Our team visited three translation projects in two days: Nugunu, Yambetta and Tunen. All represent in one way or another one of the main reasons Bible translation is accelerating: strategies involving Cameroonians more deeply in the translation process, and the use of new technologies.
We started out in the town of Ombessa just north of the capital, Yaoundé, where we visited with the Nugunu translation team. This project supported by SIL Cameroon is nearing completion. Taking advantage of satellite technology installed by Wycliffe Associates USA, they are able (as are the next two projects) to transfer data that includes translated Scriptures that are checked remotely for accuracy and returned to them for updating on their computers.
Our next stop, Yambetta, has personal meaning for Dallas and me. Léonard and Marie Bolioki have been working on this project for many years, and we have loved and supported them as much as we could since we first arrived in Cameroon in 1987. They lost their ten-year-old son, Tonton, during our first year here. A very sad event that bonded us together for life.
Acting at the project coordinator, Léo has organized very well his team of translators. Here is a picture I took of him helping them with the meaning of a passage as they search for Biblical accurate and culturally relevant ways to express meaning in Yambetta.
The Yambetta translation team is working in conjunction with SIL Cameroon and The Seed Company. Founded by Wycliffe USA, the Seed Company has pioneered creative and flexible ways of involving national colleagues who are taking leadership of Bible translation projects in their mother tongue thereby accelerating the pace of translation.
Our next stop was Tunen were we saw a demonstration of the challenges of maintaining Bible accuracy while search for culturally relevant ways to express meaning. The group enacted a short story of a pastor who is preaching in French using a translator who was translating simultaneously as the pastor spoke. The translator was choosing very ‘literal’ terms in Tunen to express what the pastor is trying to say. Not only did the skit produce humorous responses from the listening group, but it also created erroneous interpretation of Biblical truths!
The Tunen team is using a computer program, Our Word, to make adaptions from a neighboring language, Noomande, that already has the New Testament. Using a source text, this program enables translation teams to produce very accurate first-draft-translations from already existing New Testaments.
Tomorrow afternoon we will celebrate the 25th Anniversary of CABTAL. We’re looking forward to hearing more about how God is advancing Bible translation and literacy in the languages of Cameroon.
