Faith Works Language Initiative is dedicated to helping our partner communities produce translated Bible or portions of it in their heart languages. More importantly, we focus on ensuring that their translations meet globally accepted criteria of quality translation. The process calls for collaborative diligence.
ACCURATE:
The fundamental goal is to translate the Bible into a target language accurately, without changing or adding to the meaning of the original source text. Faith Works Language Initiative provides proper training and guidance to the translation team of mother tongue speakers, so they learn to translate Scripture to communicate the source text as precisely, completely, and faithfully as possible in their own language.
CLEAR:
Generally, translators face significant challenges relating to differences in orthography; this is especially true in Bible translation. To achieve clarity and consistency, mother tongue translators need adequate understanding of the orthography of the source text. This enables them to adopt appropriate grammatical structures in their own language to achieve the highest level of comprehension of Biblical content for their people.
NATURAL:
The standard of naturalness requires that the translated Scripture reads and sounds fluent to native speakers. It conveys authenticity. Mother tongue translators are encouraged to use language forms that are effective and reflect the typical way their language is used by their people.
FAITHFUL:
The goal here is to resist the introduction of any bias, which is not in the original source text, into the translated text. Mother tongue translators are encouraged to avoid any denominational, ideological, social, cultural, or theological bias in their translation. This requires an adequate understanding of the distinction between translation and interpretation. Given their contextual importance, translators are also encouraged to use key words and terms that are faithful to the vocabulary of the original Biblical languages.
AUTHORITATIVE and HISTORICAL:
It is critical that the translated Scripture is well received as conveying the same content and meaning as other respected translations. Translators are encouraged to communicate historical events and facts accurately, and to provide additional information as needed in order to represent the intended message of the source text to their people accurately.
EQUAL:
The standard of equality requires that the translated Scripture stays true to the different kinds of literal styles in the original text, such as narrative, poetic, and prophetic styles. Mother tongue speakers are encouraged to represent these styles in their own language in the best possible way.
Please GIVE NOW to support this important work of training mother tongue translators in minority communities in Nigeria to do quality translation of God’s Word into their own languages.