Translating Setswana folklore for young Australian readers

As T.J. Otlogetswe, a lexicographer, corpus linguist and translator, I treat Setswana folklore as a record of language as much as a collection of stories. To translate it for children is to carry across jokes, warnings, relationships and knowledge of the landscape. A smooth English version can still fail if those qualities disappear beneath the sentences.

Many families in Melbourne and Sydney use Setswana alongside English, while libraries and schools increasingly host children who are learning English as an additional language. Their readers need stories that sound natural in Australian English without erasing the Setswana world from which they spring. Cultural accuracy and child-friendly storytelling have to grow together.

The work begins with the spoken source and ends with a tested English edition. Between those points lie careful choices about names, kinship, rhythm, humour, imagery and responsibility to the storyteller. The method below treats those choices as visible parts of translation, so that an editor, teacher or parent can understand why a particular English phrase was chosen.

Start with the spoken source

Find a recording, transcript or published version, and identify its narrator and community. Setswana is spoken in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, so a single English label can conceal meaningful regional or family variations. Record the title in its original form, the place and date of performance, the intended audience and any songs, repetitions or call-and-response passages.

Build the glossary from dictionaries, corpora and etymology notes. A word may carry a social meaning that a short definition cannot hold. The exploration of kgomo in Setswana illustrates this point: a familiar word can gather associations that an ordinary first translation leaves out. Ask whether an expression is literal, idiomatic, affectionate or deliberately comic.

Keep the original beside every draft, and label uncertainty instead of smoothing it away. Where two sources differ, compare them with a fluent Setswana speaker and the narrator where possible. A usable source packet contains the recording, a literal working translation, a glossary, performance notes, permission information and a list of unresolved questions. This prevents an attractive retelling from outrunning its evidence.

Keep cultural meaning in view

Begin with meaning rather than matching words one for one. A kinship term, for example, may distinguish a relationship that English compresses into “aunt”. Replacing it with the closest English label can change the family structure the story depends on. A short first-use gloss often works better than an intrusive explanation on every page.

Listen for the devices that carry meaning beyond the sentence. Repeated phrases may invite children to join in; animal noises may guide their actions; a proverb may hold the moral without being quoted as a proverb. Preserve what can be recreated in performance, such as rhythm and sound play, and explain what cannot. Translating the joke should not mean explaining why it stopped being funny.

Record each significant decision in a translator’s note and keep early drafts. The practical lesson in poker strategy videos is that context changes the value of a move: a promising choice can still be poor once the situation develops. Translators face the same constraint when politeness, danger or family duty alters what a phrase will mean to a child.

Make the English child-friendly

Write for the intended reader, not for an imaginary child who needs everything simplified. Short sentences can help, but they should follow the logic and rhythm of the tale rather than chopping it into adult explanations. Keep the verbs active, use familiar Australian English and let children handle some ambiguity. A dense explanatory style can make a lively oral story feel like homework.

Adapt fear and conflict without hiding their consequences. Grim events may need stronger warning, careful staging or a changed framing for younger readers, but sterilising the story can also erase the values behind it. Give young main characters meaningful agency, and avoid using a foreign setting as a shortcut for mystery or cruelty. Content notes are useful when they prepare rather than replace the reading experience.

Use the source language as a support rather than a test. Children can learn a key word, repeat a sound or guess a meaning from context, then hear it in fluent English. Notes on building a children’s dictionary show how a monolingual resource can support that process. A small glossary of difficult animals, objects and kinship terms can prevent unfamiliarity from becoming confusion.

Prepare images, rights and classroom use

Plan the pictures and page design alongside the words. Illustrations can establish weather, clothing, work and movement, but they should not impose a generic visual idea of Africa or settle a cultural ambiguity the text leaves open. The Maldito Vivant site is a useful reference when considering how words, images and cultural assumptions meet in a published narrative.

Check rights before commissioning. An oral tale may still be protected, and a published version can have different permissions from a recording. The Copyright Act 1968 matters, as do contracts with narrators, illustrators and publishers; age status is not a substitute for ownership. For Australian distribution, seek specialist advice on any potentially frightening material and consider classification guidance from the Australian Classification Board.

Make the edition useful beyond a single reading. Australian bookshops, school libraries and multicultural festivals provide different routes to readers, so a sturdy bilingual edition with a source note, pronunciation guide and restrained glossary can serve both home and classroom. Borrowing books from a local library or hearing one at storytime remains a familiar part of family life, making the format easy to place in Australian routines.

Test the story with readers

Test the translation with children, but test the relationship as well as the book. Setswana-speaking children can check whether the English preserves warmth, respect and humour; other children can reveal where an explanation is missing or a joke has vanished. Ask both groups to retell the story after reading. Their choices of details show what the English version actually communicates.

Invite feedback from the narrator, an educator and an editor with knowledge of children’s publishing. Revisit the glossary, not to enlarge it, but to remove terms that the text now explains well. Read the finished version aloud in a classroom or library. Watch for pace, interruptions and places where children lose the thread, then adjust with the same care applied to the source.

Define the project before commissioning it: audience, reading age, page count, illustration style, review process, budget and delivery schedule. A school, community organisation or publisher can begin with a translation enquiry, supplying a sample story and its recording rather than asking a translator to reconstruct cultural context from a fragment alone.

Translation lets a story meet readers in another language, but it should not leave the work of understanding behind. The English reader need not know every Setswana convention, yet should have enough context to recognise the relationships, jokes and values that the telling depends on. A faithful child-facing version sounds like a story, names its origins and keeps the narrator’s voice present.

The most reliable editions are built through iteration: source, literal draft, literary draft, reader testing and revision. That sequence protects both accuracy and readability while allowing the English to acquire its own rhythm. It also leaves a clear record for future translators who may work with another version of the same tale.

The next step is a two-column draft of one short tale, pairing each source passage with a plain-English rendering and a brief note on every cultural decision.