Wycliffe Bible Translators
Wycliffe Bible Translators is an international, interdenominational or
parachurch Evangelical Christian organization with International headquarters in
Dallas, Texas, USA. It is dedicated to translating the
Bible into every living language in the world. Wycliffe was founded in
1942 by
William Cameron Townsend. There are currently branches in over 50 countries (see
Wycliffe International website for a list).
Wycliffe says that no cultural group is too small, and no language too difficult for them. As many as several thousand workers enter new cultures each year.
Wycliffe attempts to keep the highest possible standards. A linguistic and anthropological orientation is upheld. Service is stressed. All field work is done in cooperation with host governments, universities and philanthropic groups.
The organization is named after
John Wycliffe, the first person to compile a translation of the Bible into
Middle English.
SIL International, originally the
Summer Institute of Linguistics, started as a small summer training session for missionaries in Arkansas in
1934. They are a partner organization of Wycliffe Bible Translators.([
1]); see the article
SIL International for more information about the work of SIL/Wycliffe.
Another partner organization and subsidiary of SIL International,
JAARS, originally the
Jungle Aviation And Radio Service, provides transportation and technical services for missionaries and associated development workers.
Wycliffe Associates is a volunteer organization that exists to support Wycliffe Bible Translators. It provides a place for volunteers to use their gifts and abilities to support Bible translation. Wycliffe Associates' relationship to the main Wycliffe organization varies in the different countries in which it operates.
Wycliffe Associates US and
Wycliffe Associates UK are separate organizations to
Wycliffe US and
Wycliffe UK.
The Seed Company, is a subsidiary of Wycliffe USA that provides support to local translators in areas where "hostile environments make translation work difficult to impossible for outsiders."
Bible translation is used to spread the message of
Christianity. Wycliffe emerged from Townsend's
Protestantism which sees the intercultural and cross-language spread of the Christian message as a vital command from Jesus himself which all Christians should support in one way or another. This type of Protestantism adheres to the principle of
sola scriptura and regards Biblical texts as the authoratative infallible and
inerrant word of God. Wycliffe's methods, while aiding in spreading the Christian gospel cross-culturally, emphasize a Protestant understanding of the faith.
In a pioneering Wycliffe mission, Wycliffe senior workers first present the ministry's advantages to the government in charge of a region, and then request permission to operate. The application is always made in the government's native language, in a culturally-adapted form.
After it receives permission to operate, several small teams research a region's linguistic populations. Usually they search for populations that are strategic in some form, a bridge to other populations, a trading group, or at least a central location.
After this survey, teams are sent to each linguistic group. Strategic languages may have higher priority, but even small language groups will eventually get a team.
A team is usually a married couple or two singles of the same sex. The team is introduced to a friendly group, usually with the aid of bilingual helpers such as traders or guides. The team lives on site, and attempts to speak the language, usually with children and old people who stay near home. Formal recordings, word lists and grammars are kept, usually on computers, backed up periodically to the national mission.
When the
phonology is well understood, the team selects a
writing system similar to those in use by nearby trading languages. For example, in the Middle East,
Arabic lexicography is often used, while in South America, the
Latin alphabet is usually preferred.
After a writing system has been created, the teams starts literacy education with the peoples native language. Even if there people can read some language in the area, they have never read in their native language. In many areas WBT works literacy levels can be very low. Creating reading curriculum to read in peoples native language is also important to motivate people to read. Previously much of this material was translated, to help the team practice translation. Nowadays as much as possible is created from local folklore and similar material from local cultures.
At some point, the team begins to translate short portions of the Bible into the native language. The translation is always tested and corrected with several native speakers, as well as the existing lexicographies and grammars. At some point in modern efforts,
computer-assisted translation may start, but the computer's text is merely a starting point for a more careful manual translation.
In the beginning of Bible translation, the focus is in completing one of the gospels, and then the rest of the
New Testament. Completion of parts or all of the
Old Testament follows, and the work is sometimes taken over in large part by multilingual native pastors and Christians working in association with WBT.
Before computers, the whole effort from creating a written form, to finishing a Bible translation was a lifetime effort for the Team. These days the time to get New Testament translated takes 10-20 years.
Once the Bible is translated, high-quality low-cost printings are arranged, often through one of the
United Bible Societies.
Wycliffe Associates(UK) is translating two versions of the Bible into a form of simplified English developed by itself, called
EasyEnglish - one into Level A and one into Level B:
* Level A (very easy) has a vocabulary of about 1200 words. It is designed for people who are learning English as a foreign language.
* Level B (easy) has a vocabulary of about 2800 words. It is suitable for people who speak English as a second or foreign language. It is about the same standard as the Cambridge First Certificate in English. The Level B translations also have Bible Commentaries in the same documents as the translated text.
The concept of EasyEnglish is very similar to that of
Basic English.
http://www.easyenglish.info/ - The EasyEnglish website.
The huge recent growth in Christianity outside the West, and the increasing educational standards of many of the target people groups, mean that Wycliffe is now increasingly able to use local ('national') people, or Christians from other non-West regions (e.g. Asia, Latin America), as translators, as well as Western (ex-pat) translators. The challenge is that many of these people do not have the relatively rich personal support networks that ex-pat Westerners typically have.
Other recent developments are the simultaneous translations of clusters of related languages, and the use of completed translations in film or oral form (as well or instead of through literacy).
Wycliffe aims to start a translation in every language that needs one by 2025 (see
vision2025.org).
*
Official site of Wycliffe International
