The worm, the crow, and the challenges of cross-cultural storytelling

Pop quiz: 

Match the sentences to the genre in which you might find them.

1. And they all lived happily ever after.

2. Press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish.

3. She has demonstrated superior critical thinking, organization, and attention to detail.

4. So good to see you again! You look great!

5. "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." 

a. Greeting a visiting friend 

b. Phone recording for a government service

c. Opening line of a dystopian novel (William Gibson's Neuromancer)

d. College recommendation letter

e. Fairy tale closing

Not too hard, was it? In case you need help, answers are at the bottom. But these lines would sound pretty odd if you shuffled them around between those five contexts.

A recent language coaching class encouraged us to help our advanced learners notice discourse. Discourse means the structure or shape of a text or conversation. What kinds of phrases and sentences are used to open, develop, and close it? What markers indicate its genre? A court testimony and a fairy tale are both narratives, but you wouldn't start a court testimony with "Once upon a time." 

Languages can have diverse expectations for what makes each genre sound "right" and natural. If I assume my second language has the same discourse patterns as my first, what can happen? 

• I might miss cues that someone is trying to end a conversation, or feel unsure how to do so myself. (Hanging up the phone with a Khmer speaker used to be so awkward for me!)
• I might persuade in a way that doesn't sound persuasive. (I read that Japanese students are taught to sound hesitant and acknowledge other viewpoints to reflect their humility in a large and complicated world. By contrast, American essay writers are taught to say "My viewpoint IS the truth." This divergence can cause confusion and discomfort in ESL writing courses.) 
• I might communicate information that I see as organized and clear, but my audience finds difficult to follow or process.

Image from ThoughtCo

As with several other coaching suggestions, I knew I needed to grow here in my own language learning, so I decided to give it a try. One area where I'd like to grow is in storytelling. What makes people want to listen? So I chose a Buddhist folk tale in Khmer​, one that I'd once watched in class, and instead of just reading it for comprehension, I picked it apart, trying to understand every word. Then I examined how the words combined into sentences, paragraphs, and story. 

My analysis had three stages: 

1. Very literal translation

2. Somewhat literal translation

3. Non-literal translation

That way, I could compare the Khmer structure to a comparable English structure for folk tales. It was sometimes hard to find 1-to-1 correspondences of English and Khmer words, and even the most literal translation still loses shades of meaning in Khmer. But these three stages will give you an indication of potential differences between stories in the two languages. (You probably don't want to read all of the very literal translation, so I'm just including the beginning to give you an idea.)

1. Very literal translation:

Story Worm and Crow

Even this version still adds capitalizations and spaces between words, neither of which exist in the original Khmer except where I’ve used the Tab function below. Khmer spaces are wider than English ones and work more like commas - I'm still not sure why this story uses commas in some places instead of spaces in the original text.

Have story one say     worm eating leaf      have crow one fly seek food go to notice with worm that. Crow say “Time this have luck get worm eat” and fly go near worm. Worm look see crow also realize say “Self, (impolite) crow this heart brutal      will stab me eat now already.” Worm ask crow say “Come seek what?”. Crow tell go to worm back say “I come eat worm you.” Worm say “When only crow you seek riddle me find then eat me can, if seek riddle me not find eat me not can not.” Crow ask that “Riddle worm you way like what ask come descend I will seek give find.” Worm ask go to crow like have continue go to this:

1 - Like what which they call say sweet more than they most?

2 -  Like what which they call say sour bitter/unripe more than they most?

3 - Like what which they call say stinky more than they most?

4 - Like what which they call say fragrant more than they most?

Whew, does your brain hurt yet? OK, let's look at the intermediate version, where I tried to use correct grammar but stay as possible to the Khmer discourse structure.

Somewhat literal, yet grammatical, translation: 

“The Story of Worm and Crow”

I put in paragraph breaks, quotation marks, question marks, and periods only where they exist in Khmer. I changed verb tenses where appropriate and added some of the following to make it flow better:

• commas and semicolons
• articles [a/an/the] 
• subjects for verbs
• conjunctions like “and” & “but” 

I've marked these additions in red in the first paragraph and left the spaces in to give you an idea. 

There is one tale saying     a worm was eating a leaf     one crow flew looking for food; it went and spotted with that worm. The crow said, “This time I have luck and get the worm to eat” and flew near the worm. The worm looked, saw the crow and recalled saying, “This stupid brutal-hearted crow      will stab me to eat now already.” The worm asked the crow saying, “What do you come seeking?”. The crow told to the worm back saying, “I came to eat the worm, you.” The worm said, “Only when, Crow, you seek my riddle and find it, then you can eat me; if you seek my riddle and do not find it, you can’t eat me.”

The crow asked saying, “What’s your riddle, worm, go ahead and ask me and I’ll figure it out.” The worm asked the crow the following:

1.    How do they call that which is sweet more than anything, most of all?

2.    How do they call that which is sour more than anything, most of all?

3.    How do they call that which is stinky more than anything, most of all?

4.    How do they call that which is fragrant more than anything, most of all?

When the crow had heard the worm ask all four riddles already, he had the most joy and shouted excitedly and playfully, thinking saying, “All four of the worm’s four riddles, I sought and found and can eat this worm without missing out,” so the crow answered and solved the riddle in the following way.

1.    That which they call sweet most of all, that is sugar and honey, sweeter than anything.

2.    That which they call sour most of all, that is sour lime soup, tamarind, sandan fruit soup, and vinegar.

3.    That which they call stinky most of all, that is poop and all types of animal carcasses.

4.    That which they call fragrant most of all, that is magnolia, jasmine, and perfume.

5.    Crow has solved all four of these riddles, he told the worm.

The worm said “Crow has solved the riddles incorrectly.” So Crow looked gloomy saying back to the worm, “Worm, if you say it’s wrong, please tell me these riddles’ answers so I’ll know.” The worm replied to the crow saying “I can tell you, but crow, don’t eat me once I tell you.” The crow said “Just go ahead and tell me, I won’t eat you.” Once they had agreed together in this way, the worm solved the riddles and told them to the crow, like the following words:

1. That which they call sweet most of all, that is not really sugar or honey sweet, but sweet words spoken back and forth with each other through melodious, faithful words toward each other. This is what is called the sweetest.
2. That which they call sour and bitter most of all, that is not really sour and bitter tamarind, sandan fruit soup, lime soup, or vinegar, but vulgar, cruel, impolite, inappropriate words spoken back and forth with each other. This is what is called sour and bitter beyond all else.
3. That which they call stinky, that is not really stinky poop or a stinky carcass, but a foul reputation and name of an evildoer. This is exactly what is called “putrid even upwind.”
4. That which they call fragrant, that is not really the fragrant scent of a flower or perfume, but a fragrant reputation and name of an innocent person doing good, this is exactly what is called “fragrant more than any fragrant spice.”

The crow, having listened to all these riddles, then stopped eating the worm and went.

Small but really true, like a sparkling diamond.

It's a lot more understandable than the first story. But would you buy a book of stories like this to read with your kids? Me neither.

Finally, since I couldn't find a comparable English version, here's my best shot at fitting it into English discourse patterns for folk tales. Red indicates places where I changed the wording to sound more like an English folk tale:

“The Worm and the Crow”

A worm was once eating a leaf when a crow flew overhead, hunting for food, and spotted the worm. The crow told himself, “I’m in luck: this worm will be an easy target!” and dove toward the worm. 

Looking up, the worm spotted the crow and realized, “This rotten brutal-hearted crow is about to gobble me up!” So she asked the crow, “What do you want?” 

The crow replied, “I’m here to claim you as my dinner!” 

The worm said, “OK, fine, you can eat me… but only after you solve my riddles.”

“Go ahead, what are they? I know I’ll get them right,” the crow responded cockily.

So she proceeded to ask the crow: 

1.    "What’s the sweetest thing in the world?

2.    What’s the sourest, most bitter thing in the world?

3.    What’s the stinkiest thing in the world?

4.    What’s the most fragrant thing in the world?"

Hearing these riddles, the crow let out a gleeful caw. He thought to himself, “These are easy. This worm is mine for sure!” He told the worm:

1.    "The sweetest things in the world are sugar and honey.

2.    The sourest, most bitter things in the world are sour lime soup, tamarind, sour fruit soup, and vinegar.

3.    The stinkiest things in the world are poop and all animal carcasses.

4.    The most fragrant things in the world are magnolias, jasmine flowers, and perfume.

5.    I’ve solved all four of your riddles!”

“Not so fast!” she replied. “Your answers are wrong.”

The crow looked crestfallen. “Wrong, you say? Then please tell me the right answers so I’ll know.”

“I’ll tell you, but you can’t eat me afterward,” said the brave little worm.

The crow answered, “As long as you tell me, I won’t eat you.”

Satisfied by their agreement, the worm revealed the riddles’ solutions:

1.    "The sweetest thing in the world isn’t sugar or honey, but a sweet conversation filled with musical, faithful words. That’s what’s really the sweetest.

2.    The sourest, most bitter thing in the world isn’t a food like tamarind, sour fruit, lime, or vinegar, but a conversation full of vulgar, cruel, impolite, and unseemly words. That’s the sourest, most bitter thing of all.

3.    The stinkiest thing in the world isn’t poop or carcasses, but an evildoer’s foul reputation and name. That’s what you call 'so putrid you can smell it upwind.'

4.    The most fragrant thing in the world isn’t the scent of a flower or a perfume. It’s the sweet-smelling reputation and name of an upstanding citizen, 'more fragrant than any spice.'”

With this wisdom ringing in his ears, the crow left the worm alone and flew off.

This story is short but profound, like a sparkling diamond.

Here are some differences I noticed:

• In some places, the Khmer was much shorter than the English; in other places, much longer. We have different conventions for what needs to be spelled out and what can be inferred. 
• In Khmer, people prefer to restate the nouns often because pronouns get really confusing. Even pronouns like "you" often had the animal's name in front of it. 
• Sometimes Khmer and English differ on where subjects are required for verbs. 
• Here English but not Khmer requires a subject: "This time have luck" vs. "This time I have luck/I'm in luck" 
• Here Khmer requires a subject: "When the crow had heard the worm ask all four riddles already, he had the most joy and shouted excitedly and playfully." vs. "Hearing these riddles, the crow cried out with delight."
• I spotted differences in how Khmer uses punctuation: no exclamation points in the original (I added six), fewer mid-sentence pauses (whether commas or spaces), some surprises with question marks. 
• Khmer often adds the word "say" after verbs that imply it, like "reply" or "ask." 
• There were specific phrases to begin the story and to ask and answer about superlatives, "the ___est thing," which never used "in the world" like English might. Likewise, there was a specific phrase signalling "in the following way," which often could be left out in the English translation, but which I've heard in other Khmer stories. 
• This story had less action than I anticipated. I thought the crow would try to get out of the deal and eat the worm anyway. But my tutor said she was surprised too, and the video included a scene with him lunging and her scurrying underground, so maybe that's not a broader pattern.
• There's no moral at the end, just a statement praising the story's value. The worm says the morals out loud during the story. These morals definitely reflects Khmer values of harmonious relationships and preserving one's reputation. English folk tales often have just one moral.
• The moral part has a satisfying parallelism with the opposites of sour/sweet and stinky/fragrant. But in English we'd probably have one wrong answer per question, where the crow gives four or five for some of them. 

Understanding the Khmer took some dictionary work and some help from my tutor. But it wasn't really that hard to translate it into English, even English that sounds kinda like a traditional folk tale. Imagine the opposite, though. Could I take a story I know and translate it into Khmer? Getting it to that intermediate stage, grammatical correctness, is a long way from telling a smooth story that would captivate listeners. I hope to ask more people about what lines or phrases in the original Khmer sound great, are mainly used in folk tales, or should be imitated in my own stories. For now, my goal is oral storytelling, which is both easier for me and more useful in my daily life than writing. But still, getting to Story 3 in Khmer takes a lot of familiarity with strong examples of that genre. 

Realizing this gives me more sympathy for international friends whose logic I can't always follow well. It gives me sympathy for myself as I struggle week after week to understand Khmer sermons, or to tell non-boring stories in Khmer. And it gives me a whole lot of respect for bilingual Khmer friends who bridge the gap in understanding and/or translating for non-Khmer speakers. It also motivates me to keep reading and listening. Khmer discourse is different from English discourse, but it's not random, and the variations aren't infinite. There are patterns to it that I can hunt for and grow into over time. And when I do? I'll be a much better communicator... in Khmer, anyway.

Pop quiz answers: 1. e    2. b   3. d    4. a   5. c