Posts by slimboyfat

31

Watchtower SlangJamaican Patois: Gods son came fe mash up the world😂

by Diogenesister in

14 days ago

🤦‍♀️this 25 million different languages thing is getting ridiculous.

this link is hilarious!

they've only gone and translated into jamaican patois and boy this isn't just translation, they're literally using slang....what next?

4 days ago

slimboyfat 6 days ago

Reading and writing are two different things. Presumably anyone who can speak a language is also able to read it, even if they couldn’t easily compose in that language without practice. I can read much of what is written in Scots but I would find it difficult to compose my own, and it’s not my everyday way of speaking. So providing written material in creole and marginal languages provides a choice for those for whom it is their everyday language of speech that they can read it too, if they wish. If they prefer not to, that’s their choice, but being given the choice is surely a good thing. Why should only large and dominant languages used in everyday discourse be available in written form? If a person in London, Berlin, or Paris can read material in the same language that they speak everyday then why shouldn’t a person in Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Switzerland, Lübeck, Corsica or elsewhere have that same choice. If Haitian Creole is used in written form then presumably Jamaican Creole can become more widely used in written form over time, and perhaps Watchtower will play a part in that.

Various studies have acknowledged the role of JWs in supporting languages with few speakers to revive and expand material available in various forms.

Barchas-Lichtenstein, J. (2014). Jehovah's Witnesses, endangered languages, and the globalized textual community. Language & Communication, 38, 44-53

Barchas-Lichtenstein, J. (2013). " When the dead are resurrected, how are we going to speak to them?": Jehovah's Witnesses and the Use of Indigenous Languages in the Globalizing Textual Community. University of California, Los Angeles

Davis, J. L. (2014). Intersections of religion and language revitalization. In The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred Places, Identities, Practices and Politics (pp. 1091-1101). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands

Hansen, M. P. (2010). Nahuatl among Jehovah's Witnesses of Hueyapan, Morelos: A case of Spontaneous revitalization

Simard-ÉMond, A. (2023). Understanding conversion to Jehovism among Indigenous peoples: The case of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. Social Compass, 70(2), 283-303

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31

Watchtower SlangJamaican Patois: Gods son came fe mash up the world😂

by Diogenesister in

14 days ago

🤦‍♀️this 25 million different languages thing is getting ridiculous.

this link is hilarious!

they've only gone and translated into jamaican patois and boy this isn't just translation, they're literally using slang....what next?

4 days ago

slimboyfat 6 days ago

The idea of Jamaican patois being considered something that should be put in its written form is funny to me because where does this stop?
Is there going to be a Trinidadian patois next then a St. Vincent patois, a Nevis patois, a Bahamian patois, insert any other Caribbean island thereafter.

Interesting questions, which prompted me to research the issue a little. Watchtower does have Saint Lucian Creole, which has fewer speakers than Jamaican Creole, in addition to Haitian and Guadeloupean, that have more speakers than Jamaican Creole. Maybe they will get round to the Caribbean islands in time. This is what I found are the some of the languages classed as creoles that Watchtower has already produced material for on their website with the approximate numbers of speakers in those languages:

Nigerian Pidgin - 120 million speakers

Guadeloupean Creole - 13 millions speakers

Cameroonian Pidgin - 12 million speakers

Haitian Creole - 12 million speakers

Tok Pisin - 4 million speakers

Jamaican Patwa - 3 million speakers

Mauritian Creole - 1 million speakers

English Guyanese Creole - 700,000 speakers

Saint Lucian Creole - 700,000 speakers

Sranan Tongo - 700,000 speakers

Hawaiian Pidgin - 600,000 speakers

Solomon Islands Pidgin - 600,000 speakers

Réunion Creole - 560,000 speakers

Guinea-Bissau Creole - 350,000 speakers

Arabic Juba - 250,000 speakers

Belizean Creole - 170,000 speakers

French Guyanese Creole - 134,000 speakers

Seychelles Creole - 73,000 speakers

San Andrés Creole - 20,000 speakers

Torres Strait Creole - 8000 speakers

For comparison, some small European languages that Watchtower produces material for include:

Swiss German - 5 million speakers

Galician - 2 millions speakers

Irish - 1 million speakers

Romani - 1 millions speakers

Low German - 1 million speakers

Welsh - 750,000 speakers

Basque - 750,000 speakers

Maltese - 520,000 speakers

Crimean Tatar - 480,000 speakers

Frisian - 470,000 speakers

Luxembourgish - 400,000 speakers

Icelandic - 330,000 speakers

Montenegrin - 240,000 speakers

Komi - 220,000 speakers

Gagauz - 140,000 speakers

Tabasaran - 120,00 speakers

Erzya - 120,000 speakers

Võro - 87,000 speakers

Faroese - 69,000 speakers

Kashubian - 50,000 speakers

West Greenlandic - 50,000 speakers

Scottish Gaelic - 57,000 speakers

Tat - 30,000 speakers

Corsican - 30,000 speakers

East Greenlandic - 3000 speakers

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+1 / -0

31

Watchtower SlangJamaican Patois: Gods son came fe mash up the world😂

by Diogenesister in

14 days ago

🤦‍♀️this 25 million different languages thing is getting ridiculous.

this link is hilarious!

they've only gone and translated into jamaican patois and boy this isn't just translation, they're literally using slang....what next?

4 days ago

slimboyfat 6 days ago

I think you’re confusing Standard Scottish English with Scots like Doric and Lallan which to my knowledge have a limited written language.

You accuse me of confusion but say nothing about your blunder in lumping Irish along with Klingon. WT literature is already in Irish and has been for a long time. So why did you include it in your list?

In fact there’s plenty written in Doric, which is a variety of Scots, including Bible translation. The relation of English and Scots has been compared with Norwegian in relation to Danish, except that the differences are perhaps greater between Scots and English than between Norwegian and Danish. Many works of literature have been and continue to be published in Scots, including scholarly Bible translations (Watchtower cites one of these in their reference Bible). I have a copy of the New Testament in Scots by William Lorrimer who was a scholar of Greek and translated from the original language.

WTBTS will have to invent new words in a language that isn’t yours to explain an idea that is culturally foreign - or - more likely, introduce loanwords instead of having the population decide for themselves what the word should be.

Which is true of all languages and especially all Bible translations. You realise that English Bible translators coined all sorts of words, and that English itself is completely permeated with loanwords, right? It’s a famous witticism that “We [English] don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary.” And the English Bible is full of words that were coined to explain the culture of original to English speakers. This is entirely normal in Bible translation.

Only in relation to subaltern languages is the idea of borrowing, loanwords and coining new words problematised or presented as evidence that it somehow makes it not a “real” language. If the percentage of loanwords determines a real language then English would have to be one of the fakest languages ever.

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31

Watchtower SlangJamaican Patois: Gods son came fe mash up the world😂

by Diogenesister in

14 days ago

🤦‍♀️this 25 million different languages thing is getting ridiculous.

this link is hilarious!

they've only gone and translated into jamaican patois and boy this isn't just translation, they're literally using slang....what next?

4 days ago

slimboyfat 7 days ago

Then it’s a bit bizarre that you cite Irish as an example where it would be as ridiculous as Klingon for WT to publish in that language when they have done so for most of their history.

The idea that languages have grammar and dialects don’t is what is sorely misunderstanding how language works. All languages/dialects can be written down and used if people find it useful to do so. I only know Scots of the languages you cite, but it is certainly written down, has its own grammar, history and literature. If Watchtower chose to publish in Scots there’d be nothing wrong with that. People who find it useful could use it and people who don’t find it useful could choose not to use it. But to complain about other people choosing to use a written language that you personally choose not to use is a political power play. It’s “get back in your box, you’ve got no right to pretend to be a real language like your bigger neighbour”, type behaviour that belongs better in the 19th century than in the 21st. To claim to speak for all Jamaicans is also something of a stretch. Even if many Jamaicans feel the way you claim (where is the evidence?) that still leaves those who will welcome seeing their everyday language in print and find it inclusive and helpful. Why should they be deprived of it just because others don’t find it useful or because others think it looks/sounds funny?

Link

31

Watchtower SlangJamaican Patois: Gods son came fe mash up the world😂

by Diogenesister in

14 days ago

🤦‍♀️this 25 million different languages thing is getting ridiculous.

this link is hilarious!

they've only gone and translated into jamaican patois and boy this isn't just translation, they're literally using slang....what next?

4 days ago

slimboyfat 7 days ago

@slimboyfat: I look forward to seeing more translations of WTBTS literature in other politically charged written conlangs:
Ebonics; Scots; Irish; Esperanto; Toki Pona; Klingon; Flemish; Walloon; High Valerian

You are telling on yourself. You think the language of Scots, Irish, Flemish, Walloons, and African Americans is to be mocked by comparing it with Klingon and High Valyrian? Isn’t that somewhat ignorant, not to mention less progressive than WT. Is that where you want to be? And for your information, WT literature is already translated into Irish and has been for over a hundred years. “A language is just a dialect with an army”, as they say. To empower the everyday languages disparaged and degraded by more powerful neighbours as “dialects” is a smart move as well as an ethical one and I applaud it.

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21

1/2 of the Jehovah’s witnesses have gone

by hoser in

jw
friends

8 days ago

there are 1/2 of the jehovah’s witnesses that there were 30 years ago in my area.

some have left but i think that many have died and none of their kids stayed being jehovah’s witnesses.

7 congregations have been dissolved over the years.

13 hours ago

slimboyfat 7 days ago

My congregation has had similar numbers for 30 years now. It was slightly larger in the 1980 and dropped a bit in the mid 90s. But the composition has changed dramatically. Now around a third of congregation are African immigrants.

Link

+4 / -0

17

Top Jehovahs witnesses Historians

by Paul Bonanno in

jw
friends

7 days ago

hi .

who do you think are the best historian/historians about the history of jehovahs witnesses?.

paul.

4 days ago

slimboyfat 7 days ago

Zoe Knox, Emily Baran, and Detlef Garbe

Link

+3 / -0

3103

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

2 years ago

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

14 hours ago

slimboyfat 7 days ago

You can run in, give a dislike, then run back out again. 💡 😁

Link

+3 / -0

142

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

14 days ago

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

2 hours ago

slimboyfat 9 days ago

The reason 1 Tim 2.5 shows Jesus is not God is because it says there is “one God” and that Jesus is the mediator for that “one God” and humans. In any normal understanding of language, the world and anything, this means that Jesus, whoever he is, is someone other than the “one God”, and the humans he is mediator for. If I say that Jack took a message between Toby and Ryan we know next to nothing about Jack, but what we do know with absolute certainty is that Jack is neither Toby nor Ryan, he’s somebody else.

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+5 / -0

31

Watchtower SlangJamaican Patois: Gods son came fe mash up the world😂

by Diogenesister in

14 days ago

🤦‍♀️this 25 million different languages thing is getting ridiculous.

this link is hilarious!

they've only gone and translated into jamaican patois and boy this isn't just translation, they're literally using slang....what next?

4 days ago

slimboyfat 9 days ago

Ah so the flag is on the cover of an outside Bible translation. That makes sense. I guess all decisions about language are “political”, you can’t get away from that. But for people who appreciate having Watchtower literature in their everyday language it is a good move to provide it. Others who don’t appreciate it don’t need to use it and can continue using English. If some people feel diminished or politically wrong footed because other people now have the freedom to make a different language choice than they would make (to use creole WT literature) then that’s a pretty self-centred attitude and I wouldn’t worry about such people.

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