Archive for June, 2011

« Older Entries

A story that’s making a difference

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Kande’s Story is a story about a young girl whose parents both die due to Aids. She learns more about HIV and Aids, teaches others, and finds love, support and comfort among people in the church. The story is being used to teach others in Africa about Aids.

In sub-Saharan Africa, about 5% of the adult population is HIV-infected. 15 million children have been orphaned because of Aids. While governments have been providing some education, it tends to be in the national language, which not everyone can understand.

Since the first publication of Kande’s Story in 2004, the book has been translated into 139 languages! Translation and distribution is accompanied by workshops, where facilitators relate the story to Bible passages in the mother tongue. The book helps to encourage literacy and Bible reading, where it is translated into languages with newly developed alphabets.

The impact of Kande’s Story has been phenomenal, especially because the material is produced in the mother tongue. “The government has given training on HIV,” explained Ethiopian church leader Worku Mute, “but this one is special because it is in our mother tongue.”

Socially, the training has had a significant impact. The stigma of being HIV-infected is still very strong in many places: in some villages, someone who is HIV-infected is completely ostracised, and churches teach that it is the judgment of God for personal sin. But where Kande’s Story has been used, trust is beginning to grow. You can read more about how Kande’s Story impacted the Guji Oromo community in Ethiopia on TheWordIsLife.net.

The Bible is the story of how God has loved us, and teaches us to love others. The work that Bible translators are involved in is about much more than academics and linguistics: it’s about love. Find out how you could get involved.

Tags: ,
Posted in Africa | 1 Comment »

Word for word?

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Conversationally, people often speak of ‘word for word’ translations. But in many instances, if translators attempted to translate word for word, there would be some very serious problems with the final translation. Take this example from a translation project in Nigeria:

Challenge: Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7:2 to “make room for me in your hearts”. Translated literally in the Tsikimba language, the phrase “make room in your heart” is a local idiom for “hold and nurture a grudge”.

Solution: The translators chose words meaning “open your hearts to us”, which means that Paul wanted to maintain good relationships with the Corinthians.

There are more examples of these kinds of hurdles that translators have to clear on The Seed Company blog. The Seed Company partner with Wycliffe Bible Translators, supporting and enabling the work of Bible translation worldwide.

Mistranslating the Bible, as might have happened in the example above, can hinder someone from hearing God speak in their own language, the language of their heart. It is important that well-trained and dedicated people work with translation teams like the Tsikimba team to ensure accurate and clear translation. Find out more about roles that help get the message through clearly.

Tags: ,
Posted in Africa, Languages | No Comments »

Source a Script

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

Did you know there are 181 scripts used to write the world’s languages? This includes the Tai Viet script, used to write five Indo-Chinese languages. Until a UNESCO workshop in 2006, there was no unified way of writing it for all the languages, and they have no set order for arranging characters, as we do with our alphabet.

Tai Viet Script

These 181 scripts are made up of more than 100,000 different symbols. This includes more than 500 which are part of the Ethiopic (Ge’ez) script used in Africa to write more than 40 languages, including Afar (below).

The Afar language in Ethiopic script

The Tai Viet script and the Afar language have both been featured on the new ScriptSource website. ScriptSource is an initiative of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ partner organisation SIL International.

The aim is to coordinate information about characters, scripts and the languages in which they are used from around the world. By doing so, they aid people developing scripts for never-before-written languages. It enables languages using non-roman scripts to be printed and have their alphabet recognised. It’s one part – a very important part – of enabling a Bible to be printed in every language where it’s needed.

The ScriptSource website has information about scripts, languages and characters from languages around the world. They also have information about where fonts are needed to enable language work to progress.

Font specialists are one of the many roles needed within IT in the work of Bible translation; find out more about IT roles on our website.

Tags: ,
Posted in Languages, Multimedia | 1 Comment »

The People’s Bible

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Biblefresh is about getting people back into the Bible. One initiative within the movement, from Bible Societies in the UK, is The People’s Bible, which started its tour of the UK on Saturday.

As the tour crosses the country, different people will pick a verse or two, and write it by hand. Verses are gathered digitally, forming part of an online, handwritten Bible. The tour started in Edinburgh on Saturday and will finish at Westminster in November.

Like the first King James Bible project four hundred years ago, this Bible edition has also gained royal approval: Genesis 1:1-2 in the book were written in by Prince Charles. The Archbishop of Canterbury also contributed, choosing some verses in 2 Corinthians. In fact, the project has received support from quite a few famous faces, including the actor Timothy West and comedian Frank Skinner (right).

You can find out more about the project on The People’s Bible website, where there’s dates of the tour, the latest verses and some celebrity verses.

There are more than 31,000 verses in the Bible. English-speakers can read these in hundreds of translations. But more than 300 million people don’t have even one verse of the Bible a language they can really understand. You can give the Story everbody needs.

Tags: ,
Posted in Culture, Events, UK | 1 Comment »

The Power of the Word – 13 July

Monday, June 20th, 2011

An exciting reminder. Don’t forget that, on 13 July, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Wycliffe Hall and Christian Mission Society are getting together to celebrate the Bible! The one-day event will be filled with celebration of God’s word in the form of praise and worship, teaching from the Bible and a focus on how we share the word.

The event will be held at St Aldate’s Church, Oxford, with sessions running from 9:30am to 4:00pm. The day will be an encouragement to use the celebrations of the KJB to build up excitement for having the Bible and sharing it with others.

Find out more about the day – and how to sign up – on Oxford Hall’s website.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Events, UK | No Comments »

The Secret Resource

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Where there is suffering, we are led to ask questions: if God loves us, why does he allow suffering? how should Christians live in the midst of conflict? should we forgive the unforgivable? The Bible can answer difficult questions like this and provide emotional and psychological healing — if we can understand it…

Last month saw the first UK ‘Trauma Healing’ workshop. The aim was to equip churches and leaders to help people find peace and healing from the word of God.

This training was developed by Wycliffe Scripture Use specialists in Africa, in response to the need of local pastors struggling to minister to their congregations in the aftermath of war atrocities. Over and over again, when Scripture on forgiveness and God’s character was presented in the particpants’ heart language, their mother tongue, it took root deep and life-changing way.  The manual on which the workshop is based, Healing the Wounds of Trauma, has now been translated into over 100 languages.

This workshop, held in Birmingham, started to equip UK churches to deal sensitively and effectively with trauma where they are, especially among refugee communities.

Feedback was very positive, calling for more workshops like this in the UK (this in spite of struggles the hosts had initially had to find participants!). One participant said this:

“I would like to see it being done again to allow more people to benefit. This is a valuable church resource.  Too many people are limping through their lives in the churches.  Such a need for wholeness in our churches – this ‘secret’ resource must be let out to not only churches but other paid church groups as well.”

It is hoped that more workshops will be taking place in the UK in the near future. Read more stories on Trauma Healing and how these workshops have affected lives on www.thewordislife.net.

Tags: ,
Posted in Events, People, UK | No Comments »

Getting the Right Word

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Translation workers spend a lot of energy on getting the right word. It’s not just a substitution of one word for another, like in a dictionary. It’s important that words are expressive and natural to mother-tongue speakers.

Catherine, who works with people in the Jita language, was recently involved in running a training week for translators. One of the things they thought about was onomatopoeic words, like a cow’s moo or a cat’s meow. These words vary from language to language, and it’s important to get them right: it is the difference between the cock crowing or the cock making a loud noise.

In the Zinza translation, they have been travelling to check translations with Zinza speakers. Someone had suggested a word for ‘prophet’, but everywhere they went they were getting blank looks in response. In one village, an elderly man was listening, trying to work out what they were saying. One of the translators, exhausted with many attempts to use this word, pronounced it slightly differently. Suddenly, the man’s face lit up — he knew exactly what the word meant! The difference between blank stares and understanding was just one vowel sound.

You can read more stories about Bible translation in Uganda and Tanzania, like these ones, on The Task website thetask.net. Many people still do not have a single word of the Bible in the language they can understand most naturally. By supporting the work of Bible translation, you can help them to hear God’s word.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Africa, Languages | No Comments »

Review: Wycliffe and Me

Monday, June 13th, 2011

One of the great privileges of working with Wycliffe Bible Translators is being able to run regular events for people who want to find out more about how they can be involved in God’s mission.  On Saturday 28th May we held Wycliffe and Me, a one-day informative event, at the Wycliffe Centre.

Wycliffe and Me graphic - two people working togetherWe welcomed 13 participants from various backgrounds and levels of interest and were delighted to be able to share with them the wide range of things that God is doing through the support of Bible translation.  The various presentations came from people with a range of expertise and experience around the world from teaching and literacy to linguistics and IT.

One of the participants shared a little about his experience of the day:

“The day was split into talks by different people sharing about their jobs and experiences with Wycliffe and what a Bible Translation project involves and the different aspects of that. One of the most helpful parts of the day was being able to have lunch with the other participants and speakers and have an informal chat about their work and hear some of their stories from their travels.”

 

Our next event is the Window on Wycliffe course (WoW) which is a week long (24-30th July 2011) and costs £175.  If you would like more information check out wycliffe.org.uk/wow.  There will be other one-day Wycliffe and Me events in the Autumn, both at Horsleys Green and further north.  Keep an eye out on the website for more information.

Tags:
Posted in Events, UK | No Comments »

The Modern Bible

Friday, June 10th, 2011

The Bible of Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan, Cromwell? The Bible with which the Mayflower landed in the New World? The household Bible of the seventeenth century? Today is the 454th anniversary of the publication of the New Testament of the Geneva Bible.

This wide-spread popularity of the Geneva Bible came, in part, from its modernity. While the translation was largely based on Tyndale and Coverdale’s work — thus, in many ways, similar to the King James Bible — the phraseology is often more modern than the latter.

It was also a first in terms of a number of ‘modern’ Bible features: the editions came in multiple sizes, unlike previous translations, including the first ‘pocket’ Bible; it was the first to use verse numbers; and, you might say, it was the first study Bible, providing many explanatory notes. In fact, the Geneva Bible was so popular, these marginal notes were added to later editions of the KJB in hopes of increasing its circulation.

At least part of the popularity of the Geneva Bible stems from its history. It was translated in exile, when Protestant scholars had fled England during the reign of Mary I. They travelled to Geneva, where the reformers John Calvin and Theodore Beza oversaw translation. The complete New Testament was first published on June 10th, 1557, with the complete Bible following it three years later. Its birth among the reformers and in exile, made it popular in Protestant England. More than 150 editions were published.

The English language has seen hundreds of Bible translations. But there are still thousands of languages where work has yet to begin on the first. Give the Story everybody needs.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Culture, UK | 2 Comments »

William Carey: 1761 – 1834

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

William Carey lived an extraordinary life. The missionary to India –  known as ‘the Father of Modern Missions’ — lived his life completely based on his love for God and the lost people of the world. He did extraordinary things, yet described himself merely as ‘plodding’.

At a young age, he demonstrated an unusual talent for languages, teaching himself Latin. It was a practice he continued: as a shoemaker, he taught himself Hebrew, Italian, French and Dutch while working.

He was radical in his passion for the world, a passion not shared by many of his contemporaries. In his early thirties, he put it into practice, travelling to India. The method of his mission seemed strange: he took over the management of an Indigo factory, but during his six years doing that work, he translated the New Testament into Bengali.

When offered a professorship, he used his students to check his translation for accuracy and fluency, and to begin a translation into Sanskrit, from which he hoped others would be able to translate the Bible into indigenous languages.

The first page of Carey's Bengali translation

Over the course of his life, he was involved with the translation of about 35 Bibles. He also did considerable work for women’s rights, childhood literacy and even botany in India. His continued commitment despite many struggles shows his passion for the people of India and for giving people the Bible in their own language.

This 177th anniversary of his death, we are reminded of his extraordinary example, all the more so because he was an ordinary man, the son of a weaver, one of five children. The work of Bible translation still needs ordinary people to do the extraordinary out of a love for God and those without his word.

Wycliffe is working, with partners around the world, to start a project to the Bible into all languages where it’s needed by 2025. It’s an extraordinary challenge of which you could be part.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Missionary life, People | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries