PARIS, France — The Parole de Vie translation project dates back to the mid-1970s. It was around that time that UBS representatives in Africa began showing an interest in français fondamental (‘Basic French’) (see previous article) with the aim of making the Word of God accessible to French-speaking readers who had only recently learned to read.
At the same time, Roman Catholics were keen to have the Bible in français fondamental available for use in Sunday services among multi-ethnic and multilingual congregations whose language of communication was French.
Sister Lydie Rivière was a Roman Catholic nun who was working in the area of development and health care among French-speaking West Africans. She had already worked on translating manuals of agronomy into a French of a simple level when she was asked by the West Africa Bishops’ Conference to apply the same techniques to the text of the Bible.
With encouragement from the Bishop of Koudougou, in Burkina Faso, she began to develop Bible texts in français fondamental. The realisation that she needed technical and editorial assistance led her, in September 1977, to make contact with the Bible Society in Côte d’Ivoire.
The Society gave her the manuals she needed to start the translation work and it was from this association that the Parole de Vie project was born. Subsequently a large part of the work of translation took place in Côte d’Ivoire, where the texts were re-read and improved by African users.
In 1978 the Bishops’ Commission for Religious Instruction and Liturgy in Francophone West Africa, led by Mgr Bayala, Bishop of Koudougou, responded to demands from several countries by formally requesting that the New Testament be translated into français fondamental for an interconfessional audience.
The following year, Philip Stine, UBS Translation Consultant for West Africa, agreed to look at the first translations, which he did in collaboration with Pastor Jean-Claude Margot, initiator of the French Good News Bible project.
In
the 1980s, under the guidance of the French Bible Society,
the first published books of the New Testament began to appear: the First Letter
of John was followed by the Letter of James and the First Letter of Peter, the
Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. In 1990, World Literacy Year, the four
Gospels were offered to the Director General of UNESCO, Federico Mayor.
In 1991 the project was presented to the Bishops of West Africa in Benin and to the World Council of Churches. A special feature of the latter occasion was the presentation by the Mission Evangélique Braille (Braille Evangelical Mission) of Luke’s Gospel into Braille.
In October the same year John Erickson, then General Secretary of the UBS, joined representatives of the Catholic Bible Federation and others in presenting it to Pope John Paul II.
In 1992 the UBS decided to produce a translation of the complete Bible. In 1993 the New Testament was published and in December of that year it was presented to UNESCO. The following year saw the publication of the Psalms.
Access for disadvantaged people to the new translation was not overlooked. It had long been the dream of the Bible Society of Côte d’Ivoire to publish the Parole de Vie New Testament on cassettes for blind people and those unable to read, and the dream became reality through the determination of Jean Kouamé Kouassi, the director of the Bible Society of Côte d’Ivoire. Recording began in July 1998 using a mixture of drama students and professional actors – some of them well-known –from Côte d’Ivoire and Togo.
Appropriate music was supplied by Hosanna and recording facilities were loaned by a local radio station. Furthermore, subsequent to the success of its Gospel of Luke, the Mission Evangélique Braille continued its work, eventually completing the transcription of the New Testament and the Psalms for the blind. And last year – the year of Jubilee – marked the publication of the entire Bible, complete with the books of the Deuterocanon. (WR 357/20 - 1/2.01) [PHOTOS]