The first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, has been translated into the Gagauz language.
Most of the Gagauz people (more than 100,000 speakers in all) live in south Moldova, particularly in the district of Gagauzia. The Gagauz, who are primarily Orthodox Christians, are already familiar with the biblical stories of the Creation, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel from worship and icon painting. Now, the book of Genesis will enable the Gagauz to get acquainted in full with these stories in their native language. Until now, the only Old Testament works available in Gagauz have been a summary of Old Testament stories published in 1907, the Psalter (1936), the IBT Children’s Bible (2010), six Psalms (IBT, 2011), and the books of Ruth and Jonah (IBT, 2017)...
Several speakers of Tuvan, Altai, and Gagauz took part in a webinar on the production of Scripture-based media from July 7 to 11. The webinar focused on practical skills, such as how to use Vegas Movie Studio and Photoshop.
The book of Ruth in the Gagauz language was recorded by IBT staff members at IBT’s Moscow office on December 18. The reading was performed by Tatyana Kyrboba-Marin. The Gagauz book of Ruth was published by IBT in 2017 together with the book of Jonah, and now this audio recording is about to appear on IBT's website. The book of Genesis is being prepared for publication, with its audio recording also in the plans. Google Play now has the Gagauz Children's Bible app available for download. In the future, IBT plans to produce a smartphone app that will provide access to all of IBT’s translated Scripture portions in Gagauz.
IBT has recently published a trial translation of the Old Testament books of Ruth and Jonah in the Gagauz language. Gagauz is a Turkic language spoken by approximately 170,000 people, primarily in southern Moldova and Ukraine.
This is the first time that these two books have been translated into Gagauz. Prior to this, the only portions of the Old Testament translated into Gagauz were Fr. Mikhail Chakir’s translations of the Sacred History of the Old Testament (1907) and Psalms (1936), and IBT’s translation of the Liturgical Six Psalms or Hexapsalmos (2011). IBT also translated the full New Testament (2006) and Children’s Bible (2011) into Gagauz.
“The mill turns as the wind turns” was a proverbial expression that Fr. Cosmas, an Orthodox monk from the USA, could not make any sense of when he first came across it in a Gagauz story that he was reading. Fr. Cosmas’s life story is in itself worthy of attention, but what is important for us here is that Fr. Cosmas is now an exegetical advisor in training for the IBT Gagauz project.
“The mill turns as the wind turns” was a proverbial expression that Fr. Cosmas, an Orthodox monk from the USA, could not make any sense of when he first came across it in a Gagauz story that he was reading. Fr. Cosmas’s life story is in itself worthy of attention, but what is important for us here is that Fr. Cosmas is now an exegetical advisor in training for the IBT Gagauz project.