{"id":13023,"date":"2012-05-07T08:01:43","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T14:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=13023"},"modified":"2016-09-30T17:08:41","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T21:08:41","slug":"creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say “desert”?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something <\/a><\/strong>the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about:<\/p>\n

Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit<\/a> people and the most widely spoken aboriginal tongue in Canada\u2019s Arctic, will be dedicated at an igloo-shaped church in Nunavut, an autonomous region carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1999.<\/p>\n

Begun in 1978, the massive task marks the first time in Canada that a translation of the whole Bible was accomplished entirely by native speakers of the language rather than by white missionaries.<\/p>\n

It was kick-started by the late Rev. Eugene Nida, considered the father of modern biblical translation, whose major contribution to the field was the concept of \u201cfunctional equivalence.\u201d Instead of using literal translations, the idea was to convey meaning by incorporating native culture and idiom into the Bible\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Nida\u2019s message to non-aboriginal translators about the advantage of native speakers was simple: \u201cYou may have learned the language well,\u201d recalled Rev. Jonah Allooloo, an Inuk priest and canon of the\u00a0Anglican Church of Canada<\/a> who worked on the Inuktitut project from the start, \u201cbut you\u2019ll never learn to think the way these people do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s last census found some 33,000 speakers of Inuktitut, part of the Eskimo-Aleut family of languages. It is spoken in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and northern Quebec, and almost exclusively north of the tree line.<\/p>\n

It was an oral language for thousands of years until an Anglican missionary, Edmund Peck, introduced the syllabic script _ in which characters represent syllables _ in the late 19th century. Most speakers are Christian.<\/p>\n

The full translation follows the completion in 1991 of an Inuktitut New Testament, now in its fifth edition. The Old Testament took so long because Allooloo and the project\u2019s translation coordinator, retired Anglican Bishop Benjamin Arreak, worked on it for only one or two months of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are priests,\u201d Allooloo pointed out. \u201cWe have responsibilities. We are on 24-hour call.\u201d And they have a lot of ground to cover: at 15 times the land mass of Great Britain, the Anglican Church of Canada\u2019s Diocese of the Arctic is the world\u2019s largest Christian diocese.<\/p>\n

Inuit Christians longed for a complete Bible, Arreak said. During the translation process, \u201cpeople were saying, \u2018If there are rough drafts, can I have a printout?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOur people need the whole Word of God to be inspired and strengthened and as a guide for their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

But adapting the Old Testament, with its litany of desert vegetation and animals, to an Arctic readership presented challenges.<\/p>\n

For one, there are no words in Inuktitut for \u201cgoat,\u201d \u201csheep\u201d or \u201ccamel.\u201d Those had to be written phonetically.<\/p>\n

And what to do about the 30-plus types of trees mentioned in the Bible when there are no trees of any kind for hundreds of miles in the Arctic?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used a general term for tree,\u201d explained Allooloo, \u201cand then explained it in the footnotes.\u201d The translation brims with footnotes and explications.<\/p>\n

The same word was used for \u201cshepherd\u201d as for someone who tends a dog team. \u201cIt\u2019s like \u2018baby sitter,'\u201d said Arreak. Similarly, \u201cpomegranate\u201d is described as a sweet fruit with many seeds.<\/p>\n

He and Allooloo agree that the Old Testament was easier to translate than the New because both Jewish and aboriginal traditions stress the oral tradition of storytelling and history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s something the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about: Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit people and the most widely spoken aboriginal tongue in Canada\u2019s Arctic, will be dedicated at an igloo-shaped church in Nunavut, an autonomous region carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1999. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,9],"tags":[11203,1119],"class_list":["post-13023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-books","tag-bible","tag-eskimos"],"yoast_head":"\nCreating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say "desert"?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's something the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about: Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say "desert"?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here's something the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about: Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-07T14:01:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-09-30T21:08:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/files\/2012\/05\/800px-Qamutik_1_1999-04-01-575x385.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/\",\"name\":\"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say \\\"desert\\\"?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-05-07T14:01:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-30T21:08:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970\"},\"description\":\"Here's something the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about: Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say “desert”?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/\",\"name\":\"The Deacon's Bench\",\"description\":\"Where a Roman Catholic deacon ponders the world\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970\",\"name\":\"Deacon Greg Kandra\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Deacon Greg Kandra\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say \"desert\"?","description":"Here's something the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about: Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say \"desert\"?","og_description":"Here's something the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about: Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2012-05-07T14:01:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-09-30T21:08:41+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/files\/2012\/05\/800px-Qamutik_1_1999-04-01-575x385.jpg"}],"author":"Deacon Greg Kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Deacon Greg Kandra","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/","name":"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say \"desert\"?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-05-07T14:01:43+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-30T21:08:41+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970"},"description":"Here's something the original authors of sacred scripture never had to think about: Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of\u00a0Inuit","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/05\/creating-an-arctic-bible-how-do-the-eskimos-say-desert\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Creating an Arctic bible: how do the Eskimos say “desert”?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic deacon ponders the world","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970","name":"Deacon Greg Kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Deacon Greg Kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}