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news-12052022

IBT has published "Bible Stories" in the Chukchi language together with a parallel Russian text. “Bible Stories” is a collection of 58 narrative passages recounting the major Bible events, from the creation of the world to the book of Acts. “Bible Stories” introduces the reader to the world of Scripture and is facilitated by color illustrations for each story.

The Chukchi language belongs to the Paleo-Asiatic language family, and is spoken primarily in the far east of Russia. According to the 2010 census, the Chukchi numbered just under 16,000, with only 4,563 (29%) indicating that they spoke the language. Newspapers, fiction, grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks have been published in Chukchi, but the standardized literary Chukchi language is still in the process of formation. The translation of biblical texts will undoubtedly contribute to its development. The Chukchi Bible translation project stands out among IBT’s northern projects due to the remoteness of the region and the scattered status of the translation team throughout the territory of Russia and other countries...

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IBT has published a new book in Chukchi, a Paleo-Asiatic language spoken in the extreme northeastern part of Siberia along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. According to the 2010 census there are around 16,000 ethnic Chukchis, but only about 5,000 indicated that they speak their native language. Therefore Gospel Parables was published as a bilingual edition together with the Russian text of these Scripture passages.

The book includes four parables from Luke's Gospel: The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35), The Invitation to the Feast (Luke 14:16-24) and The Pharisee and The Tax Collector (Luke 18:10-14). Over the centuries these parables have been told and retold in different languages in various parts of the world. And now they are available in Chukchi...

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13.02.2019

IBT has published an animated video of the story of the prophet Jonah in the Chukchi language. The video’s visual component comes from artwork produced by Irina Pavlishina for the 2018 illustrated Chukchi edition of this Old Testament book. The video allows viewers to read the Chukchi translation in streaming captions while listening to an audio recording by mother-tongue Chukchi speaker Dina Talpygyrgina, who was the philological editor of this translation. Studies show that captions are an effective tool for promoting mother-tongue literacy in primarily oral cultures such as that of the Chukchi.

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Chukchi is an endangered language spoken by about 5,000 people on the eastern fringe of the Russian Federation. 2018 is a special year for the Chukchi Bible translation project because it has seen not one, but two Scripture portions within months of each other. The first was the revised translation of Luke’s Gospel, published as a diglot with Russian earlier this year. Now IBT has printed an edition of the book of the prophet Jonah, the first Old Testament book translated into Chukchi.

For many centuries, the Chukchi people have led a lifestyle that is inextricably tied to the sea, since their homeland is on the northeastern Pacific coast of Russia.  They are consummate sailors, fishermen, and whalers. This is why we hope that the book of Jonah, which involves a sea voyage and an encounter with a very large sea creature, will be of special interest to Chukchi readers.

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IBT has recently published a revised edition of the Gospel of Luke in the endangered Chukchi language, spoken by about 5,000 people on Russian’s northern Pacific rim. The Chukchi text is accompanied by the Russian Synodal translation of Luke in a parallel column. This is IBT’s fifth diglot edition of Luke among the indigenous peoples of Russia’s Far North and Far East, following similar publications in Nanai and Koryak (2012), Itelmen (2013), and Evenki (2014).  The first edition of Luke in Chukchi was published in 2004 and released with a recording on audiocassettes.

newsletter-060317

Spring 2017 Newsletter on the Chukchi project

The  birth  of  the  Gospel  in  the  Chukchi  language

“The Gospel of Luke has been translated into the Chukchi language. The translation team includes experts and native speakers from the indigenous people group. Their purpose is to make sure that the translation is clear and intelligible to readers, and what is even more important, that the proper meaning, power, and spirit is conveyed by the text.”

These words were spoken on the local TV newsbroadcast in Anadyr, the capital of Chukotka. But these simple words of a short TV report do not give us the full picture of what strenuous creative efforts and what intellectual agony the task demanded. It does not show how many months and years first the translation and then the revision of a relatively small text of the Gospel of Luke actually required.

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