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Translation News Jan 2023

BMBrian Migliazza · Jan 18, 2023, 12:22 PM · Last modified: Sep 28, 2026, 11:39 AM
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https://mailchi.mp/509fb1209d54/jan-2023-translation-news?e=db52b9c362

 International Translation Services (ITS) works in collaboration with colleagues in SIL and other agencies to creatively steward and advance the translation practices, tools, methods, and training necessary to enable a supportive environment for individuals and communities to flourish and engage with Scripture.
We value: Interconnectedness. Capacity Building. Diversity. Innovation.

January 2023

  • Oral Bible Translation Global Gathering - Greg Dekker
  • New Consultants
    • Lawrence A - India
    • Joseph Jekab - India
    • Kiran Darsi - India
    • Sibaji Digal - India
  • New Director of Global Consultant Pool - Viji Mathew
  • Translation Training and Development Updates - Phil King 
    • Teryl Gonzalez Cohort Training
    • Exploratory Symposium on Quality in Translation
    • Websites -
      • The Archive & Tools.Bible
      • BibleTranslationCompetencies
      • Center for Biblical Text and Translation
  • News and Updates
    • New Director of Institute for Bible Translation - Bronwen Cleaver
    • KTOT Seventh Release - Brian Migliazza
    • Bible Translation Conference 2023
    • Release of Journal of Translation 18.2 - Freddy Boswell
    • Photo Companion to Revelation - BiblePlaces
    • EMDC 2023 Thailand - 15-18 May 2023
    • Hebrew Songs List - David Lowry
    • FLEx Parser Workshop Thailand - 07-18 Aug 2023

Useful Links
SIL Translation Services

  • International Leadership Team
  • Area Translation Coordinators

Oral Bible Translation Global Gathering
Greg Dekker
International Translation Services Director

Happy New Year to you and greetings from the Global Gathering on Oral Bible Translation here in Entebbe, Uganda, hosted by the ETEN Affinity Table and Faith Comes By Hearing! There are around 130 attendees here from all over the world, representing numerous organizations, Wycliffe organizations, and SIL entities. It is exciting to see the energy and interest around Oral Bible Translation and hearing testimonials of what God is doing around the world and especially here in Africa through Oral Bible Translation.

The first day ended with a presentation / case study of the positive results of Oral Bible Translation among the Senga people group in Zambia. A very inspiring and encouraging example from Faith Comes By Hearing of the powerful impact of Oral Bible Translation. I encourage you to view their documentary, One Matchstick: The Senga Fire.

For a number of us in International Translation Services, 2022 ended with the Quality in Translation exploratory symposium on 7-10 December. It was a thought-provoking, compelling, and exhilarating time together! We are looking forward to follow-up symposia this year leading up to the Bible Translation Conference, 13-17 Oct., the theme of which is Quality in Translation. The Working Symposium on Quality in Translation is scheduled to be held in early June. Watch for the call for papers likely to come out later this month.

I pray the Lord will continue to bless the work we are doing together in Bible translation and give us a year of good progress toward the goal of transformed lives through the translated Word! 

New Consultants
Lawrence A, Joseph Jekab, Kiran Darsi, Sibaji Digal

Lawrence A - India
Congratulations to Lawrence A (India) on completing all the requirements for certification as an entity-level Translation Consultant with Rhema for the Nation. His supervising mentor was Rob Taylor. Angie Foo and the Asia Bible Translation Coordination Team have verified that he is a qualified Translation Consultant who is now able to work independently with translation teams.
 Lawrence A began translation work by assisting with the dubbing of the Jesus film in the PAT language in 2013. Since then he has facilitated the PAT translation team until the completion of the New Testament and some parts of the Old Testament. He holds an MA in classical Hebrew and Translation Consulting, a Master of Divinity, and Diploma & Bachelor Degrees in Bible Translation. His Primary mentors are Rob Taylor and Ajay Kumar. He participated in the pre-TCDW in 2021 administered by Donna Toulmin and then completed the 2021 TCDW. He has been mentored by Todd Moore, Daniel Selvaraj, George Edward, and Sunil Mathew, who all have recommended him to be certified.

Joseph Jekab - India
Congratulations to our colleague Joseph Jekab (India), who has completed all requirements to be certified as an entity-level Translation Consultant with Bridge Connectivity Solutions (BCS). His supervising mentor was George Edward. Angie Foo and the Asia Bible Translation Coordination Team have verified that he is a qualified Translation Consultant who is now able to work independently with translation teams.

Joseph has been working in Bible translation with BCS since 2016, gaining extensive experience and growing in his skills. He serves as a Deputy Manager responsible for various translation teams, along with teaching linguistics, training the Quality Controllers and the mother tongue translators. Joseph completed the B.A., M.Div., M.Th., and Ph.D. He trained as a CiT for six years and then successfully completed the TCDW. He has been mentored by George Edward, Noah Lee, Stephen Kim, Sudarshan Thomas, Rachel Suhasini, and Jerin Payam. 

Kiran Darsi - India
Congratulations to our colleague Kiran Darsi (India), who has completed all requirements to be certified as an entity-level Translation Consultant with Rhema for the Nation. His supervising mentor was Ajay Kumar Lima. Angie Foo and the Asia Bible Translation Coordination Team have verified that he is a qualified Translation Consultant who is now able to work independently with translation teams.

Kiran Joined Rhema for the Nations in 2013, and has worked as a translation advisor with two translation teams completing portions of the New Testament and Old Testament.

He received the B.Th Studies at PAX Christian Theological Seminaries, the BA in English Literature from Nagarjuna University, the BBTS from Serampore University, the M.A. in English Literature from Nagarjuna University, the M.A. in Linguistics from Annamalai University, the M.Div. from MITS (Nagpur), and the M.Th. from ETS (Kerala). In 2021 he successfully completed TCDW. He has been mentored by George Edward, Sunil K Mathew, Paul Schmidt, Rachel Suhasini, Ajay Kumar Lima, Jerin Magdaline, Todd Moore, Daniel Selvaraj, Shyamal Roy, and Sudarshan Thomas. 

Sibaji Digal - India
Congratulations to our colleague Sibaji Digal (India), who has completed all requirements to be certified as an entity-level Translation Consultant with Bridge Connectivity Solutions (BCS). His supervising mentor was George Edward. Angie Foo and the Asia Bible Translation Coordination Team have verified that he is a qualified Translation Consultant who is now able to work independently with translation teams.

Sibaji has been working in Bible translation since 2016. Over these past seven years, he served in various translation projects as translator advisor, CiT, project manager, team leader and now as an Assistant Manager, responsible for several translation teams. His CiT training included working with five minority languages on Old Testament portions and on a New Testament project with another language community. Sibaji has a Bachelor of Arts and is currently finishing an M.Th. program. He successfully completed the TCDW in 2020. He has been mentored by George Edward, Uma Johnson, Amber Jesa, Ajay Lima, Sudarshan Thomas, Jerin Matthew, Daniel Selvaraj, Elizabeth John, and Siby Kuriakose.

New Global Consultant Pool Director 
Viji Mathew  

Welcome to Viji Mathew, the incoming Director of the Global Consultant Pool. For almost thirty years, Viji Mathew has participated in the Bible translation movement in a wide range of capacities. His current responsibilities include serving the leadership of SAG SEVA, a collaboration project of SIL’s South Asia Group aimed at becoming more regionally relevant in the South Asian context, and acting as a facilitator for the Konda Dora translation project. He had a key role in establishing CBASE, a registered company initiative formerly known as the Central India Cluster, which consists of eight Old Testament projects throughout Central India.

Viji was born into a Syrian Orthodox Christian family in South India.  In 1989, he moved to Bangalore, where he completed his graduate studies in Computer Science and Technology. He started studying the Bible when a Christian acquaintance started asking him questions while he was still in college. After being introduced to Bible translation by another friend, he joined NLCI in 1995, an organization formed to do language survey and technical support for Bible translation.

During that period, a senior mentor introduced him to Minie, a Bible translator. After getting married in 1998, Viji joined the Konda Dora translation team, while also filling various technical roles for the Indian Translation movement during the ensuing years. In late 1999, he took a 3-year sabbatical to work in a professional environment as a project manager for a renowned IT company, under whose direction the company obtained ISO 9000 quality management accreditation. After re-joining the Konda team in 2003, the Konda Dora New Testament was dedicated in 2006, and a revision of it was dedicated in June 2022.  Following the dedication in 2006, Viji assisted in the planning of numerous community development initiatives, including the implementation of drinking water projects in five Konda villages through a locally licensed organization; a focus that continues to touch the lives of several village communities.

Translation Training and Development Updates 
Phil King  

At the November meeting of the Bible Translation Training and Development Community of Practice, Teryl Gonzalez presented on some of the best and worst practices of training translation consultants together in cohorts. Discussion focused on the benefits of peer feedback among the cohort as they learn together, the nuances of group learning but individual assessment, and the camaraderie that develops from working together on shared tasks, rather than seeking camaraderie as an end in itself. The session archive is available on EMDC.online.

Also on EMDC, you can catch up with all the sessions presented at the Exploratory Symposium on Quality in Translation in early December. Roughly seventy papers were presented over four days. Links to the recordings of the different sessions, together with the abstracts for the different concept papers can all be found through these brief instructions from the symposium.

I continue to keep my eyes open for new websites to support training for Bible translation, so here are a couple to highlight this month:

  • The Archive is a new initiative by Biblica to provide free resources for the global translation community and to supplement and enhance current Bible translation training curricula. Are there training materials that you could contribute? 
  • Tools.Bible is also available to explore now, though not yet officially launched, providing well-curated links to key Bible translation tools.
  • Also remember the bibletranslationcompetencies site, where you can find these suggestions and many more links to resources to help develop competence in Bible translation. 
  • Finally, I've noticed that Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in  North Carolina (US), is launching a new Center for Biblical Text and Translation, with more information available on their website.

News and Updates
 

New Director of Institute for Bible Translation
Bronwen Cleaver

The Institute for Bible Translation  (IBT Russia) announced that Bronwen Cleaver will be the new Director/CEO taking over from Dr. Vitaly Voinov, who has been the director for the past nine years.  Bron takes over the reins of IBT just as they hit the mid-century mark. IBT was founded in 1973 and will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in Stockholm in May 2023.

Besides having experience in Bible translation and Scripture Engagement work, which will continue as IBT’s primary focus for the foreseeable future, Bron will be moving forward with Oral Bible Translation (OBT), one more important tool for taking IBT’s Scripture work to the next level.

KTOT Seventh Release
Brian Migliazza

The Key Terms of the Old Testament (KTOT) team announced the seventh release. This is 10 new articles, bringing the total number of completed articles to 83, which are now available in Paratext as of 10 January 2023.

  • In Paratext, the latest release can be downloaded and installed at the Paratext Extras website. 
  • Click on "KTOT" and then scroll to the bottom of the page where you will find the download link and directions for installing the latest release.

             


Bible Translation Conference 2023
The Bible Translation Conference 2023 will be on 13-17 October 2023 (four days) from Friday through Tuesday. The theme is "Quality in Translation."  You can Submit An Abstract here and 3 April 2023 is the deadline for abstract submission. 

  • “Quality” is an important aspect of Bible translations with a wide spectrum of perspectives and the theme "Quality in Translation" is designed to explore this range of aspects.
  • “Quality” pertains to the translated Scriptures as well as the people who are producing and checking the Scriptures, and to the procedures that are being followed in order to produce and check the Scriptures.
  • “Quality” is also relevant with regard to the training, mentoring, and coaching of new translators and consultants, and with respect to the exegetical resources and translation helps that translation practitioners are using.
  • Finally, “Quality” is also important with regard to the broader processes that translation teams and their communities are engaged in:
    • local ownership of Bible translation projects,
    • involvement of the church,
    • adoption of language technology and other innovations,
    • and embeddedness of Bible translation in Scripture engagement programs and activities.

Keynote Speakers:

  • Andy Warren-Rothlin - Beekman Lecture
  • Tshokolo Makutoane - Beekman Lecture 
  • Edgar Ebojo - Nida Lecture
  • Paul Kimbi - Lamin Sanneh Lecture 
  • Angie Seow - Inspirational Address

Release of Journal of Translation Issue 18.2
Freddy Boswell

The latest issue of SIL’s open access, peer-reviewed Journal of Translation (JOT) has just been released. It is a special theme issue on the translation of conditionals. The editors are delighted with the depth and quality of the articles. We hope you will take time to read and interact with the contents.  The editors continue to invite submissions, and hope that you will consider JOT to be an outlet for your scholarship.  Your comments are welcomed as always - email the editor.    

  • Conditionals in the New Testament: Interpretation and Translation - Nicolle, Steve
  • Jesus and Illocutionary Forces: Common Functions of Conditionals in the Gospels - Quickert, K., Nicolle, Steve
  • Translating ἐὰν μή ‘unless’ Conditionals - Nicolle, Steve
  • “Only If Father God Is with You”: Translating Post-nuclear Conditional Clauses in the Gospels - Levinsohn, Stephen H.
  • Conditionals in Galatians: A Guide for Translators - Nicolle, Steve
  • Translation Strategies for Conditionals in Kabwa and Simbiti - Mészároš, Rebekah
  • Bibliography of Conditionals - Aubrey, Michael, Aubrey, Rachel

Photo Companion to Revelation
The release of the Revelation volume marks a major milestone for BiblePlaces -- completion of the entire New Testament in 19 volumes. There are also 10 volumes completed for the Old Testament.

They began creating the Matthew volume in 2014, and now eight years later have completed the Gospels, Acts, Paul's Epistles, the General Epistles, and Revelation. Buist Fanning (Senior Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary; author of Revelation in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the NT) says:

  • “The Book of Revelation includes a dazzling range of images drawn from everyday life, religious rituals, celestial phenomena, military conquest, and political life as well as geographical locations from across the ancient world. This rich variety of material culture can be difficult for modern readers to picture accurately. The volume on Revelation in the Photo Companion to the Bible series does a unique and invaluable job of illustrating Revelation’s full array of images to help the Bible teacher or student fill in this visual deficit in understanding. Highly recommended!”

EMDC 2023 Thailand - 15-18 May 2023
EMDC 2023 will be held in Thailand on 15-18 May 2023.  Pre-EMDC, with 18 Training Tracks, is 10-13 May.  Post-EMDC, with 18 different Training Tracks is 19-22 May.  Registration is now open.

Hebrew Songs List
David Lowry
David Lowry has put his Hebrew songs playlist (plus a few) into this Google sheet with links for (almost) all of the songs. It is organized by Biblical book and chapter and presently has over 145 songs. This is a great way to improve and retain your Hebrew proficiency. David invites anyone who is interested in collaborating on this to feel free to add other songs to the list.  You can freely share this with others especially in connection with Hebrew teaching. Songs on this list have anywhere between three and 45 verses (for the whole of Psalm 105).  But he is happy for people to add whatever songs they have appreciated and been blessed by.

FLEx Parser Workshop Thailand - 07-18 Aug 2023
The translation quality of any language is greatly improved when parsers are used, since they point out inconsistent writing, help determine word breaks, check words for grammatical consistencies, and contribute in many ways to the grammatical analysis of the language. Many linguists agree that FLEx is among the most powerful tools for language analysis available today. Yet few can use it to its fullest extent – especially the XAmple and HermitCrab parsing tools. In the FLEx Parser Workshop, you will learn how to set up the FLEx parsers for analyzing the morphology of a specific language. Not only will there be software experts to train you in all the possible features of the parsers, there will also be language experts to guide you in tailoring the parsers to the specific features of the language.

Useful Links

SIL Translation Services

International Leadership Team

  • Greg Dekker - ITS Director
  • Dick Kroneman - International Coordinator for Translation Research and Practice 
  • Paul O'Rear - International Coordinator for Translation Resources
  • Phil King - International Coordinator for Translation Training and Development
  • Nathan Payne - International Coordinator for Oral Translation Services
  • Viji Mathew - Director, Global Consultant Pool 
  • Brian Migliazza - ITS Operations and Project Management

Area Translation Coordinators

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