hidden peoples

I recently read “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave”, Frederick Douglass’ autobiography. Douglass wrote it in 1845. It contained a number of words I did not know. Take this passage, for example.

His carriage-house contained three splendid coaches, three or four gigs, besides dearborns and barouches of the most fashionable style.

I had to look up gigs, dearborns, and barouches, having never had occasion to be around or talk about these types of horse-drawn wagons and coaches. I knew of covered wagons and stage coaches because I have seen those and heard them called by their names, but everything else was just a wagon to me.

Choir in Congo singing AIDS prevention song in their language

That brings me to bibleless peoples. They are often accused of having impoverished, substandard or unscientific languages. These accusations are bolstered by pointing out that the languages do not have words for modern things. But in Frederick Douglass’s day, even English did not have the word “microbe”. Was his language therefore impoverished? Was mine impoverished because I didn’t know barouches? Not having words for something is a silly way to judge someone’s language. Many common words today were unknown to Shakespeare and it is ridiculous to call the English he spoke and wrote impoverished or substandard. In fact, such accusations are misplaced for any language because languages adopt or invent new words for the things they encounter. Vocabulary is a function of context rather than a sign of adequacy or inadequacy. All languages can and do develop – acquiring new words as needed. Did you know that “vegan” wasn’t invented until 1944 and remained obscure for decades after that? When we were involved in translating AIDS information into Congo languages, we had to find ways to say HIV, AIDS, seropositive, virus and many other things. Those doing the translations always found good translations of all the terms and even had them approved by medical professionals.

Unfortunately, sometimes bibleless peoples believe the negative statements made about their languages. They can even believe that the lack of certain words will make it impossible to translate the Bible. Sometimes we have to convince church leaders who fear that the Bible will be degraded by translating it into “substandard” languages. It’s all part of mobilizing churches in Africa for Bible translation.

But when the translation produces the joy of salvation and the fruit of godly living, the language myths are often dispelled. Besides, dare we call any language “impoverished” in which God speaks to people?

Publications in many topics in Ghanaian languages

When I speak in churches in the US, some people are often surprised that there are 7000 languages in the world and that some of them do not have the Bible. One of the reasons for this is that the people who speak those languages are hidden. Here’s one small illustration. This is a map of the percentage of people in Mexico who speak an indigenous language. Note that the percentages are quite low (under 5%) along the US border. In fact the rate is less than 1% in the parts of Mexico adjoining Texas.

The road to Baglo, Ghana

So if an American crosses the border by land everyone will seem to speak Spanish. The 0-5% who speak other languages will be hidden. Because they don’t speak Spanish, they can’t get a job dealing with customers, so of course all service people, cashiers, waitresses, etc you meet will speak Spanish. If a business does have an employee who does not speak Spanish, they will be in a role that does not come into contact with customers such as a dishwasher, nor night janitor. So the 1-5% are hidden to most people. You might have to travel to a rural area and even then you might have to be invited into a private home to meet them. You would never know that Mexico has 326 languages of which 133 are in danger of dying out, leaving 193 vibrant languages communities.

I find that many Ghanaians are surprised when they learn how many languages there are in their country. When I mention the name of a language, it is not unusual for people to say they have never heard of it. And this is their country! They often ask if it is really a Ghana language, if the source of my information is reliable, and so on. It may surprise you to learn that many Ghanaian government officials, even highly placed, do now know of all the languages in their country.

Nawuri chief

This obscurity is felt by the hidden peoples themselves. In 2012, I was there when chief of the Nawuri people stood before a crowd and was presented the newly-translated Nawuri New Testament. His response:

“We have now been counted among the people of God.”
“Politicians don’t know us, but God knows us.”

That last comment reflects the disconnect his people feel. They are hidden even from the people who are officially their representatives.

This Sunday is the International Day for the Unreached. It’s a good day to remember that you can’t find the people on the margins of our society – hidden peoples, bibleless peoples, peoples without the Gospel – without explicitly looking for them.