Fwe comes from the region around the Zambezi River. You can find a full introduction to the Fwe language in Part 1 of this series:
The full Fwe translation is at the end.
Exodus 21:22
This was one of the most frustrating verses I have ever translated. It is a single sentence with around 8 verbs, and I have to make sure that they all cohere.
KJV: If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
Fwe. Shake bakwesi bantu barwa nabamudama omusumba, iye amurēte mudana, nashashiremani: omukwame wakwe amwarahangura, narariha owina báàturi báwáàtura.
if people are fighting, and hurt a pregnant woman = shake bantu barwe nabamudama omusumba
shake = if.
bantu = people.
barwe = they fight.
nabamudame = and they beat her.
omusumba = a pregnant woman.
nabamudame has five components:
1. na- = and.
2. ba- = they.
3. mu- = her.
4. dam = beat.
5. -e = if.
dama to beat is but one consonant away from –dana small.
This is why I chose mudana child over mucece baby for the next segment.
so that she gives birth prematurely, but no harm follows = iye amurēte mudana, nashashiremani
iye = so that.
amurēte = she give birth (to).
mudana = a child.
nashashiremani = and (the mother) is not injured further
so that she gives birth prematurely comes from Hebrew wayase’oo yaladeha (ילךיה ויצאו).
We break it down further:
prematurely comes from Hebrew yawtsaw (יצא) go out or come out.
gives birth comes from Hebrew yeled (ילד) child/son/boy/youth.
amurēte has four components:
1. a- = she.
2. mu- = him/her.
3. rēt = to bring/to give birth.
4. -e = if.
Yes. I led you into thinking that maybe I had translated the Hebrew directly.
That said, rēta give birth is very close to reka to leave someone.
Either way, the actions of the fighters do not rēsa prolong the pregnancy.
If the mother is not yet rema heavy, and the child is born too early, no matter how much she may rera feed him, he may never reha grow tall.
I could keep going, but I’m already stretching (sadly onzonoka).
nashashiremani has six components:
1. n- = and.
2. a- = she.
3. -sha = if not.
4. -shi = again.
5. reman = becomes injured.
4. -i = not
remana become injured is close to rema be heavy.
he shall be punished, according to the woman’s husband = omukwame wakwe amwarahangura
omukwame = husband
wakwe = her
amwarahangura = he will punish him
amwarahangura has four components:
1. a- = he.
2. mu- = him.
3. ara- = will.
4. hangura = remove from a high position.
Daniel 5:17-20 KJV
Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour: And for the majesty that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.
and he shall pay what the judges decide = narariha owina báàturi báwáàtura
narariha = and he will pay
owina = that which
báàturi = the judges
báwáàtura = that they judge
The Hebrew does not include a verb after biplileem (בפללים) judges.
Most English translations use decide, but I stayed with áàtura judge.
Furthermore, I wrote báàturi rather than baaturi to highlight that two /a/’s are pronounced separately.
Exodus 21:23
KJV: And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
Fwe. Shake amudamadame, warakincanina buhar’ obuharo,
shake = if
amudamadame = someone beats her further
waracincanina = you will exchange (it) for
buhar’ = life
obuharo = for life
waracincanina has four components:
1. u- = thou.
2. ara- = wilt.
3. cincan = exchange.
4. -ina = (it) for.
There is no Object Marker in this verb. That is because they are optional with the Applicative –ina.
Fwe cincana = English to exchange (or to be different).
Fwe cinca = English to change.
Consider this a *ahem* trade for that run-on paragraph in the previous one.
Exodus 21:24-25
As you can see, for each word, I have the base form followed by the Augment form. This will help you to pace yourself if you’re ever speaking the verse out loud.
I combined the verses because there is no verb. For context, here is the split:
Exodus 24: eye, tooth, hand and foot.
Exodus 25: burn, wound and stroke.
KJV: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Fwe. Rinshw erinsho, rin’ erino, anj’ enja, tend’ etende, citumbuk’ ecitumbuka, ciraby ecirabi, mubar’ omubara. Asanza.
rinshw erinsho = an eye for an eye
rinsho eye becomes mensho eyes.
eyebrow = cikesi
eyelid = nkohe
Mark 9:47, 48 BSB
[Jesus said]: And if your eyes causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.”
Fwe g ǀopora = English to widen, to remove flesh/an eye.
You’re probably wondering what sound / gǀ/ makes.
It is a Voiced Dental Click.
The Unvoiced Dental Click is represented by /ǀ/.
Compare:
kugǀopora = to remove flesh/an eye.
kuǀopora = to run fast.
Fwe has four Click sounds, but these are very rare. This was the first time I could insert one into the series.
rin’ erino = a tooth for a tooth
rino tooth becomes meno teeth.
mouth = muromo OR kamwa
lips = miromo
While scanning the dictionary, I found this curious pair (hyphens for emphasis):
j-a-rumuka = to raise one’s voice.
j-e-rumuka = to have a strong taste that makes the mouth contract.
No author should have a difficult time putting these two into a sequence of events.
Another pair goes:
-kima = fat
kimuma = to close one’s mouth.
Is this cruelly ironic?
This, however, is my favourite pair:
mazyasha = yawn
zyashama = to open one’s mouth
This last one is begging for a tongue-twister.
anj’ enja = a hand for a hand
anja hand becomes màànjo hands.
In Gunnink’s dictionary, the entry immediately below anja hand is mààno knowledge.
I wonder if this is related to the following pair:
kuzêza = carry in the hand.
kuzèza = to think/to plan.
This is for all those of you who gentleman thugs out there – all of you who do your weight-lifting at the gym: Sun Tzu in one ear, King James in the other.
Mark 9:43, 44 BSB
[Jesus said]: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.”
tend’ etende = a foot for a foot
tende foot becomes matende feet.
The same also mean leg/s and footprint/s.
In Gunnink’s dictionary, it sits below citendantu human action and above citendo action.
Another word for footprint is mutara (mitara footprints).
This sounds similar to butari wisdom and citare tool/piece of iron (plural zitare).
The similarity is even starker when you remove the Noun Class Prefix. Doing this gives you: *-tara, *-tari and *–tare.
(To simplify, the Noun Class Prefix tells you whether it is Singular or Plural. One exception is bu-: this indicates Abstract Nouns, which have no definite number.)
Above, we have kuzêza carry in the hand and kuzèza to think/plan.
Compare this to:
taruka = to take a step.
tarusa = to explain.
Mark 9:45, 46 BSB
[Jesus said]: “If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.”
citumbuk’ ecitumbuka = a burn for a burn
In the original Koine Greek, verses 44, 46 and 48 of Mark Chapter 9 are the same. Many translations cut the 44 and 46, with a footnote explaining why.
In this speech, Jesus is quoting the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 66:23, 24 BSB
“From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come to worship before Me,” says the Lord. “As they go forth, they will see the corpses of the men who have rebelled against Me; for their worm will never die, their fire will never be quenched, and they will be a horror to all mankind.”
The Fwe word for fire is muriro.
Do not confuse it for muriri mourner.
Indeed, if you remove the Prefixes, *-riro is but one consonant away from rino tooth.
Curiously, this is the only body part in Exodus 2 4 that Jesus does not tell you to throw in the fire.
ciraby ecirabi = a wound for a wound
In her grammar, Gunnink describes Noun Class 7 as No Clear Semantics.
Singular forms take the Prefix ci-, and Plurals the Prefix zi-.
(She calls zi- Noun Class 8, but it’s not a separate Noun Class. It’s just Plural for Class 7.)
That said, she gives Noun Class 7 the following Semantic Categories:
1. Misc. Inanimate
2. De-Verbal Nouns
3. Language Names
4. Derogatory
- Diseases
- Dysfunctional/undesirable body parts
- Useless/harmful animals
- Humans with physical disabilities or low social status.
If we ignore the Miscellaneous Category, I think I have a way to connect the remaining three:
1. De-Verbal Nouns
2. Derogatory
3. Language Names
citumbuka burn is a Deverbal Noun, and cirabi wound is a Dysfunctional Body Part.
My connection between these three are the Prefixes ci- and zi-.
/c/ is the Palatal Affricate – equivalent to the English /ch/.
/z/ is the Alveolar Fricative – equivalent to the English /z/.
The words “Affricate” and “Fricative” both refer to the friction required to make both sounds.
But how does Friction relate to the meanings:
1. De-Verbal Nouns
This is where you take a Verb – Action and Movement itself – and bring them to a grinding halt.
2. Derogatory Nouns
Please don’t make me say it! O please! Please don’t make me say it!
Please don’t make me force those hateful, disgusting syllables out of my mouth.
Even saying the word is enough to make my skin crawl.
Fine. I have said it! Are you happy now?
Please, please just pass me the soap. The sooner I can clean my tongue the better.
3. Language Names
Genesis 11:1-9 KJV
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Thereof is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Before they built the City and Tower of Babel, communication was seamless. It glode like a penguin through the water.
They made bricks from slime.
Afterwards, communication is like a squirrel burying his acorns. He forgets where he left them, and when he comes back to the same spot, there’s a tree that wasn’t there before.
Think of how rubàre seed/pip grows into rubâre palm leaves.
mubar’ omubara = a stroke for a stroke
Fwe mubára = English colour, spot, stripe. (Also think bruise.)
(Plural mibara).
Don’t confuse it with mubàra guest.
(Plural babara).
Are they related to the Verb kubara to read?
Even if your friend speaks the same language as you, his body language might say something different.
The same is true for the landscape, or the difference between different flowers and animals. Think of how non-poisonous snakes have the same colour stripes as poisonous ones, but the thicknesses are different.
asanza
This is my translation of the final samech (ס).
It roughly means s/he washes.
This exchange of body parts/wounds is supposed to cleanse you from your sins.
Fwe.
18. Shake bantu bakakane namuzimbe nebwe nanja iye kafwi kucizyarwe árāra;
19. Haiba mbwananuke nayendaure hanje nenkori, námuŋati aracenesiwa – amwararihira enako, mani abūkite. Asa.
20. Shake muntu amuŋate murobe kapa mukentwe necishamu, okuteye afwise omwika nanje; eye arateresiwa.
21. Ashihar’ omwika zyuba kapa mabire, kary ararih’ omurandu: kakury omuntu cecintu. Asebeza.
22. Shake bakwesi bantu barwa nabamudama omusumba, iye amurēte mudana, nashashiremani: omukwame wakwe amwarahangura, narariha owina báwáàtura báàturi.
23. Shake amudamadame, waracincanina buhar’ obuharo,
24. Rinshw erinsho, rin’ erino, anj’ enja, tend’ etende,
25. citumbuk’ ecitumbuka, ciraby ecirabi, mubar’ omubara. Asanza.
Sources:
Gunnink, Hilde, A grammar of Fwe: A Bantu language of Zambia and Namibia (Berlin: Language Science Press 2022)
(I used Gunnink’s 2018 PhD Thesis/Dissertation, which seems to be the main basis for this book).
Google and Wikipedia, to my shame.