Donna Evans, whose translation of the New Testament has just been made available to the people of a minority group in Southeast Asia, asks that we pray that it will affect their society in the ways we just mentioned. And Donna has sent us a copy! Take a look at it at the upcoming Deacon’s Hamburger Fry and the Salt and Light mission dinner. Form a mental picture of the unfamiliar words on those sacred pages in that minority language, and as you call it to mind, pray that God will use this translation for the people's redemption and spiritual growth.

For informed praying we need to know as much as possible about how Christians on the front lines work to bring those of other cultures to Christ. A Bible translator should be a trained linguist. She should be a descriptive linguist, trained to analyze a language into its parts and find out how the parts work in relation to one another for people to communicate. Donna Evans is one of the many translators with Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT). She was trained under the program of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), a scientific and educational organization for linguistic projects that also interacts with government and other agencies in the nations in which translator/linguists work. A number of the WBT/SIL people are professional linguists holding graduate university degrees. They train the organizations’ personnel and help them with the various analysis and translation problems they encounter. Paul Poling has been enrolled at GIL this fall. Possibly the most prominent and most accomplished WBT/SIL linguist is Dr. Kenneth Pike, who taught and did research for many years on the faculty of the University of Michigan and has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Many translators work among people who, until their arrival, had no written system for the language they speak. That doesn’t mean the language is simple. It may be far more complex than English. Navajo is an example. If the people have no alphabet, the translator’s first task is the painstaking and often daunting task of developing one. Translators need God’s help from the beginning! They begin by using a phonetic alphabet to record every sound difference in the people’s speech they have been trained to hear, which is every sound the human vocal organs can produce. But the native speakers don’t hear all the sound differences the linguist records. Since the linguist doesn’t know which sound differences the people recognize and use, she has to find out. They would think she was crazy if she made up an alphabet with a symbol for every sound she could hear and tried to teach them to read and write with it.

What the speakers of any society will accept is what linguists call a phonemic alphabet. While the people may actually pronounce hundreds of sounds, many of them are unnoticed alternatives to one another that never make a difference in meaning in what they say. English is like that as surely as other languages. We have different kinds of "t" sounds, for example, some pronounced with a puff of air, as in "talk" and others without it, as in "bottle." We don’t need or want a separate symbol for each "t" sound a linguist might hear, because we don’t normally hear or pay attention to them and don’t have to be told which to use in different words.

So, an alphabet needs a symbol only for each sound or group of similar sounds, not every separate sound. The linguist/translator follows established procedures to find out which sound differences are heard by the people and which aren’t--which make differences in meaning and which don’t. What a job! It isn’t easy, and prayer counts here, too.

But there is more painstaking work. After the linguist has formulated an alphabet, she has to find out how the sounds are used to mean things. Some single sounds may have meanings, and other meanings will be communicated by combinations of sounds or combinations of groups of alternative sounds. "Im" in English is a combination of two sounds with the meaning "not." "Perfect" is a combination of six sounds with the meaning "flawless." These two units of meaning can be combined to yield the word "imperfect," meaning "not flawless."

These things can’t be explained in a few words without seriously misleading the beginner.

The point is there are standard procedures linguists follow to discover what units with meaning exist in a language and how they are combined with one another in the spoken language they are studying to form words, phrases, and sentences. Only after they have figured out these things can they get down to brass tacks with the translation task. That brings on another set of difficulties.

We should pray about everything, simple or complex, but most of us are especially impressed by the need for prayer when things are tough. Analyzing and translating a language is tough, and there is good reason for admiring Donna Evans for her competence and being grateful for her devotion and the faithful prayers of her supporters in First Presbyterian and other Christian groups around this country. We hope you will be able to prepare yourself for more informed praying as you attend the Deacons’ Hamburger Fry and Salt & Light Mission Dinner.

This statement of the all peoples imperative appears in each issue of Beyond Our Walls.. It is for those new to First Presbyterian Church and for those who find it helpful to review the scriptural foundation for our church’s worldwide outreach. You may want to use it from time to time as a devotional exercise.

Outreach is foundational to the life of our church. It is the backbone of the Old and New Testaments. It begins with God’s promise to bless all peoples of the earth through Abraham and his descendants. It is not an agreement to be carried out only if humans respond favorably. It is God’s unconditional declaration of what he will do through his followers.

We invite you to read and meditate on the following instances of God’s promise. The promise to Abraham: Genesis 12: 1-3; Genesis 18:16-18; Genesis 22:15-18. The promise to Isaac: Genesis 26:2-4. The promise to Jacob: Genesis 28:10-14. David’s recognition of the promise: Psalm 22:27-28. Isaiah’s recognition of the promise: Isaiah 44:22; Isaiah 49:1, 5-6; Simeon’s awareness of the promise: Luke 2:30-32. Jesus’ proclamation of the promise: Matthew 28:19; Mark 13:10; Luke 24:44-47; Acts 1:7-8. Paul’s recognition of the promise: Galatians 3:6-9; The promise in John’s Revelation: Revelation 5:8-9; Revelation 7:9-10.