PROMISCUOUS TRANSLATION: WORKING THE WORD AT ANTANANARIVO

rections and changes could easily be registered. To recopy their manuscripts, then, Jones and
Griffiths turned to their British colleagues, the "missionary artisans" who had been sent to
Antananarivo by the LMS at the request of Radama and at great expense to the home office,
but who had found themselves idle for want of materials and markets.80 Mr. Canham, the
weaver, they explained, "has rendered us a great assistance these last months in copying from
our manuscripts spelling and reading lessons for the schools. He has been also writing out
some parts of our vocabularies according to the present orthography settled by the King.
We could employ him many months more as a writer if the supply of leather had not arrived
from the Mauritius and want of shoes did not call him away."81
Students not only participated in translation projects, they assisted in revision of the
working manuscripts. The Welshmen's teams turned to revisions once a first translation of the
entire scriptures had been completed in 1826. Revisions proceeded very slowly between 1826
and 1830 for the New Testament, and between 1830 and 1835 for the Old. The role of mis-
sionaries in the revision was far greater than it had been in the original production of transla-
tions from English to Malagasy. An important task in the revision was "comparison" of the
Malagasy translation with Hebrew and Greek scripture originals, something only the mission-
aries had the linguistic skill to effect. A proposal to teach the students Greek and Hebrew had
been struck down by both the queen and LMS directors. "The New Testament is now printed
in the Malagasy and a number of them are distributed among the natives," newly arrived Welsh
missionary David Johns reported of the process in 1830, "We shall begin next week to revise
the Old Testament, which will be an employment to us for years. We must compare it all with
the Hebrew," he noted, because the translation had been produced from the English Revised
Version of 1611 but was required to conform to the original languages.82
As their knowledge of Malagasy increased, LMS personnel intervened to a much
greater extent in emending and amending the translated text and conforming it to classical
languages. The students' role in revision, as best we can tell from the evidence, went primar-
ily to copy editing and issues of usage. The primary role of translation labor had shifted from
local youth to foreign adults. The minutes of the LMS missionaries' business meetings testify
to students' work on the revisions, however, as do their letters. The following entry appears
in May 1829 during the final preparation of the New Testament for printing: "To 6 youths
for the revision, 3 attending on Monday and Tuesday, 3 on Thursday & Friday, 3/4 Dollr.
for 100 verses, 1/8th of a dollar for correcting a sheet from the press, 1/4th of a dollar to
2 youths for copying 100 verses."83 David Griffiths kept corrected proof sheets of Psalms
chapters 75 to 88 with six names of Malagasy revisers on them: Ratsimihara, [Ra]Tsimilay,
Rainisoa, Raharo, Raharolahy and [Ra]Tsisatraina.14

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