs special consideration, as spoken Jula is present throughout church services. Songs in Jula were present in all eleven services, with eight denominations having at least twenty percent of their songs in Jula. The sermon was translated into Jula in nine out of eleven of these services. One was given in Jula without translation, and one was translated from French into Mooré in a Mooré majority church. Jula figured in the notices in some form for all churches that had notices, apart from the Mooré majority church. So why is written Jula rare in services? Perhaps churchgoers want to engage with written Scripture in Jula, but as leaders do not model Jula Scripture use, they feel they have not got “permission” to do this (Maik Gibson, discussion on Zoom, March 16, 2023). Equally, many say they are just accustomed to Scripture in French as even the Bambara translation was published not long ago. I propose that Jula Scripture is seldom used because written Jula does not occupy much space in church, not least because written Jula takes up little space anywhere, as I will now show.

Written Jula in other domains

Written Jula is present in the health domain such as on signs informing about COVID-19 transmission. Advertising and brand names also contain Jula, such as the sweets super gnamakou “super ginger” (this follows French orthographic norms; it should be super ɲamaku). Jula is apparently used in the media in written form (Eberhard, Simons, and Fennig 2023), but in reality, written media is most often in French. The Ministère de L’Education Nationale, de l’Alphabétisation et de la Promotion des Langues Nationales (Ministry of Education, Literacy, and Promotion of National Languages) states that “national languages,” which previously even included languages other than Jula and Mooré, should be used and valued in all informal and school education (2019). However, these languages are mainly used in a spoken capacity for the first two or three years of primary school (Nikièma 2011, 605). In practice, written Jula does not have many written functions in society.

Another written function of Jula is messaging. I am in several WhatsApp groups where messages in Jula are abundant. Messages are by no means standardised or uniform, even showing variation when sent by the same individual, but they do reveal a partial return to earlier (such as è instead of ɛ) and French orthographic conventions (such as gn instead of ɲ), probably due to limited character availability on smartphones. For example, one person wrote these messages: n’a en bi baaro kai (na, an be barɔ kɛ) “come, we will talk,” basitai (basi te) “sure,” and keneya beyi (kɛnɛya be) “I am well.” In these messages, ai represented two different phonological vowels, /e/ and /ɛ/, and the same phonological vowel /e/ was also expressed using eyi. Moreover, en in French is pronounced the same as an in Jula. Gibson (2019) highlights how powerful digital writing practices can be. A lack of orthographic norms adopted in messaging might hinder Jula literacy, as messaging seems to be the most common function of written Jula. Yet people are generally aware that texting differs from more formal writing. Several people told me they just message in Jula and other local languages in whatever way is easiest, as the examples mentioned earlier also show. There is no evidence to show that Jula Bible use is impacted by orthographic variations in messaging.

An incredibly significant factor in the functions of written Jula is Jula literacy. I conducted a survey amongst one hundred young people from different denominations in 2024. Forty-five percent of young people explicitly said they are not literate in Jula. The main reason given for not owning a Jula Bible was not knowing how to read Jula. None of the three people who interpreted French to Jula on the spot during their church service could read in Jula. Jula is a trade language, and trade languages often have a strong oral nature (Lewis and Simons 2016, 103). During a discussion with a senior local literacy leader in May 2024, the figure of twenty-seven percent was mentioned when I asked about the national Jula literacy rate. Literacy is a significant potential barrier to Scripture use (see Van den Berg 2020, 5). Gibson (in Eberhard et al. 2021, 9) states that widespread L1 literacy practices are required for widespread L1 engagement with Scripture. As I have demonstrated, Jula literacy practices are indeed not very widespread, and so it is unsurprising that written Jula Scriptures are not widely used. Even if the pastor were to use the Bible in Jula at the front of church, few would be able to follow. It is therefore understandable that many only translate orally: written Jula does not occupy much space in church.

Gender and age dynamics

Gender and age equally play a role in Jula Scripture use. Fewer men read Jula, perhaps because they have generally had more schooling. The church literacy class was only attended by (generally older) women, despite being open to all. Equally, the only younger women who came generally did not speak French, though some had had some French schooling. During two years in my church, there was only one time when a man read the Bible in Jula. He was the ex-director of a regional Bible college which teaches in Jula. This was also the only service where the sermon was in Jula, translated into French. Yet people seemed to appreciate the Jula focus, as demonstrated by their excited applause after the sermon (there is usually no applause).

That said, as I visited church services in different denominations, sometimes men interpreted into Jula, and on three occasions a man read fluently from a Jula Bible. However, in observing language use across the service, including prayers, in general those who spoke French tended to be men, and those who spoke Jula tended to be women.