Also in the Worlds of Difference series
Amuesha Map
(00:09:41)
From: Homelands Productions
In the jungle of Peru, an American anthropologist and an indigenous tribesman work against time to create a high-tech "cultural map" of the tribe's ancestral territory.
Roma Love Story
(00:11:31)
From: Homelands Productions
A Roma couple who married as teenagers campaign against child marriage.
Sarvodaya: An Alternate Path?
(00:10:58)
From: Homelands Productions
An enormous grassroots network in Sri Lanka seeks to provide an alternative to conventional economic development.
Maasai Education
(00:07:09)
From: Homelands Productions
After generations of resistance, the Maasai of Kenya are looking to education as a way to keep their culture from dying.
Ho'omau Ke Ola
(00:07:49)
From: Homelands Productions
A drug-treatment program on Oahu's depressed west coast uses traditional teachings to combat methamphetamine addiction among native Hawaiians.
Cotopaxi Pilgrimage
(00:05:44)
From: Homelands Productions
Native artists in the Ecuadorean Andes return to their people's sacred mountain.
The Street of the Cauldron Makers
(00:13:25)
From: Homelands Productions
A well-known Turkish novelist confronts her country's modern history on a nondescript street in Istanbul.
Resurrecting the Zapara
(00:14:31)
From: Homelands Productions
With just four surviving native speakers, a tiny tribe of Amazonian Indians tries to revive its dying culture.
The Free Monks
(00:06:39)
From: Homelands Productions
Jon Miller visits a nationalistic rock band comprised of Orthodox monks in Greece.
Competing for Souls
(00:06:59)
From: Homelands Productions
Producer Alan Weisman reports on how evangelical Christianity is spreading rapidly across South Korea, and coming into conflict with the traditional Buddhist culture.
Related Pieces
Piece Description
In Yaganiza, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, residents will tell you that the Catholic Church is the glue that holds the community together. But the town's Evangelical Christians tell a different story. Enter Rebecca Long. A member of the Dallas-based group SIL International (formerly the Summer Institute of Linguistics), she came to translate the New Testament into the local variant of Zapoteco. SIL International aims to increase native language literacy worldwide, but Evangelical Christianity is what motivates its translators: the group has completed 500 translations of the New Testament and 1,000 more are in progress. Some Yaganizans are thrilled. Others fear that the group is trying to convert residents to evangelical Christianity. And they are wary of outsiders threatening the town's traditions. For in Yaganiza, as in much of Latin America, the tension between Evangelicals and Catholics is much more than just a tension between two ways of interpreting the Bible. It is a struggle over identity, tradition, and the way forward.
2 Comments
|
Review of The Zapotec BibleLovely and engaging piece. Good story-telling and writing by Marianne McCune who introduces us to the Mexican village of Yaganiza in the state of Oaxaca and the American christian woman translating the bible into the indigenous language. Piece flows beautifully with sound always flowing just beneath the surface. Actualities are clear. Pacing is good. Only criticism I found is with the two silent breaks to change direction of the piece. Alarming in that I thought the piece was done so perhaps some ambience to bridge. Producers looking for a good international story that will resonate with American audiences, particularly in border states and christian populated areas. |
Broadcast History
Aired 10/23/04 on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday
Timing and Cues
INTRO: Most of the world's endangered languages have no written tradition. When the last speaker dies, so does the language. For decades, the Dallas-based group S-I-L International has been trying to document as many of those languages as possible -- writing lexicons and dictionaries and, in keeping with its Evangelical Christian mission, Bibles. S-I-L linguists spend years in some of the remotest places on earth. Their collections have been invaluable for both linguists and local educators. But the group has also been controversial. In some places it's been accused of spying for the U-S government, in others of trying too hard to convert the natives. Marianne McCune visited an S-I-L linguist in an indigenous village in southern Mexico. Her story shows how tangled the connections can be between language and tradition, identity and belief -- how language is never just language.
OUTRO: That piece was produced by Marianne McCune for Homelands Productions. It is part of the Worlds of Difference series on global cultural change.
Related Website
Of 1 purchasers of this piece...
- 1 also bought:
The Hula Lesson (00:57:26) - 1 also bought:
- 1 also bought:
Life Stories - Jobs: Women at Work (00:59:06) - 1 also bought:
- 1 also bought:
American Muslims & the Media (00:06:23)
peter higgins
Posted on January 22, 2007 at 06:07 PM | Permalink
Review of The Zapotec Bible
An interesting piece that raises questions about the stewardship of the past, and the role language plays in defining a people and their beliefs.
Generations of church goers in the mountain village of Yaganiza, Mexico have prayed to God in a language they don't understand. Church services are held in Spanish, while most of the congregants speak only the indigenous language Zapoteco. Seven years ago American Rebecca Long started a project to translate the New Testament into Zapoteco with the help of members of the Yaganiza's growing Evangelical church. However, as producer Marianne McCune illustrates, this seemingly positive act is not without controversy in this traditionally Catholic community.
Long has also translated and collected "beautiful texts", and "stories, songs and riddles" of this primarily-spoken language, many of which have gone unread either because of illiteracy, or skepticism of Long's ability to understand the people of Yaganiza as an outsider. One interviewee speaks of the "more natural ... different way of understanding the language" that a native speaker has, and tells of a "famous [indigenous] teacher who's given his life to translating in Zapoteco, but even he still hasn't figured out how to define the word God."
McCune does an excellent job of providing concrete background, social/religious context and atmosphere in this piece where different people are trying to describe one of our most abstract concepts. McCune shows us that Long's opponents and supporters may be using identical words, but like the tone pairs of the Zapotec language, the difference is in the tone.