BIBLE TRANSLATING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3180, 28 March 1911, Page 7

BIBLE TRANSLATING.

INTO 424 LANGUAGES. As the “Daily Telegraph” points out in an article apropos of the tercentenary of the Authorised Version (1611), translating the Billie into barbaric languages has led to a large-number of such languages being placed on a written basis. A few instructive extracts are taken from the British and Foreign Bible Society’s report:— St. Matthew has been published in Ongom, the speech of a powerful Bantu tribe inhabiting the basin of the Gabun River in French Congo. St. Matthew and St. John have Been published in Namau, the speech of 40,000 cannibals on the south coast of British New Guinea. For two tribes in New Caledonia St. Mark and St. John are printed in Houailou, and St. Mark in Peneribouen. For the Solomon Islands St. Matthew has been printed in Fiu, a dialect spoken -on the island of Mwala; while St. Luke has been issued in-Raga, spoken on Whitsuntide Island, in the New Hebrides.

All these six languages were reduced to written form in order that they might become vehicles of the Gospel. Who could say offhand where Taveta or Soga is spoken ? Both belong to British East- Africa, and in the former already is the whole of the New Testament, and in the latter St. John’s Gospel. I\i is a strict rule of the society only to issue the authorised version. Since 1804.. when the society was founded, the Bible has been translated into 424 languages.