‘Tanqilriit Igat’, the full Bible in Yup’ik

After more than 50 years of work put in by fluent Yup’ik speakers and several organisations, the Bible is now available in the modern orthography of the Inuit language.

The Yup’ik Bible is written using a new orthography, a fact that will be of significant benefit to Yup’ik speaking youth, who are taught to read and write using the same system in school.

The team translated the Old Testament into Yup’ik based off the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, and they rewrote the New Testament using modern Yup’ik.

LOCAL CHRISTIANS AND BIG ORGANISATIONS INVOLVED

Yup’ik is the aboriginal Inuit language of people who reside in western and south central Alaska. Written with the Latin alphabet, translation work on the Yup’ik New Testament was completed in the mid-1950s; work on the Old Testament began in the early 1970s.

Translators worked alone in their homes or gathered in Bethel, Alaska to work as a team.

The Canadian Bible Society explained: “The Yup’ik Bible effort was a partnership involving dozens of individuals. The Moravian Church initiated the project with financial support from the American Bible Society (ABS), translation support from the United Bible Societies (UBS), SIL and Wycliffe Translators. The Canadian Bible Society (CBS) was the final link in the chain providing computer support, which dates back to the mid-1990s.”

A UNIQUE LANGUAGE

The Yup’ik language has long words and unique diacritics (marks placed over, under or through a letter guide pronunciation). The team wanted their text to look like a traditional Bible with two columns, but many of the words were longer than one column wide and would break at the wrong spot, or the diacritics would move over to the wrong letters or would spread letters apart so much a single word would look like two or three words instead of just one.

“We heartily congratulate all those who contributed to this important goal,” Dr Myles Leitch, Director of Scripture Translations for CBS, said. “We praise God that the Yup’ik people can now read the Bible in their heart language.”