Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The first full translation of the Bible into an Australian Indigenous language, was launched at the Katherine Christian Convention 5-6 May 2007.

The project, 27 years in the making, has united both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians, with the translation of the Bible into Kriol. The Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Philip Freier, supported the translation project.

‘As well as being welcomed by an estimated 30,000 speakers of the Kriol language, it is also a great opportunity for the Australian community to celebrate the survival of Aboriginal language as a living reality in contemporary society,’ said Archbishop Freier.

The Bible translation from Genesis through to Revelation was undertaken by a group of Aboriginal Christians and missionaries in the Northern Territory with support from organisations such as The Bible Society, Lutheran Bible Translators, The Church Missionary Society of Australia, The Anglican Church Diocese of NT, Australian Society for Indigenous Languages and Wycliffe Bible Translators, launched at the Katherine Christian Convention on 5th May 2007.

‘I welcome and appreciate the work of Indigenous translators, non-Indigenous consultants and translation resource workers as an example of Reconciliation, a practical and lived response to the call to be one in Christ,’ said Archbishop Freier.

Kriol is an Australian Creole language developed out of contact between European settlers and the indigenous people in the northern regions of Australia and is presently spoken by 30,000 people across the Top End.

‘People are really keen to know all that God’s saying to them,’ says missionary Gwen Tremlett, who has worked on the Kriol project since 1993She says a highlight of the work has been ‘seeing people’s faces as they hear God’s word read in their own language for the first time.’Background information

The Kriol project stalled after the publication of the Kriol New Testament with 14 Old Testament books in 1991, but the Reverend Canon Gumbuli Wurrumara challenged indigenous Kriol speakers in 1993 to complete the project themselves.

Issues emerge for Indigenous Christians as they seek to live their faith within communities where vernacular languages and not English are the first-spoken languages.

Australian Bible Society Translation Consultant Dr Peter Carroll, says ‘Translations into the many Aboriginal languages were complex, as all translations are difficult when you are matching thought patterns with two different cultures.’

Dr Carroll explains ‘In English we use the word heart a lot and we attach to the body part a lot of emotion. We talk of a loving God, one we can love with all our heart, but in the Aboriginal language of Kunwinjku it’s meaningless, instead we say that you love God with all your insides or, if you like, your inner being.’

The Kriol translation will encourage the semantic range of common words such as ‘heart’ to be examined to discourage cross-cultural miscommunication.

With this momentous project now complete, The Kriol Translation team is hosted a launch on 5th May in Katherine, Northern Territory.

Article from: The Anglican Church in Melbourne