language development

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Mesrop Mashtots

Painting of Mesrop Mashtots with his alphabet

Painting of Mesrop Mashtots with his alphabet

Every year, Armenian Christians celebrate Mesrop Mashtots who passed away on this day (February 17) in the year 440. He was an Armenian theologian, linguist and hymnologist, best known inventing the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD.

He was born to a noble family and had a classical education, but left his privileged position to preach the Gospel in Armenia. He had great difficulty establishing people in faith because Syriac was the only language used in church services and few Armenians understood it. Mesrop wanted to minister in Armenian, the language of the people. There was a problem; the Armenian language did not have an alphabet. It has never been written.

Mesrop enlisted the support of the King for this endeavor to create an alphabet for Armenian. As soon as he finished the alphabet others translated the Bible into Armenian using the new alphabet. He then started schools in Armenian to drive learning down to everyone.

Armenian alphabet carved in stone

Armenian alphabet carved in stone

The very first sentence written in the new Armenian alphabet was the first verse of the Book of Proverbs: “To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding.” Even today, Armenians consider Mesrop’s creation of the Armenian alphabet one of the most important events in their history. Not only did it enable the translation of the Bible, it also caused an explosion of writing in Armenian. Literature abounded.

Such was the religious, social and cultural impact that there is hardly a town in Armenia which does not have a street named after Mesrop.

Statue of Mesrop Mashtots

Statue of Mesrop Mashtots

It is odd to think about Europeans as illiterate peasants speaking languages without writing – people needing to climb the tall hill of learning another language to get education or have access to the Bible. But it was really like that. In that context, which is the same as that or most bibleless peoples today, Mesrop did not see developing an alphabet as an academic exercise. Rather he saw it as fundamental to anchoring Armenians in the faith and to having an informed society. It is this same motivation that even today keeps people developing alphabets for unwritten languages, organizing literacy and translating the Bible.

Driving information, and the ability to store and process information, down to the grassroots is not a paternalistic endeavor where the missionary seeks to “civilize” local people. Rather, it is a way to give people the tools that enable them to make their own decisions and promote the changes they want. It is a missionary method that believes that the through the Bible the Holy Spirit will guide new converts to make the right choices. It is quite different from an approach where the Christians at the top expect people at the grassroots to learn the language of those at the top to get access to the Bible. Or one where the VIPs tell people at the grassroots what they should believe and do.

This table shows the codes for using the Armenian alphabet on computers. In a few short clicks I put the Armenian keyboard on my computer and typed this: աբգդէֆքհիճկլմնոպխրստըվւցեզ. Mesrop would be pleased.

Table showing how the Armenian alphabet is encoded on computers

Table showing how the Armenian alphabet is encoded on computers

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Big payout coming

Kenneth Lee Pike

Kenneth Lee Pike

Today (June 9) in 1912, Kenneth Lee Pike was born. He wanted to be a missionary to China, was rejected, and ended up with William Cameron Townsend who would found Wycliffe Bible Translators. He did a translation of the New Testament for the Mixtec people of Mexico. While doing that, he became a renowned scholar at the University of Michigan. He wrote numerous books and articles, was a member of  the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States (LACUS), and the American Anthropological Association. He served as president of LSA and LACUS. He was named to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and nominated for the Nobel Prize many times. He won the Templeton Prize three times.

Tone Langauges bookBut those are not his greatest achievements, if you ask me. Those who went to Mexico with Townsend encountered languages which they found difficult, impossible really, to write. Linguists had not yet studied or described the systems of tone, for example, which are common there. Pike applied his brilliant mind to the issues, and found a way forward. Today, many Mexicans read the Bible in their languages without difficulty because of the work of Pike. The thing is, they probably never heard of him. They don’t know who gave them the gift of being able to accurately write and fluently read their languages.

And Pike’s work would never get a rousing or tearful response from a church, certainly not the way the result of a successful evangelistic effort might – with thousands saved. (Hundreds of thousands may have read the translations Pike assisted.) Pike’s contribution was crucial, and it came at the right time, but it is largely unknown outside Wycliffe and academic circles.

 “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-5 NLT)

Mixtec mapPike has huge rewards waiting for him from the Right Person at The Big Event. Today, hundreds of African Christians translate into their languages and devote themselves to helping their fellow Christians learn how to read. They are mostly unknown except in their own small communities, often underpaid and sometimes work in dangerous places, like the Tembo team we worked with in Congo, or  like the two translators killed by extremists in Nigeria and the CAR, in recent weeks. There’s a lesson here for all of us, especially in this world of celebrity philanthropy and donations posted on Facebook . Who, I wonder, has already “received all the reward they will ever get”, and who still has a big payout coming? A lot of people we have never heard of. Pike is one. May you be one too.

Phonetics book

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Missionaries destroy culture?

The claim that missionaries destroy culture has been around for a while. There are a lot of answers to the claim, not the least is the work of Yale Historian Lamin Sanneh and sociologist Robert Woodberry. But let me add another perspective.

Afaka script

Afaka script

Language and culture are intricately linked. A person’s language expresses their culture. It contains the concepts that pass the culture from generation to generation. So work which enhances the reach or use of that language necessarily protects and promotes the culture. Some languages have very complex scripts. Think of a script as an alphabet and the rules that govern its use. For example, in English we have an alphabet with two cases – upper case and lower case, or capital and ordinary letters. We have rules that govern when we use upper case and when we use lower case. iGnOrE tHoSe RuLeS aNd ReAdInG gEtS dIfFiCuLt, and writing too. Just try typing that! Some scripts have more than two cases. I have heard of four. And there are several other kinds of complexity used in writing systems around the world.

Devanagari script

Devanagari script

This kind of complexity poses issues for keyboarding the language on a computer. Here is a link to an interesting short slide show showing even more complex scripts. When you get to the page, click on the map to launch the slide show. You have to manually advance the slide show from one section to the next.
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=

Tifinagh script

Tifinagh script

Some highly skilled people have put in a LOT of work so that all these scripts can be used on a computer; so that people who speak those languages can send email to each other, or post in their language on Facebook, or have web sites for their organizations, government offices, and businesses. They did this with little backing from computer companies. Who were they? Well, they were missionaries. They wanted to be able to keyboard these languages in order to translate the Bible, teach people to read and produce Christian literature. But their work can be used much more widely.

Tai Viet script

Tai Viet script

When they finished, what did they do? Did they archive the systems they created? Did they hide them? No, they spent even more time and money to make the technology available to everyone, using a widely accepted standard called Open Source, then they did more work to make it available on a website, free for anyone, none of which they needed to do for their own purposes. They did it so that the people who speak those languages, whether they are Christians or not, will benefit from the tools they developed.

A pretty strange way to disrespect and destroy cultures, I think.

Writing Systems of the World

Writing Systems of the World

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Grassroots

Man from northern Ghana

Man from northern Ghana

In the vast majority of cases, languages without the Bible also do not have an alphabet. They have never been written. There are no dictionaries and no grammars. This situation is typically seen as an obstacle which requires some specialized linguistics work before getting to the real work of Bible translation. But often, for the people who speak the language, it is much more than a preliminary step.

They are very often very interested in having their language written. They are proud when their “second class” language is raised to the status of other languages by having an alphabet, a dictionary and written documents. For this reason, Bible translators often have very good relationships with traditional community leaders even when the community is apathetic toward or even opposed to the Gospel message. This leads to some odd juxtapositions. Some Bible translators have found that they were treated like royal guests at the court of the Paramount chief. Clerics of other religions many show up to support for Bible translation. One Bible translator noticed that young men would memorize their holy book and recite it publicly. So he proposed to the religious leaders that the same be done for the newly translated Gospel of Mark. They agreed! Young men memorized the book and recited it publicly with their religious leaders watching and approving.  In Mozambique, a cleric of another religion offered to promote Bible study because of a booklet describing the grammar in his language. You can read the full story here.

GILLBT Director (right) with a traditional chief in Ghana

GILLBT Director (right) with a traditional chief in Ghana

People may be opposed to the Gospel message when, in fact, they are opposed to a caricature of it based on lack of knowledge or communication in a language they did not fully understand. In some places in northern Ghana, people first believed that Christianity was for people from the southern parts of Ghana, but not for them. Then they sometimes believed that Christianity was for the educated only, not for them. But they were enthusiastic to see their language developed. Along the way, they got a new, more complete, understanding of Christianity.

In the end, developing an alphabet for an unwritten language is very often much more than a technical task. It is a way into the heart of the community. It gives the translator credibility with a community, even a resistant community, in ways that very few actions can. When missionaries and their supporters see linguistics research as nothing more than a hurdle to get over before starting the “real” task” of translation, they may be missing a prime opportunity for the Gospel, and a way to show God’s love and care.

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The Cute and the Informative

I’ll start with the cute. NewsOK, a Oklahoma on-line news site, has a great article entitled Who Wrote the Bible. It’s not what you might think. Instead of a dry theological treatise, the author gets the answer from children from ages 8 to 10. Smart kids. You’ll enjoy it.

Also in the fun and informative category is Wycliffe’s new website – Road to Transformation. It opens with a nice infographic and you can stay there or dig into more details. Believe me, the process is exactly like we do it.

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About GILLBT

For the last three months, I have been advising a Bible translation organization in Ghana – the Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT). Sometimes I wonder what I can offer because GILLBT has been so successful.  Among its many accomplishments are:

  • Translated the NT into 28 languages and the whole Bible into five more
  • Made more than 500,000 Ghanaians literate. Of those adults who learned to read in GILLBT classes, many then went to school with more than 100 getting university degrees, uncountable numbers becoming nurses or teachers and many others became pastors
  • Earned the right to appear on an international web site with a handful of other organizations as having the best literacy practices in the world
  • Won an international award for literacy
  • Developed alphabets and grammars for more languages in Ghana than any other organization, by far

In July, I attended the annual meeting of GILLBT which a number of church leaders also attended.

The man responsible for the Presbyterian Church in the north of Ghana told me that out of GILLBT’s work his church has six ordained ministers and over 50 catechists. He also told me that people read the Bibles in their languages and it enables them to follow Christ.

Another pastor from one of the most dynamic and self-supporting churches in Ghana (The Church of Pentecost) said that the challenge in Ghana is to make the Gospel real to people.  He went on to say that because of the work GILLBT his church was able to preach the Gospel into the local culture and make it real.

Yet another addressed the assembly and said: “You know my people – that we used to wear amulets and talismans for protections.” He went on to say that people thought those things were absolutely necessary.  Today, he said, the talismans and amulets are gone.  “They have been replaced by the Word of God in our hearts.”  He said that can only happen when God’s Word is in the local language.

Right after these things were said in the meeting, I had lunch with Dr Solomon Sule-Saa (front right in photo, visiting land on which GILLBT might build).  He is a research fellow at the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture in Ghana.  He is also a member of the GILLBT board. When I remarked on the striking testimonies of the effects of GILLBT’s work, he told me and the others at the table that he became a board member because his MA and PhD research in northern Ghana revealed that GILLBT’s work resulted in transformation of community life including contributing to the end of a tribal conflict.  He stated that “GILLBT is the most effective organization in northern Ghana.  It creates more positive transformation than all government programs combined and for much less money.”

While I lived in Ouagadougou, I met a man who was doing research on the church in Ghana.  He and his fellow researchers had collected information about all the churches in every city, town, village and hamlet in Ghana.  He told me that GILLBT’s work was the most effective rural church planting program in Ghana because everywhere GILLBT started work, churches followed whereas before there had been none.  Interestingly, GILLBT does not do church planting, but Bible translation and literacy.  Out of that churches grow without anyone in GILLBT starting them.

So, if you have ever wondered if Bible translation in African languages is worth the trouble, just look at what has happened in Ghana.

GILLBT fell on hard times a couple of years ago.  It has taken very effective steps to get back on track.  They have named a new and dynamic director (for whom the board is praying in the photo, Dr. Sule-Saa in the back.). I am coming into that process when it is quite advanced to help plot a course forward.  It is quite humbling and daunting, but it also a wonderful thing to be associated with an organization which has had such great impact.

I am really looking forward to making several trips to Ghana over the next year, perhaps longer and working by email and Skype with the GILLBT leadership.

(For more about us, see our website www.HeartLanguage.org.)