IBT is pleased to announce that the Old Testament books of Ruth and Esther have been published in the Abaza language in a single edition. The first IBT publication in Abaza came out in 2019 – an illustrated translation of the book of Jonah, with a parallel Russian translation.

The Abaza language belongs to the Abkhaz-Abaza branch of the Abkhaz-Adyge group of Caucasian languages. L.I. Lavrov, one of the first researchers of the history of the Abaza people, notes that they were once a large people, with their own centuries-old history. Scholars believe that the Abaza and Abkhaz languages...

The Institute for Bible Translation has just expanded its Dungan-language Stories of the Prophets series with two publications that tell the stories of Moses and Jonah. This series relates the Biblical narratives about the greatest prophets that are revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.
The first installment of the series, Noah, appeared in 2016, followed by the stories of Abraham and Joseph in 2019. The Dungan stories are accompanied by a parallel Russian text and colorful illustrations produced by the talented Dungan artist Khalida Shimova. The biblical characters in these stories appear just as the Dungan reader would imagine them, in their own cultural environment and dressed in their traditional clothing. To aid the reading experience, each book is accompanied by an audio CD with a Dungan recording of the text. This is available on the IBT website in the audio recordings section.

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.

Speakers of the Nenets language are already familiar with the Institute for Bible Translation's prior publications, such as Stories About Jesus (2003, 2011), the Gospel of Luke (2004), the Gospel of Mark (2010), the Gospel of John (2014), and the Gospel of Matthew (2018). The newest addition to this list is IBT’s illustrated publication of Gospel Parables.
Despite the coronavirus quarantine, the Nenets do not have to wait for the printing houses to resume their work and for this new book to be delivered to their cities.  Why? Because Gospel Parables is being made available online from the very beginning. It can already be downloaded as a PDF file from IBT's electronic publications page. In the near future the audio recording of the book will also be made available...

The Institute for Bible Translation has recently published Bible Stories in the Altai language. Earlier publications in this language include the 1910 edition of the Four Gospels (reprinted by IBT in 1975); the Gospel of Mark (1996); Jesus, Friend of Children (1997); the Gospel of Luke and Acts (1999); the Children's Bible (2002); the New Testament (2003); and the New Testament (2nd edition, bilingual, 2017).

In order to help Altai readers access Bible Stories, the Institute has also produced an audio recording of the text, which in the near future will be available for download in the audio section of the IBT website. One can already find the PDF version of the book in the electronic publications section. An Android application with this illustrated book, as well as the audio recording and a parallel Russian text, is also being developed.