The church was host last month (2005 Oct) to one of the workers that we help to support. Donna Evans visited over the weekend of October 9 to report on her efforts as a Wycliffe Translator. As such she is based in the Philippians and is responsible for translation efforts in a major minority language in Indonesia.

She gave a short presentation at the morning service and a much longer presentation that evening. She is involved in three main efforts at the present time. They are

• Initiating a coordinated effort to translate the Bible into a number of related minority Indonesian languages.
• Developing a linguistic curriculum to train Indonesians to prepare them for translation tasks
• Reviewing draft translation f Old Testament books to go with the translation of the New Testament, which was recently completed.

In Indonesia there are over 500 languages spoken by various groups of people. There is no way that Wycliffe Translators can directly provide translators for each language. The organization is using a series of workshops to interest local churches and groups in translation efforts. The workshops will cover translation difficulties, linguistic principles, and organizational suggestions. It is hoped that the workshops will stimulate some of the now better-educated younger generation to attack the translation problem and to encourage local churches to support this effort.

If younger people are to do effective translation work, they must have a good background in linguistics. There are not many linguistic studies available in Indonesia. One of Donna’s tasks is to provide a curriculum and supporting materials. She is also preparing to teach a demonstration program in linguistic studies.

The New Testament is now available due to her efforts.

Work has started on the Old Testament. Donna is working with a number of local people who prepare draft translations, which she then edits. She is responsible for the solution of the many translation problems, which arise, and for the final wording. The translation problems are many and interesting. The main difficulty is not to find a matching work, but to get the ideas, which the words represent, into a form with which the reader is familiar. For example, the sentence “Because rice was needed, she went to the store” means almost the same as “She went to the store because rice was needed.” The last form of the sentence is easily translated but in the language in which Donna is working the placement of the because clause at the beginning of the sentence makes it refer to the previous sentence, not the one in which it appears. Also logical argument and instructions have major order difference from English type languages. She told of solving many of these problems by creative use of parentheses.

While here she also interacted with the Mission committee and was hosted for the weekend by Bob and Florence Taylor. Monday she few to Dallas for more meetings before returning to Minneapolis to her sister’s house where she is staying until she returns to her main station in the Philippians.

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Last update 2011-10-31 21:58:09