Kinyarwanda

The language of Kinyarwanda finds its roots in the Bantu migrations across the African continent, some 2000 years back. It is part of the Niger-Congo language family and shares its roots with many other Bantu languages in the region. Over time, the spoken language would evolve through interactions with neighboring regions and historical events, including German and Belgian colonization, eventually leading to what is now recognized as Kinyarwanda.

For many reasons, including perseverance through the infamous German and Belgian occupations, Kinyarwanda is treasured as a cultural marker and a symbol of national unity in Rwanda. Recent efforts have gone into further standardizing the language in the region, alongside its presence in many cultural traditions such as music, storytelling, and poetry.

The difficulty in translation is often less about translating words and phrases from one language to another, and more about translating concepts. This is because languages aren’t just different words for the same linguistic objects. Languages form from their own contexts to describe phenomena specific to their populations. This is why some words and concepts in one language may not have simple translations to another language, or any direct translations at all.

Being able to perform great quality and coherent translations between languages, then, requires an intimate knowledge of the cultures of the languages, both socially and linguistically. We call this knowledge cultural understanding, and it is the key to making translations accurate, precise, and thoughtful. Without cultural understanding, direct translations fall short, sound silly, and are sometimes even incoherent.