Culture as Translation: Processing in Kuna Language with Rolando Vargas and Edinson Izquierdo
The p5.js fellowship marked a symbolic moment as the summer of 2022 was the 10th anniversary of my media collaborations with the Kuna community in Arquía, an Indigenous community in the Darién rainforest. Since 2012, we have focused on promoting Indigenous languages, Indigenous media, childhood, and education in the Darién. The p5.js fellowship also marked the reactivation of our collaborative projects, as we halted activities for more than two years due to the pandemic.
Kuna children almost exclusively communicate in the Kuna language during their childhood. Kuna is an endemic language that evolved in the Darién region and did not have roots in other Colombian or Central American Indigenous languages. Yet, it has a large number of loan words from Chibcha. In Arquía, classes are taught in Kuna, and children learn Spanish at secondary school. There is no formal education in programming languages at the local school.
For the translation and localization of p5.js into the Kuna language, we gathered a team for remote collaboration, as the Internet connectivity in the region improved during the last few years and was reliable enough for communicating using video calls and virtual meetings. During my field visit in August, we socialized the project and presented it to the community; we also evaluated the state of the audiovisual Kuna dictionary, a project started in 2017 to be produced by and for Kuna children. The fellowship helped us to prepare Kuna children to use p5.js as a foundational tool for prototyping the dictionary.
I started working with Edinson Izquierdo, a former collaborator in other digital projects. We did short 45-minute sessions where I taught him p5.js using a mix of materials in Spanish and English. During our sessions, I contextualized the exercise, filled in knowledge gaps, and prepared the ground for foundational concepts like variables, functions, syntax, testing, and debugging. As I contextualized the narrative explanation of the exercises to Edinson, we located what I considered the weakest points of the Spanish translations. In many cases, the Spanish version did not capture the effectiveness of the original version in English. For example, arrays were translated into arreglos, but the mathematical term in Spanish is matrices. By googling arreglos, it wasn’t easy to find information describing arrays; instead, we found valuable examples and definitions of arrays when we googled the word matrices. The Spanish version of the p5.js documentation translated sketches into bosquejos. Yet, in Kuna, the literal translation of the word sketches refers almost exclusively to drawing or painting; Edinson did not relate this word to the space in which you type and assemble your code. Instead, we chose the Kuna word |sobed|, which means to build and to draw and was closer in meaning to the idea of using the editor.
We used a methodology where Edinson taught other children in Kuna what I had taught him remotely, and took notes on the precise wording he used while explaining and replicating the exercises. We have used this workflow since August. I met with Edinson remotely; we studied the documentation in Spanish, compared it with the English version, analyzed the context, and later discussed the Kuna terms used as Edinson reenacted the lessons in his community using the Kuna language. During this process, we agreed on creating a glossary, as it is essential to get familiarized with words in English, especially while the children work with the editor. The bilingual glossary of frequent terms helps Kuna children prepare to work not only with p5.js but also with English-like languages such as JavaScript.
The project has shifted priorities since its conception; instead of aiming to translate the p5.js documentation into Kuna rapidly and straightforwardly, we chose to reflect on culture as translation in our weekly workshop sessions and strengthen the oral component of the workshops. We reflect on ways of adapting foreign programming knowledge into Kuna culture, locating the correct terminology, and embracing the multilingual nature of the project. The weekly sessions allow us to explore and learn about the p5.js programming language and envision it as a practical tool for future digital projects.
We followed the Kuna tradition of incorporating some terms into the Kuna language but leaving others words without translation. This methodology is used in Arquía to study mathematics; the word Ellipse in Spanish is Elipse, and there is no translation into Kuna for this geometrical term. The math professors explained mathematical concepts in Kuna but maintained the Spanish terminology for terms that do not respond to the world’s conceptions of the Kuna culture. Geometrical terms, words like weekend/fin de semana, are used in Spanish without any adaptation into Kuna. For the glossary, we paired words in Spanish to have enough relevant information when we googled them. While using the glossary, we can search “arreglos programación’’ online and receive relevant information about arrays in Spanish.
I want to thank my p5.js mentor, Bobby Joe, who helped me brainstorm the translation/cultural components of this journey. By doing this project, I have continued researching current trends of Indigenous responses using mobile technologies, new media, infrastructure appropriation, and cultural resistance to understanding Indigenous people’s adaptability using digital technologies. By learning to code and associating digital technologies with the Kuna language, Kuna children are reflecting on digital workflows and appropriating digital methods in their terms and world conceptions.
Rolando Vargas, Processing Foundation Fellow 2022, is a media artist working with installation and digital media. He received a Fulbright grant for his MFA in Intermedia and Digital Arts. Rolando’s dissertation «Kuna Indigenous Media and Knowledge in the Darién Tropical Rain Forest» focused on the politics of traversal and terrain, mapping and survival, and the geographies of collective labor and will as modes of indigenous resistance. Rolando has presented his work at Transmediale, the Kassel Documentary Film Festival, SESC Videobrasil, Recontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid, Kunstverein Düsseldof, EMAF, Ficvaldivia and other international venues. Follow Rolando on twitter.
