The Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) continues to publish the books of the Old Testament in the Balkar language. The Balkars are a Turkic-speaking people that lives primarily in the central part of the North Caucasus, with a population of about 113,000 people, according to the 2010 census.
The book of the prophet Jonah is the second Old Testament edition in the Balkar language published by IBT. In 2020, IBT published a Balkar edition of Ruth, Esther and Daniel. Jonah was printed as a large hardcover edition with colorful illustrations by I. Pavlishina that had previously been used in the publications of Jonah in various other languages and were well accepted by readers of different ethnicities...
IBT is continuing to publish online editions of our new translations even as we wait for printing-houses to open up once the covid-19 quarantine ends. The latest of these editions is the Balkar version of the Old Testament books of Ruth, Esther and Daniel.
The Turkic-language Balkars constitute about 10% of the population of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North Caucasus area of the Russian Federation. Together with the closely related Karachay people, there are about 300,000 speakers of this language in Russia.
...Neither Alim nor any of his relatives believed that his life could be restored. All that followed resembled the story of the prodigal son. Alim’s liberation from the abyss of sin and despair, subsequent reconciliation with his family, and total restoration occurred in several stages, but the very first glimpse of hope was given to him by another native speaker of Balkar, one of the few existing Balkar Christians, who by God’s providence visited Alim’s prison in the early 1990s and addressed him in his mother tongue...
...Neither Alim nor any of his relatives believed that his life could be restored. All that followed resembled the story of the prodigal son. Alim’s liberation from the abyss of sin and despair, subsequent reconciliation with his family, and total restoration occurred in several stages, but the very first glimpse of hope was given to him by another native speaker of Balkar, one of the few existing Balkar Christians, who by God’s providence visited Alim’s prison in the early 1990s and addressed him in his mother tongue...