Selections of Luke in Enets reach the Taimyr Peninsula

In the last decade, the number of indigenous inhabitants of the Taimyr Peninsula speaking their mother-tongues - Dolgan, Nganasan, Nenets, Evenki and Enets - has been rapidly declining. It’s not only the language that is being lost (for example, only two hundred people now speak Enets), but also the unique traditional culture of these small people groups. The task of reviving, preserving and developing the indigenous languages ​​of Taimyr has become a common concern for local authorities, teachers, scholars, libraries, churches of various Christian denominations and the Institute for Bible Translation.

The books recently published by IBT for these peoples have been incorporated into educational programs and have become teaching aids in the language classes for learning the native language. Below is an interview with Lyudmila Fedorova, a teacher of Nenets in the Public School of Nosok (Taimyr), telling about the reception of these translations and speaking about the significance of the Bible books in Nenets for the spiritual revival of the indigenous peoples. The interview was organised and conducted by Andrei Onishchenko, the senior pastor of the Church of the Covenant in Norilsk. The Institute is grateful to Pastor Onishchenko for helping with the distribution of the books, especially in such inaccessible areas, and for organising the video interview.