On the first page of the first chapter, I felt a little ambitious and translated Remus's first section of words. Then I turned the page and remembered that the stories are told through his speech (I've read the Tar Baby story), and I gave up on that idea.
I read the first few sentences short and choppily. Word. By. Word. After. Word. It's tricky, and sometimes it's hard to figure out even if you say it out loud. Sometimes it requires all the tricks you learned in grade school: context clues, sounding it out, etc...
In story II, "Brother Fox Catches Mr. Horse," Brer Rabbit is a jerk, but he is funny. He talks the fox into getting tied to the horses tail, and then when the horse jumps up, he shouts:
"Hol' 'im down, Brer Fox! Hol' 'im down! I'll stan' out yer en see fa'r play. Hol' 'im down, Brer Fox! Hol' 'im down" (Harris 55).
Haha, I can just see a horse kicking through a field with a fox dangling from his tail and the rabbit jumping up and down, smothering his laughter, egging on the fox. This is some funny stuff.
Glad to hear the humor is coming through, Patrick.
I totally agree that some parts are hard to read and if you read out loud it does seem to be easier to translate. That rabbit is a bugger alright and he always comes out on top!
I did the same thing at first then realized it would be impossible to translate this entire thing. I struggled, but you're right, context clues/ sounding it out/ reasding it aloud does help a lot more than blankly staring at a sentence of jibberish.
It's funny how to read something like this, something so basic that it appeals to the ear instead of the eye, that we need to go back to the basics of our education.