AUGUST 2024 Translation News

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August 2024 Translation News

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International Translation Services (ITS)

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.

August 2024 Holism and Focus: A polarity? - Greg Dekker Interviews with Translation Consultants Bill Bivins (Global Consultant Pool) News Translation Resources Update - Nick Peterson Akuo: The Spoken Bible - Brian Kelly New JOT Article - Paul Morgan Literacy and Education Global Gathering 2024 - Nairobi, Kenya July 2024 DIU Open Positions - Jodi Egan Language and the Mission of God - Michael Greed Coming Events Indonesian TCDW (LPKP) (Jun - Sep 2024) FLEx Parser Workshop (Dallas) Aug 2024 ILAC-8 (Malaysia) Sep 2024 Narrative Discourse Analysis for Translation (Oct 2024) Kenya Narrative Discourse Analysis for Translation (May 2025) Cameroon (French) ICON-25 (May 2025) Johannesburg, South Africa EMDC (May 2025) The Netherlands BT Conference 25 (Oct 2025) Thailand

Useful Links SIL Translation Services International Leadership Team Area Translation Coordinators

Holism and Focus: A polarity?

• Greg Dekker - International Translation Services

Director The theme for SIL’s Global Language Services Meeting this year, held in Dallas, 22-26 April, was Supporting the flourishing of communities through SIL’s holistic purposes. A holistic ministry focus seeks transformation by addressing human need alongside and as part of our ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19-20). That is, a holistic view of ministry views life and ministry as a whole. Because one aspect of a person’s or a community’s life affects many other parts of their lives, addressing one part creates a pathway(s) for openness to change in other areas of life, including spiritual transformation. As an example, an inability to access clean water affects a community’s and an individual’s ability to rationally address spiritual need, as the stress over physical need takes priority of time, physical investment of energy, and ultimately one’s ability and willingness to reflect on their spiritual condition and the message of Good News. Working with the community to bring some solution to the problem of access to clean water provides “space”, a bridge to transformation by helping to remove an impediment to seriously considering one’s spiritual condition. The Body of Christ and ministry subsets of it often consider as a threat the prospect of being too diffuse in our work of ministry. We tend to view our ability to focus (atomise) on a specific task in ministry as the key to successfully delivering on that specific service to which we contribute in the mission of the Church, the Body of Christ. As an example, in order to speed the work of Bible translation, some would say that removal of any distractions from focus on that task helps to more quickly achieve the goal. Community practitioners are caught in this polarization. We “swing”, so to speak, from an intense focus (atomising) on doing - or facilitating - the specific work of producing translated Scripture, on the one hand, to kindly and compassionately addressing human and community need on the other by engaging with individuals and community leaders to address human needs which present as real impediments to flourishing. Practitioners may express frustration over desire to give more time to both and feel “caught” between two equally compelling areas of engagement. The compelling forces, pulling us away from holistic ministry, and pushing us to atomise our work, include time, a sense of urgency, as well as a pursuit of greater efficiency. We may feel that time spent on other “distractions” is time taken away from our “primary focus and calling.” We’re told in Scripture that Jesus healed many diseases and casted out many demons. He recognized hunger (feeding the 5000) and real human-created, cultural need (wine at wedding), and His compassion for people moved Him to act to relieve human suffering. It was in and through these actions that both His love and compassion was communicated and the explicit pathway to participation in Christ’s rule was made clear to everyone. Jesus removed impediments to transformation, and he proclaimed the pathway to - and rules of the Kingdom. So what’s the solution to this polarization? We have a responsibility to address community need in a holistic way in order to demonstrate the love of Christ and create a pathway for the message of transformation through Christ to be clear. Each part of the body of Christ must exercise its role in a community to address - and, with the Lord’s help, remove impediments to transformation. And for this to be done well, programs must be developed holistically. We have been given a tremendous privilege to interact with God’s people at the local level and with the local community. Let us not design programs (or even “projects”) with one particular focus in mind, but let us collaboratively design and develop programs holistically, listening to community need, working collaboratively with partners and other domains within SIL, engaging with and working collaboratively with the local expression of the Body of Christ, and aim to do what we can to remove impediments to transformation, and prepare a clear pathway for transformation to happen through the power of the Word of God, and through practical community action.

Interviews with Translation Consultants We asked an experienced Translation Consultant, Bill Bivin, to share his thoughts concerning his work and philosophy of ministry.

Bill Bivin - Global Consulting Pool How did you get interested in Bible translation? I became interested in Bible translation during my time in university (late 1970s) as I got to know the SIL folks who worked in Panamá. We went to the same church in the Canal Zone. As my interest grew I visited one of the projects and the Lord used that to narrow the focus of my calling into the ministry to Bible translation. What gets you excited when you work with others in Bible translation? Bible translation, for me, has always been about the church and the growth of the kingdom of God. Hebrews asserts that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit--it is used by the Holy Spirit in both Christians and unbelievers to move us toward Jesus. I've always felt it is essential for the maturation of believers and the spread of God's kingdom, for creating a sense of wonderment in God and the drama He has written. Apart from that, it is no more than an academic exercise. What is your consulting philosophy? For me, consulting is about serving translation teams: listening, encouraging, training, loving. In order to provide a useful service, we have to be able to provide added value to translation teams, and to do that, we have to continuously add to the resources we bring to the table. Under the current translation project paradigm, consultants interact with many more translation teams that have few good translation and exegetical resources available in a language they understand well. That means that the consultant's job is much bigger and "denser" than ever before. More training is helpful, many more consultant notes are required. This means that I, as a consultant, have more exegetical preparation to do than ever before. I have to know the text as well as I can, and continue learning, if I am to serve the team well and bring the added value they need. What translation resources do you really value? I value Logos and the TW resources. They are immensely helpful. I use them daily. But, I think the question should be more "What exegetical resources do you really value". To translate well, a translator has to understand the text as well as possible. The areas of knowledge that are required to understand the text are numerous: geography, history, the biblical languages, the multiple biblical cultures and their histories. I find the exegetical summaries to be too brief. The format does not allow for extended discussions or excurses on potentially important topics. I encourage consultants to read the best commentaries on each book they check and train for. There are always excellent helpful books on theological and exegetical topics for every book we consult on, and these are helpful too. How do you continue to grow as a consultant? (What helps you continue to grow as a consultant?) Since I love to read and learn, this isn't difficult for me. Beyond the commentaries, I try to read 2-3 books on theological topics of each book I am working on. Share something that you learned from a mentor or from a mentee? People are what is important. Love the Lord, love people, love learning. What do you see as the place of the church in Bible translation? I've always thought this a silly question as the answer has always seemed so obvious to me. The church has always driven Bible translation (BT). If ecclesiology and missiology are not the drivers of BT, isn't it just an academic exercise? What would you say to young/aspiring translators? I'm not sure who you are referring to -- expats or nationals. The educational opportunities available to the two groups are often so different that answering the question is difficult. But I feel that the essentials for everyone is: know well the language from which you are translating; know well the language of the translation. Learn as much about the biblical cultures as you can. Learn the biblical languages. These are sine qua non for all professional translation work and our translations will only improve as we reach for this.

News Translation Resources Update

• Nick Peterson Nick Peterson (Translator’s Workplace Manager) announced that more translation resources are available and about to become available within Translator’s Workplace. Click here to see the 17 resources that were released in the last month and the list of 59 resources that are about to be released or updated.

A special thanks to Dave Smith for all his hard work making sure that the resources are professional looking and his fine attention to detail. Also a special thanks to Zondervan for approving another big ask of resources that are already available for TW users and some that are on the brink of being released to the general public that will automatically be included in TW once officially published. Finally, thanks to Paul O’Rear for his initiative and vision casting behind all of these releases! We are also happy to announce on behalf of the Spanish Translator’s Notes team that this month they have released revisions to TNNESP and TNDESP resources within Paratext as well as a major revision of Notas Para La Traducción De Ester and a new contribution of Notas Para La Traducción De Judas, along with many updates to Glossario de Términos Bíblicos. We appreciate everyone that uses resources found in Translator’s Workplace and Paratext and we continue to seek to serve you with quality resources to equip teams to translate with excellence!

Akuo: The Spoken Bible

• Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is excited to see multiple years of work come to fruition as they introduce a proof-ofconcept Audio-Scripture app, Akuo, that Seed Company (SC) has been developing this past year. Akuo, Greek for “to listen/to hear,” is now available in the Google Play Store. In the search try "Akuo." If it doesn’t come to the top of the list, then try "Akuo SIL." It came right up for me at that point. Currently we only have an Android version. We’ll soon have one for iOS. Akuo aims to be: Oriented both in an Audio-Scripture format (i.e. discourse units) and Traditional (bookchapter-verse); An Audio Study Bible; Geared towards an audience who doesn’t necessarily read. All of the titles have an icon so you can hear them (a few titles haven’t been recorded yet, so not all of them work just yet). All of the audio available as of today is from the Spoken English Bible (SEB), a version being done by SIL as a model oral translation with audio notes. There is a corresponding website. Both the app and the website are live. What does that mean? Everything up there was produced in Audio Project Manager (APM). Once a translation team is done with a section of Scripture, they can publish it and immediately it is available in both places. If you have a translation team that would like to publish Audio-Scripture, they can download the APM and be publishing on this app right away.

New JOT Article

• Paul Morgan Now that SIL’s Journal of Translation (JOT) has moved to a rolling publication model, the editors will be releasing articles as soon as they’ve passed through their review and editorial processes. The editors are thus pleased to announce the availability of the first article in JOT 20.2 (2024). You can download it and read for free at the following link: Morgan, Paul Franklin. 2024. Trust the Process: Improving Translator Training Workshops. Journal of Translation 20 (2): 1–19. If you have an idea for an article, short note, or review, check out the JOT submission guidelines at https://siljot.org/submit or contact the editors. Abstract - This practical paper aims to apply the advances in pedagogical principles of translator training to the overall conception and evaluation of translator training workshops, which form the core training environment for many Bible translators in Africa. Beginning with the essential principles as elaborated by Ernst-Kurdi (2017), namely, that translator training should be process-centered, participatory and collaborative, authentic, focused on priorities, and objectively evaluated - the author then considers how these principles shape the development of the curriculum and the accountability structures of the training program. By reorienting training and evaluation around the processes of translation, and by implementing a social learning and accountability structure, workshops can become more effective.

Literacy and Education Global Gathering 2024

• Nairobi, Kenya July 2024 The Literacy and Education Global Gathering 2024 was held in Nairobi, Kenya 1-5 July 2024 with the theme of Equipping Speakers of Minoritised Languages to Thrive through Literacy and Education. Michel Kenmogne was the keynote speaker. The plenary speakers included Johnstone Ndunde, Annan Bonaya, Catherine Young, and Greg Dekker. Click here to see a full list of talks and download the presentations. Greg Dekker (SIL International Translation Services Director) presented a plenary talk on Bible Translation, Holistic Ministry, and Literacy: Knowing God, Experiencing Wholeness, Connecting to My World. "There is no sacred or secular for the people of God. All my life is sacred, and all your life is sacred." "Literacy is not something that is separate from the ministry of the people of God. All our work is God's work. In that sense, ministry is holistic. It includes all of life's concerns."

"We signed up to commit our lives to share the good news of a holistic Gospel. We are ambassadors of almighty God. Bible translation, literacy and education are all ministries of the church." "Bible translation is a process of incarnational ministry whereby those involved in it are able to both demonstrate (live) and disciple (teach), live and teach the precepts / principles of a covenant relationship with God through the process of translating God’s Word into a language(s) which best serve a community."

DIU Open Positions

• Jodi Egan Dallas International University (DIU) has several open positions. They are particularly searching for a new Dean of Students. The Dean will provide key leadership overseeing all aspects of student life leading to the success of the students, will serve on the DIU Senior Leadership Team, and will report to the President. If you or someone you know is interested, please apply for this full-time position by contacting DIU HR. For a full list of open positions, go to https://www.diu.edu/open-positions/.

Language and the Mission of God

• Michael Greed Michael Greed is pleased to announce this forthcoming book, "Language and God's Mission," which has been submitted to SIL GPS for publication - though the title is still under discussion. Charles "Chip" Sanders (SIL Global) says - What if language is not just a rough instrument in the hands of clumsy people, not just something useful and occasionally poetic, but something that can be divine, sacred, expressive of the very image of God, and an aspect of the imago Dei (being made in the image of God) that is also vital to the Missio Dei (the mission of God)? Michel Kenmogne is planning to have it ready in time for the Vision 2025 celebrations next year. There are 22 chapters, each one named after a letter of the Hebrew alphabet and there are 23 listed contributors. Michael is the overall editor, and the editorial and review team included Evan Falk, Abou Sama, Dawn Kruger, Greg Dekker and Chip Sanders. The Table of Contents includes the following: Section 1: Foundations

1. The glory of God through the peoples and languages of the earth - Paul Frank
2. The mission of God and the question of language - Michael Greed
3. Flourishing and language - Michel Kenmogne
4. Language: the gift of God’s presence - Dawn Kruger
5. Oral language and the mission of God - Abou Sama, with Bronwen Cleaver
6. Sign languages in the mission of God - Stuart Thiessen
7. Language and the wider mission movement - Michael Greed and Evan Falk Section 2: The Bible - with Olivia Mamisoa Razafinjatoniary
8. Speech acts in the Bible - Michael Greed
9. Language diversity: curse or blessing? The story of the Tower of Babel - Gary Simons
10. Language diversity: a greater glory based on a paper by Stephen Watters and Zachary Watters
11. Language use in the Bible - Michael Greed, with Paul Frank and Mamy Raharimanantsoa
12. The languages of Jesus - Michael Greed
13. Koine Greek and the mission of God - Eddie Arthur
14. The way from Babel: the role of language and translation in advancing God’s mission - Paul Kimbi
15. The continuum between language and the mission of God - Sung Chan Kwon
16. Mission as translation: a case study in contextualization - with Kividi Kikama Section 3: Language and flourishing life today
17. Language, justice, and mission - Evan Falk
18. Language and poverty - M. Paul Lewis
19. Education and language policy in the mission of God - Catherine M. B. Young
20. A theological reflection on language shift and identity - Maik Gibson
21. Linguistic hospitality in the mission of God based on papers by Grace Chou, John Ommani Luchivia, and Steve Quakenbush Section 4: Conclusion
22. SIL, language, and God’s mission - Michel Kenmogne

Coming Events 2024 - 24 June - 06 September. Indonesian TCDW (LPKP). For information email the Director. 2024 - 12-23 Aug: FLEx Parser Workshop, Dallas, Texas. 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. When Paratext is integrated with FLEx, the quality of translation can dramatically increase through the rigorous application of these parsers. 2024 - 18-25 September. ILAC-8. Making good decisions in language programs. Penang, Malaysia. 2024 - 09-29 October. Narrative Discourse Analysis for Translation. Nairobi, Kenya. 2025 - 28 Apr-16 May. Narrative Discourse Analysis for Translation (in French). Cameroon 2025 - 05-13 May. ICON-25: The SIL International Conference & Vision 2025 Celebration. Johannesburg, South Africa. 2025 - 19-22 May. EMDC. The Netherlands 2025 - 28-31 October. Bible Translation Conference 2025. Chiangmai, Thailand.

Useful Links Bible Translation Consultant Competencies / YouTube channel for BT Competencies Journal of Translation SIL Senior Translation Consultants Email the SIL International Translation Office / International Translation Services ILS page Join/visit the SIL Translation Resources Google Group Visit the public SIL.org/Translation site Find Translation Resources (both free download and for purchase) SIL.org/Resources/Publications Bamboo Project website Mentoring Matters website - Mentor Training Courses Consultant Development and Management Team Progress.Bible Information Memoriam website

SIL Translation Services International Leadership Team Greg Dekker - ITS Director Angeline Foo - 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 Angeline Foo & Amber Jasa - Asia Greg Carlson - Pacific Drew Maust - Francophone Africa Jonathan van den Broek - Anglo-Lusophone Africa Tim Robinson (interim) - Eurasia Rick Floyd & Dwight Shaver - Americas Bernadet van der Louw - Global Sign Languages Team (GSLT)

Copyright © 2024 SIL International Translation Services. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because of your interest in translation updates. This newsletter is produced by SIL International Translation Services. Tuula O'Rear and Brian Migliazza are the editors It contains items of interest for translation personnel within SIL and related organizations. It includes notices of upcoming conferences and workshops, announcements of recent dissertations and journal articles, and pointers to useful information related to translation.

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