Archive for the ‘Vwanji’ Category

A Vwanji woman reading the Gospel of Mark in her language for the first time.

On two hands I can count the number of workdays I have left in the great country of Tanzania.  With today passed, that number is all the way down to single digits… NINE to go!  It has come much, much faster than I expected and before I know it, I’ll be nostalgically looking back on our life in Mbeya from the comforts of life in the USA.

Over these next nine workdays, I’ll attempt to complete the following:

• Finish recording the remaining eleven people needed for Mark in the Malila language
• Edit all the recording of Mark in the Malila language
• Test the recording of Mark in the Malila language
• Test the recording of Ruth and Jonah in the Vwanji language
• Transfer the 18+ GB of my work onto the office server
• Submit cassette and CD covers of Mark in the Malila language for approval
• Submit cassette and CD covers of Ruth and Jonah in the Vwanji language for approval
• I’m sure there are other things I’m forgetting… hopefully, I’ll remember at some point over the next nine days.

Beginning January 3, 2010, our language project will broadcast a weekly pre-recorded mother tongue radio program.  The Christian station with whom we have a contract has a fairly new tower which reaches up to 100km radius.  That means these radio programs can be heard in at least part of every one of the 10 languages we are translating here.

Basically, our goal is to get God’s Word out there… literally.  So, the focus of every program will be for people to hear Scripture in their heart language, their mother tongue. Wrapped around those audio segments will be announcements, songs, advertisements, intro and outro.

We’ll record six programs at a time so we won’t be in the studio every single week.  I call these our cycles.  Our first cycle will be the dates of Jan 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 and Feb 7.  During that span, we’ll play the Gospel of Mark in the Vwanji language.  I’m excited that for our very first broadcast will give the Vwanji people to hear the actual words of Jesus in their own language.

For your perusal, I’m posting what will be our very first 30-minute program scheduled to be aired on January 3 @ 6:30pm local time, 10:30am Eastern.  Some of you may be in Sunday school or worship service so that would be a perfect opportunity to pray for this great new venture.

That’s the cue sheet above so you can have an idea of what your hearing.

I climbed out of bed at 5:52am this morning.  We have had quite a day at the dedication ceremony up in the Vwanji language area mountains.  We have lots of video and photos but I’m way tired so I’ll have to leave you with this one shot from today…

It is from just after they brought the books into the church.  One of the many, many pastors is taking a turn reading out of the Gospel of Mark (green cover).  The lady you see in the picture is Vwanji and probably in her 60s.  All the other hundreds in the church were equally as captivated.

I kid you not, Scottie kicked in the warp speed around the time I started recording Mark in the Vwanji language.  The ensuing months have blown by like streaks of light from passing stars.  Today, he turned the switch back off.  The Gospel of Mark in the Vwanji language now has 198 complete and ready-to-sell sets of cassettes!  I don’t think I’ve realized the project is complete yet because that kinda ‘urgent’ feeling is still lingering inside.  Hope that doesn’t last too long because I’m ready to slow back down.  I actually like looking at the stars as they go by.

If you’ve been following my recent tweets, you’d know that I finished my first editing phase on Mark in the Vwanji language.  What does that mean exactly?  Glad you asked.  Glad to answer.

As I’ve recorded more and more books here in the local languages, I’ve searched for my personal, best-fit method to go from beginning to end.  In terms of just the technical part of the recording projects, they have grown to look like this:

(1) Record all of the words speaker-by-speaker. For instance, the translator who spoke the MANY words of the narrator in the gospel of Mark spent nearly two straight days in my studio recording his words and only his words. All of the other characters’ words, like Jesus, Bartimeaus, Peter, etc., are skipped over. Once the narrator is finished, I move on to the next person to record and continue this process until all the words for the book are recorded.
(2) Edit phase I this is probably the most time consuming step. I’ve taken some screenshots of the audio clip for Mark 4:36-38a to help you see what this looks like.

This first shot is what my audio looks like at the beginning. From there, I normalize the entire clip. Normalization is the process of increasing (or decreasing) the amplitude of an entire audio signal so that the resulting peak amplitude matches a desired target. That’s Wikipedia. The next shot is the result.

See how the whole thing is bigger? That just means I increased the overall volume (amplitude) to get it in my desired range. From here, I now clean up the silent areas in between sounds. Most of the time, those are just breath sounds where the speaker is reloading for the next word(s).

Look closely. In between the sound waves, the silent areas are now completely flat. No more breath (or other) sounds. Each of those sections are done manually, one-by-one. Time to cut off that little tail on the end.

Easy edit. At this point, I add this audio clip into my overall timeline, the place I compile all of the clips into the final product. Sometimes, after I’ve done this and added sound effects to the timeline, there may be some of a clip that is still a little low in volume. So, I go into that particular clip, highlight the low section and normalize it to a higher level.

Take a look at the area between about 00:06 and 00:17. That’s the area I raised to a higher level.

That is an explanation of one clip’s edit.  Mark has almost 720 clips.  You understand why this is the most time consuming part of my editing.

(3) Edit phase II is where I take all of these clips and place them on a timeline, adjust the timing in between each one and add sound effects.
(4) Translator testing is next. I sit down with the language translators and listen to the entire book, allowing them to point out any obviously needed corrections. I usually do this on the spot so we can arrive at a final draft.
(5) Community testing is the [hopefully] last step in the technical audio part. This takes place in a village in that respective language area. A group of pastors are usually selected to listen to the entire book. Upon their approval, the audio is ready for duplication and distribution.

If you’d like to hear the before and after of the above audio clip, here you go:


For the book of Mark in Vwanji, I just finished Edit phase I.  Today, even with my stomach issues, thank You Jesus, I was able to finish the intro and chapters 2, 3 and 4.  The rest of the steps have to be completed before Saturday, October 24.  Actually earlier because I still have to design the labels and covers, then print them.  And duplicate the cassettes.  Still quite a bit left.  No prayers will be unwanted!

I can say that right now is probably the most exciting time work-wise since I started in the language project well over a year ago.  I’ve got nine completely recorded audio books of the Bible, not counting the two books already released in the Sangu language.  NINE!!!  Wow.  Ruth and Jonah make up eight of them in the following four languages: Kinga, Nyakyusa, Malila and Vwanji.  Nyakyusa will be distributed on Sept 17.  Malila will be community tested with a group of pastors on Sept 18.  Kinga may be tested next month.  Vwanji will be distributed next month.

The ninth book has been and is remaining the biggest task… The Gospel of Mark in the Vwanji language.  It is the first language to get this gospel and a big celebration/dedication is planned for the end of October up in a Vwanji village.  I’m taking the generator and the big speakers to play the gospel to the Vwanji people in the language they understand the best… their own.  Most Excited.  Me.

I found out yesterday that the dedication ceremony for the Gospel of Mark in the Vwanji language will take place October 24 in the village Matamba. Our project goal is to have both printed and audio versions of the book available for purchase that day. Currently, I’m over 90% done with the recording part but will go ahead and start editing. The remaining parts are the words of all the smaller characters in the book so it may take a while to get all the different people in here to record them. Having it finished by October is still a very realistic goal. Then again, I am an optimist. Living in Africa. Uh-oh….

The following is an article set to appear in our 2nd quarter newsletter which is about to be released:

This was a CRAZY busy quarter in terms of all the things I’ve been able to do.  Let me begin by addressing the preview items from last quarter’s newsletter.
The Nyakyusa recordings will be tested and distributed. We’re still in the test phase because we found some inconsistencies with the audio compared to the printed Scripture.  I’m waiting until after our branch conference (early July) to schedule some correction recording sessions with four different speakers.  Why so many?  Well, two of them will be coming in for single word recordings.  One said, “cha” when he should’ve said, “kya,” and another said “Abinalamu” when he should’ve said “Aminalabu.”  I caught neither of these things while we were recording nor while I was editing!  Our goal is to distribute a quality, accurate recording so you can see how the work can easily become very intensive.
We will begin a weekly radio broadcast playing Scripture and biblical songs in the local languages. I’ve put this project on hold for the time being.  Not because I don’t think it can happen but because when it does happen, even the very first broadcast, I want it to be done right.  I don’t think I’m to that point yet so I’ll continue to seek advice and feedback on all of my ideas.
The Gospel of Mark will be recorded in the Vwanji language in preparation for a later-in-the-year dedication ceremony.  This task has gone very well.  We’ve only spent one week recording so far and in that short period, we completed 57% of all the lines in the book!  Soon after conference, we’ll resume the recording with all the words of Jesus up next.  After that, we’ll only have to record the short-appearance characters.
The translation department asked for the audio to be ready to accompany [Mark] and other study materials we’ll release that day.  [The Vwanji] will have Ruth and Jonah recorded and made available as well. I’m happy to inform you that both Ruth and Jonah have completed the recording phase!
At least two other languages will have the recordings of Ruth and Jonah begun. Two other languages… not yet.  But, we’ve almost finished one of them.  Jonah in the Malila language has been completely recorded and I am now only lacking the voices of the women in Ruth.  The Nyiha language recording should begin in August.

I had high hopes going into yesterday’s recording schedule. God exceeded them. Pastor/Translator Ahimidiwe arrived at the studio at 9:15am and we went straight to it. We only stopped for a couple of short breaks and lunch. By 4:06pm, we had finished ALL of the narrator’s parts of the text and the book introduction and all of the section headings.

Out of curiosity this morning, I exported the master script into Excel so I could gauge our progress.

57%

We are over HALF way done with Mark already!  Wow, I knew we made some progress yesterday, but to reach that point is amazing… well… it’s God.

~ Mark 15:39