Note on Translation, Transliteration, and Orthography
I have extracted some of the text in this narrative from the “Note on Translation, Transliteration, and Orthography” section that appears in my first book.
1Kafumbe 2018, xvii–xviii. I conducted most of the research on which this book is based in Luganda, the language of the Baganda people or natives of Buganda, and my first language. Buganda is the largest kingdom of Uganda located in the country’s south-central region. It is the homeland of the Baganda (plural for Muganda), who speak Luganda and use the adjective
Kiganda to describe their cultural customs and practices.
2For a more detailed discussion of the kingdom’s history, see Kafumbe 2018, xxi–xxviii. Transcribing Luganda interviews and translating them to English was a complicated process that required the assistance and expertise of multiple Ugandan research collaborators and participants. Attaining accurate and idiomatic English translations demanded that I weigh between using literal and free translations. At first, I aimed to adhere to the Luganda’s syntactical order without necessarily considering the idiomatic expressions of American English; however, this approach often resulted in awkward translations that would have made little sense to readers, and it became clear to me that this particular exercise in translation required a freer, more sensitive approach. Thus, toward the end of editing this book, I embraced that my translations ought to prioritize conveying the intended meaning of the text and presenting its idiomatic quality rather than seeking literal correctness. Taking cues from Mirela’s observations about different kinds of translations, I extensively modified phrasing, substituted words, and tailored content to different cultural contexts.
3Mirela 2024. This process allowed me to account for the wide range of meanings and idioms present in the Luganda transcriptions. I am confident that the English translations featured in this book accurately represent the ideas that my research collaborators expressed in Luganda interviews, which is one of the primary goals of this study. I do not include Luganda transcripts of quoted text.
The Luganda texts featured in this book are song lyrics, proverbs, and key terms related to the main themes of the book. Throughout the manuscript, Luganda words and phrases appear in italics except for proper nouns (names of ensembles, groups, places, clans, institutions, organizations, and so forth) and song titles. It is my hope that including Luganda song lyrics and proverbs will give the reader some insight into the translation process I have described. Luganda speakers will quickly notice that although my presentation of Luganda text attempts to follow contemporary writing conventions, some of the song lyrics barely adhere to the rules of Luganda grammar.
In addition, some meanings are only implied, and I explain these subtleties in the analysis that follows the song lyrics. I encourage readers to join me in reading the song lyrics as poems and the proverbs as riddles, as doing so allows for a deeper appreciation of my research collaborators’ artistic creativity and stylistic diversity, which enrich the text’s literal and nonliteral meanings. For improved readability, my treatment of song titles does not fully follow standard usage. I present the titles in roman type and in quotation marks, and their English translations precede the Luganda song titles, which appear in parentheses. Similarly, key Luganda terms appear in parentheses and are preceded by their English translations. However, in my presentation of song lyrics and proverbs, the Luganda text precedes its English translation, which appears in parentheses.
4Many of the proverbs presented in this book or their variations also appear in Walser 1982, which I have consulted extensively.In some instances, Luganda terms have initial vowels a, e, and o, which may indicate articles or prefix forms of infinitives in the case of verbs. However, I omit these initial vowels when I use English articles before most noun stems; keeping them would both be redundant and result in confusing, awkward wording. I capitalize all Luganda titles preceding proper names, and I treat some names of musical instruments and other performance materials as proper names, in which case I use initial uppercase letters and italicize the terms to distinguish them from other types of proper names.
Readers interested in pronouncing the Luganda text in this book should bear in mind that like other Bantu languages, Luganda is tonal—thus the meanings of words and phrases depend on the relationship between tone and pronunciation. Luganda vowels a, e, i, o, and u are pronounced “ah,” “eh,” “ee,” “oh,” and “oo,” respectively. Double vowels create longer sounds, and i rarely follows y when the latter is preceded by a consonant (y is regarded as both a consonant and a semivowel). Luganda consonants include b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z, ny, and ŋ, which has a velar nasal sound similar to the sound at the end of the English word “ding.” Pronunciations of consonants depend on the vowels that follow them. These pronunciations, coupled with the tonal range and length of the vowels, shape the tonal character of words, which in turn determine their meanings.
The sounds of consonants also depend on their various combinations. For example, double consonants indicate stressed and longer approximant sounds. The ny combination may act as a syllable and as a nasal consonant, while the ky digraph sounds like the consonant c (pronounced “ch”), although c has a shorter sound than ky. Therefore, double vowels usually follow c, while a single vowel follows ky. When ky appears in a closing syllable of a word, it normally has a short sound. Although the combination ggy and jj may sound similar, some Luganda speakers pronounce them slightly differently. Ggya can sound like “gea” in the English word “gear,” while jja sounds like “ja” in the English word “jar.” Finally, the consonant r sounds similar to the consonant l.