news-21012021
The first five books of the Old Testament, also known as the Pentateuch or the Mosaic Law, have been published for the first time ever in the Kumyk language. Kumyk belongs to the Kipchak group of Turkic languages. With about half a million speakers, Kumyk is one of the larger languages of Dagestan and is also spoken in northeast Chechnya and the Mozdok District of North Ossetia.
The translation team headed by the Institute for Bible Translation included experts in the Kumyk language as well as biblical scholars and linguists. The text was peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the Dagestan Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences...
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IBT has published the third, revised edition of the Gospel of Luke in Nanai, a minority language spoken primarily in the Far East of the Russian Federation. According to the 2010 census, there are 11,671 Nanai people, but only 1,400 of them speak the Nanai language. The language belongs to the southern group of Tungusic languages and is listed in the UNESCO Red Book as endangered. Nanai language enthusiasts, who want to hold on to their cultural heritage for future generations, are greatly concerned about the fate of their language and are trying to preserve it, and Bible translation into Nanai helps accomplish this goal.
The first complete translation of Luke into Nanai language was published by IBT in 2002, reprinted in 2005, then reprinted again in 2012 as a bilingual edition with a parallel Russian text. This first translation was produced by A.V. Stolyarov, a language scholar from St. Petersburg specializing in Nanai.
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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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A new Scripture portion in the Khakas language - the book of the prophet Jonah - has arrived in Abakan, the capital city of Khakassia in south Siberia.
According to the 2010 census, the Khakas language is spoken by 42,604 people. It belongs to the south Siberian group of the Turkic languages and is spoken mainly in the Republic of Khakassia and partially in Krasnoyarsk Region and Tuva.
After the release of the New Testament in Khakas in 2009 and its reprint with a parallel Russian translation in 2011, the Khakas project had a rather long break while preparing for the next stage - the translation of the Old Testament. Currently, Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and the books of Habakkuk and Malachi are in the works.
news-24092021
The Institute for Bible Translation has published the first Old Testament book in the Nenets language. The Nenets are a Samoyedic people that live in the far north of Russia. According to the 2010 census, the Nenets language is spoken by almost 22,000 people.
The Nenets people are already familiar with several New Testament books from IBT’s previously published translations : Luke's Gospel (1995, 2004); Stories about Jesus (2003, 2011 with an audio CD); Mark's Gospel (2010); John's Gospel with an audio CD (2014); Matthew's Gospel (2018), and a collection of illustrated Gospel Parables (2020).
news-09092021
The Gospel of Mark has been fully translated into Russian Sign Language (RSL). The translation was produced by the Institute for Bible Translation in partnership with the "Desnitsa" Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
Videos of all 16 chapters of Mark are now available for viewing on IBT's YouTube channel. In order to explain biblical concepts and difficult passages to Deaf audiences, supplementary materials consisting of 31 "footnotes" (commentary video entries) and 98 glossary video entries were also produced.
news-14092021
The Institute of Bible Translation continues to publish Scripture portions from the Old Testament in the Avar language. The Avars are the largest ethnic group in Dagestan, and also live in eastern Georgia and northern Azerbaijan. In Russia there are more than 900,000 Avars, acc. to the 2010 census. Most speak the Avar language, which belongs to the Nakh-Dagestanian group of the North Caucasus language family, as their mother-tongue.
The translation of the four books of Kingdoms (or 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings in the English tradition) was carried out by an IBT team that included experts in the Avar language as well as biblical scholars who checked the accuracy of the translation against the Hebrew original. The publication underwent scholarly review and was published with the stamp of approval of the Tsadasa Institute of Language, Literature and Art in Dagestan. Other Scripture portions translated into Avar by IBT include the Proverbs of Solomon (2005, 2007); the New Testament (2008); Genesis (2011); and Ruth, Esther and Jonah (2017).
news-23082020
The Institute of Bible Translation has published a new Scripture edition in the Ingush language - the first-ever translation of the Gospel of John. This follows IBT’s Ingush-language publications of Luke's Gospel (2005, 2007); the books of Ruth, Esther, and Jonah (2015); and Genesis and Proverbs (2018).
The Ingush are a Vainakh ethnic group living in the North Caucasus, primarily in the Republic of Ingushetia. The total number of Ingush in Russia is about 450,000, acc. to the 2010 census. The Gospels are known to Muslims as the Injil, an Arabic word derived from the Greek “Euangelion” (Gospel), which means "glad tidings"...
news-29062021
The Institute for Bible Translation, in partnership with Granat Publishers, has just added a new Russian-language edition to its scholarly series on Biblical Studies. This is a collection of articles on the subject of intertextuality in the Bible.
The main premise of intertextuality studies is that any particular text necessarily exists in the environment of other texts written prior to it, and reflects them to varying degrees. This characteristic of texts in general also applies to the Bible, which by its nature is a compilation of books written at different times in different places by individuals who spoke different languages. The Bible is filled with self-citations and references and allusions. The authors of the New Testament frequently quote the Old Testament; however, the cited text often conveys a slightly different meaning from that of the original text in light of the new context in which it is being used...
news-18042021
According to the 2010 census, the number of speakers of the Abaza language in Russia is 37,831 people. The Abaza live primarily in the Karachay-Cherkessia region of the North Caucasus.
IBT’s Abaza translation project is working simultaneously on the books of the Old and New Testament. A bilingual Abaza/Russian edition of Jonah was published in 2019, and Ruth/Esther came out in 2020. An illustrated collection of "Gospel Parables" was printed in 2020. And now IBT has released the first full book of the New Testament - the Gospel of Matthew...