Undefined
November 30, 2016

IBT has published a new illustrated Scripture portion, the Noah story, in the Dungan language. The story of Noah and the Flood from the book of Genesis is the first publication in the “Lives of the Prophets” series that the Dungan translation team is working on following the popular edition of the Proverbs of Solomon (published in 2015). The Noah story is presented in parallel columns in Dungan and Russian and is illustrated by beautiful artwork produced by a Dungan painter. An audio CD with the recording of the story in Dungan is included with the book.

November 29, 2016

After IBT published the New Testament in the Tabasaran language of Dagestan in 2010,  the translation team decided to continue their work by translating the Old Testament. Their first Old Testament trial publication (Ruth and Jonah) came out in 2013.  The translators then turned their attention to further OT books, including Esther and Daniel, which were printed in late 2016. Tabasaran is spoken by about 125,000 people and is considered by many linguists to be the record holder among the world’s languages for the number of grammatical cases, 48.

November 7, 2016

One more book of the Bible has been published by IBT in the Sakha (Yakut) language, a translation of the Proverbs of Solomon. The main Sakha translator and exegete for this IBT project, Sargylana Leontieva was constantly astonished by the interest expressed in these biblical proverbs by non-religious Sakha people who are not in any way involved in the work of Bible translation. “Apparently, it’s because biblical proverbs remind Yakuts of our own folklore with its many proverbial sayings,” she reflects. “The Proverbs contain the kind of wisdom and advice that is vital for all people.”

The PDF version of this Yakut translation may be found on the Electronic Books page of the IBT website. 

 

September 15, 2016

At the request of churches in the Siberian Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), IBT has published a revised and supplemented edition of the Children’s Bible in the Sakha (or Yakut) language of Siberia. Sakha is a Turkic language spoken by about 450,000 people. The previous edition of the full Sakha Children’s Bible was printed in 2013 and was rapidly distributed among the people.

IBT has also completed work on the Sakha translation of Proverbs and plans to publish this by the end of 2016. Translation work into Sakha is also progressing on Ruth, Esther, Jonah, and Song of Songs, as well as on a biblical-theological wordbook.

August 22, 2016
Kurdish-Kurmanji Psalms & Proverbs Cyrillic
Kurdish-Kurmanji Psalms & Proverbs Latin

Two Old Testament books – Psalms and Proverbs – have recently been published in the Kurmanji dialect of the Kurdish language. Kurds speaking this dialect live primarily in Armenia, Georgia, the Central Asian republics, and several regions of the Russian Federation. Literacy in this dialect of Kurdish was introduced in 1946 on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet with additional letters.

Work on translating the Bible into Kurmanji-Kurdish was begun by IBT in 1993. The translation of the New Testament was published in 2000 and was well-received by Kurdish Christians. A revised version of the New Testament (in both Cyrillic script and Roman script) was published in 2011.