THE OPERATION OF MEMORY IN TRANSLATION: ON MOFFAT’S DESECRATION OF THE BATSWANA LINGUISTIC HERITAGE IN THE PRODUCTION OF THE 1857 ENGLISH-SETSWANA BIBLE

Abstract

The translation of the Bible into Setswana stands out in the history of the 19^th century missionaries’ project to expand Christian religion among the Batlhaping of South Africa. While the translation of the bible into Setswana can be regarded as a revolutionary achievement, unsettling questions are raised that centre on issues of standardization of Setswana, whose interests are served, tensions around representation and justice, and preservation of semantic and stylistic equivalences. Progressing from the idea that translation is neither just an neutral act or an instance nor product, but a complex activity during which the translator transmits cultural and ideological messages, we seek to argue in this paper that the production of Setswana bible by Moffat is an exemplar of a product caught up in aforementioned seductions of translating. With an understanding that memory is an important tool and force in the accomplishment of translations of texts, we draw on decolonial turn to analyse letters found in Words of Batswana: Letters to Mahoko a Becwana 1883–1896 as a primary source to show how through translating, the linguistic heritage of Batswana was desecrated. In addition, we illustrate how Moffat as a primary beneficiary and supporter of the institution of imperialism and its systemic violence, renders Batswana invisible in the creation[1] of the bible and displaces them as legitimate bearers of their own historical and cultural memory.

[1] We use the term deliberately to underpin the fact that through translation, Moffat was in fact trying to preserve the English language and the memory representative of this language by disqualifying anything in Setswana and about Batswana that contested the protocols of foreign memory and power. As such, translation as performed by Moffat served to (re)create a new memory which subverts common communal memory and mores of Batswana.