Because sheep aren't native to North America, the translation of the 23rd Psalm has always been a little difficult in Native American languages. Choctaw uses a compound that originally meant 'tame rabbit' as its translation of 'sheep' and a shepherd is one who watches over tame rabbits. (For modern speakers, of course, 'tame rabbit' is an opaque compound for 'sheep').
The following is the 23rd Psalm in Choctaw with a rough analysis of the first verse.
(I do have a few puzzles about this verse -- the 'because' suffix is usually -hatoko, rather than yatoko...)
1 comment:
Very cool! Part of what was interesting to me is that Byington attempted to literally translated metaphors from the KJV into Choctaw. I am interested in examining the use of metaphors as an instrument for cultural change.
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