IBT has translated and published three more books of the Old Testament in the Kalmyk language – Job, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.
The Kalmyk people migrated from northwest China to the European part of Russia (the northwest corner of the Caspian Sea) in the early 17th century. Their language is closely related to Mongolian. They are traditionally nomadic cattle-herders, and are the westernmost ethnic group that practices Buddhism as their traditional religion. According to the 2010 census of the Russian Federation, there are more than 180,000 ethnic Kalmyks, with about 80,000 of them still speaking their native language.
These three OT books belong to the Israelite Wisdom tradition and are written in classical Hebrew poetry. This is why it is especially important that they were translated into Kalmyk by Vera Shugran, a widely recognized poet.
Previous Kalmyk publications by IBT include the Children’s Bible (1998), the New Testament (2002), Genesis and Ruth (2005), Psalms (2006), Proverbs (2013) and Bible Stories (2016). The e-book versions of these publications, can be accessed at the IBT's site in the e-books section. Translation work is in progress on the Pentateuch and Joshua.