IBT has published the first-ever full translation of the Bible in the Tatar language.  This is the fifth translation of a complete Bible into a non-Slavic language of Russia, following upon Chuvash, Tuvan, Chechen and Udmurt.  Worldwide, the entire Bible has been translated into about 565 languages, now including Tatar. IBT’s Bible translation work into Tatar lasted more than 23 years.  The work was carried out by specialists in linguistics, biblical studies, and the Tatar language from IBT, SIL and UBS,  in cooperation with the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan, and  was printed with a stamp of approval from the Institute of Linguistics at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

IBT has published a Kumyk-language edition of four parables from the Gospel of Luke: the Good Samaritan (10:30-35), the Wedding Feast (14:16-23), the Prodigal Son (15:11-32) and the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (18:10-14). This book was previously published by IBT in the Agul (2007) and Dungan (2015) languages. The edition contains 35 black-and-white  illustrations.  Produced by an artist from Adyghea (northwest Caucasus),  the illustrations give a Caucasian visual perspective on the stories told by Jesus and bring the world of the Bible closer to Kumyk readers, who live for the most part in the Dagestan region of the northern Caucasus.

One of IBT’s newest publications is an illustrated edition of Bible Stories in the Kalmyk language. This is a collection of 58 short narratives taken from both the Old and New Testaments, beginning with Creation and ending with Revelation. It is a significantly revised and shortened form of the Children’s Bible, which IBT published in Kalmyk in 1998. Even though Kalmyk is an endangered language (only 44% of the ethnic Kalmyk population can speak their language), there has been a serious revitalization movement in progress among the Kalmyks over the past decade. One of the  multitalented young activists in this movement who is working to strengthen her mother tongue is Elistina Shinyakaeva...

IBT has published the second print-run of the book of Proverbs in the Adyghe language (northwest Caucasus, approx. 117,000 speakers). The first print-run of 2014 was very popular and was distributed among Adyghes almost immediately.

The Institute for Bible Translation has published a beautifully illustrated selection of four parables from the Gospel of Luke in the Dungan language. The selection includes the Parables of the Good Samaritan (10:30-35), the Wedding Feast (14:16-23), the Prodigal Son (15:11-32), and the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (18:10-14), and comes with an audio recording of the text on CD.

Working in coordination with the Bible Society of Kyrgyzstan and the Orthodox Diocese of Kyrgyzstan, IBT has produced the Kyrgyz translation of  the Six Psalms (Hexapsalmos) that are used in the Orthodox church service. In mid-December, IBT’s deputy director Marina Lomova presented the diocese with 200 copies of this translation, which was printed in Bishkek by Al-Salam Publishing House.

How does one translate culture-specific elements found in ancient Israelite society into languages in which these concepts do not exist? How can these concepts be transferred into the new cultural context of the recipient language and how much adaptation is permissible?  These  questions, the focus of much scholarly discussion in contemporary Biblical studies, were the focus of IBT’s recent seminar for Bible translation teams  on “Bridging the Cultural Gap Between the World of the Bible and the Languages of Russia/CIS”, held outside Moscow in late October.

IBT has recently published an illustrated edition of “Bible Stories” in the Dungan language, spoken primarily in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and China. This book is a short version of IBT’s beloved Children’s Bible that introduces readers to 58 stories from the Old and New Testament.

The 8^th biennial international conference on Bible translation sponsored by the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) and SIL International was held in Dallas, Texas on October 16-20.  This year’s event was attended by over 450 participants from more than 35 Bible agencies around the world.

IBT has already had a significant amount of experience translating the Scriptures into languages with no writing system of their own or with a writing system that was only recently created for the language.  For example, IBT published the Gospel of Luke and the book of Proverbs in the Bezhta language of Dagestan in 2000 and 2005, respectively. Another related language has now been added to this list, after almost two decades of work: the Andi language.