African Book of Mormon translations starting to remove “skin of blackness” and other racist phraseology

[Shulem]

I know what I am about to say will fall flat with some people here, but I will repeat what I have said here many, many times in the past.

Translation is a tricky business that requires a whole lot of knowledge about the languages, cultures, and histories involved. If you think consulting a dictionary is enough, you are wrong.

I concur with that. I’d also say there’s a difference between the Church choosing to leave out passages in a selections based Book of Mormon “lite”, and the Church allowing a translation that misleads the reader into thinking the reference about skin colour was something entirely different. I know the church is doing the former, but is there evidence of it doing the latter?

I hear you, but what think ye of my last post?

I'll call it EXHIBIT A.

[I Have Questions]

I concur with that. I’d also say there’s a difference between the Church choosing to leave out passages in a selections based Book of Mormon “lite”, and the Church allowing a translation that misleads the reader into thinking the reference about skin colour was something entirely different. I know the church is doing the former, but is there evidence of it doing the latter?

I hear you, but what think ye of my last post?

I'll call it EXHIBIT A.

I think it is subject to the vagaries of the translation tool that you are using. I put the Chichewa version of verse 21 through Chat GPT, for example, and it translated the verse with a high degree of accuracy to the original English wording. Including the phrase “skin of blackness”. I won’t post the details here because it’s not the location for AI content.

[Shulem]

I hear you, but what think ye of my last post?

I'll call it EXHIBIT A.

I think it is subject to the vagaries of the translation tool that you are using. I put the Chichewa version of verse 21 through Chat GPT, for example, and it translated the verse with a high degree of accuracy to the original English wording. Including the phrase “skin of blackness”. I won’t post the details here because it’s not the location for AI content.

I'm not the right man for the job, but think how easy it would be to message African Facebook users who use the term "khungu lakuda" in their posts, many of which are in slogans or whatnot. All you have to do is type khungu lakuda into the Facebook search bar at the top of the page (magnifying glass) and press enter. Watch all the beautiful black Africans begin to populate and then look for the phrase on their individual page. It's a snap! How easy it would be to message these individuals with the Chichewa language of 2 Nephi 5:21 and ask them if they would be willing to translate it with the understanding it would be published on an English Message Board that discusses the Mormon religion.

For example, Raphael Sitima, "is a Malawian bilingual poet, writer and performer. He recites on culture, poverty." He even posts his email and phone number! This is what he says:

EXHIBIT B

Amata, tisanagone aMalawi tonse tiyeni tinyadire,tili pa number 4 pa dziko lonse la pansi pankhani ya khungu la chiAfrica ,khungu lakuda bwino.

Amata, before we go to sleep Malawians, let's all be proud, we are number 4 in the world in terms of African skin, dark skin.

Who is up to this task? Who has the courage and time to perform this simple task of reaching out to our brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe and ask for their help?

Let the Africans translate for us! That's getting the answer out of the horse's own mouth! Screw the bloody Mormon Church and it's lying scholars who are hiding/cover-up racism from the Africans.

Well? Who will do this?

Courage! Anyone?

MG?

[canpakes]

In 1851 the Book of Mormon was translated into Danish. Let's see how it compares when translated back into English:

TRANSLATE INTO ENGLISH:

Google Translator:

And he had caused the curse to come upon Democrat, yea, a sore curse because of their wickedness. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become as flint; for behold, when they were white and exceedingly fair and comely, and that they should not be attractive unto my people, the Lord God caused Democrat to be dark in complexion.

Wait … what? : D

[Shulem]

Wait … what? : D

It's the stupid auto spell that won't let me type the three letter word (d-e-m) without auto spelling
democrat. It drove me nuts and I couldn't figure out how to remedy it at the time but will go back and and try again and see if I can do something about it. Sorry.

d-e-m = them

[Shulem]

Wait … what? : D

Thanks for pointing that out. I went back and fixed it by typing "d-e-m" so it doesn't auto spell into democrat. I meant to go back on that previously but I forgot.

[malkie]

Wait … what? : D

It's the stupid auto spell that won't let me type the three letter word (d-e-m) without auto spelling
democrat. It drove me nuts and I couldn't figure out how to remedy it at the time but will go back and and try again and see if I can do something about it. Sorry.

d-e-m = them

You can easily bypass the board "autocorrect" (should be called "automangler") using https://yaytext.com/styles/, which allows you to copy/paste unicode into the board, or to Facebook, etc. In addition to making the text invisible to the board's autocorrect you can also substitute fonts - e.g., 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮 𝓼𝓬𝓻𝓲𝓹𝓽, and lots more. Unfortunately it is not the solution to automangled URLs, because the URL parser doesn't recognise unicode characters.

So you could have typed 𝐝𝐞𝐦 into yaytext and have it appear unmangled.

[Shulem]

It suddenly dawned on me how this board is missing an important factor necessary to provide excitement for me, there aren't any apologists here to push against me. Wimpy MG hardly counts or moves the needle.

I'm bored. But maybe it's for the best.

[Chap]

It suddenly dawned on me how this board is missing an important factor necessary to provide excitement for me, there aren't any apologists here to push against me.

There were some a while back (was it ten years?). They came. They set out their positions (e.g. that the Book of Abraham was really translated from a now missing part of the scroll that now bears the Book of Breathings).

People argued with them; in the case of the scroll the discussion included quite a bit of maths.

The apologists in question recognised that they had lost the argument, and they left, never to return. Since then, no serious attempts at the defence of Mormon doctrinal positions capable of evaluation by rational means has been attempted here.

In those days, we were perhaps in the position of the first human beings who crossed the Bering Straits and found themselves in a land full of large, slow-moving and very edible herbivores. They must have had many a happy barbecue until they realised that they had eaten the lot, but eventually there were just none left. That's about where we are now.

Of course, as I have mentioned there is at lest one jelly-fish floating around for those who are feeling hungry.

[Limnor]

It suddenly dawned on me how this board is missing an important factor necessary to provide excitement for me, there aren't any apologists here to push against me. Wimpy MG hardly counts or moves the needle.

I'm bored. But maybe it's for the best.

You might have to don the armor and enter into their arena, shulem.