Almost 20 years after the
New Testament, Cebaara Bible nears completion

n Rev Ouattara Dossogmon, the Coordinator of the Cebaara Bible translation project

KORHOGO, Côte d’Ivoire — In northern Côte d’Ivoire the majority of people are of traditional animist beliefs, leaving Christians as the second largest group. In contrast to what some politicians say – possibly with the motive of causing a north-south divide – Ivorians frequently emphasise that the north is not an exclusively Muslim area. For this reason the Bible Society of Côte d’Ivoire (BSCI) regards it as important to support the churches in the region with the Scriptures they ask for.

One important translation now nearing completion is the Cebaara Bible. Estimates of the number of people who speak Cebaara (also known as Senoufo) in Côte d’Ivoire vary: in 1993 an informed estimate put the number at 862,000.

The speakers are mainly in the north and northeast of the country. The translation team hopes that the Bible will be available to the church by the end of 2003.

The New Testament has been available since 1983 and, in a project funded mainly by the Baptist Mission, translators have been working since then on the translation of the Old Testament and the Deuterocanon. The UBS is also contributing, both financially and in regard to quality control and production.

“The translation work is at least 80 per cent complete, with parts of the Deuterocanon still outstanding,” says Dr Joachim Somé, the UBS Translation Consultant.

“The whole of the Old Testament has been translated and we are now cross-checking and making revisions. Following the New Testament, published in 1983, we produced a New Testament and Psalms in 1996, so although it would normally undergo a complete revision before being published with the Old Testament and Deuterocanon as the completed Bible, we don’t need to do much revision on it.”

Six translations

At least six other translations are at various stages of completion. The Bible has already been published in Baoulé – widely spoken across central Côte d’Ivoire – and is now being distributed. Like Baoulé, the Tagbana Bible is being translated for the people of central Côte d’Ivoire, especially around the main town of Katiola. There are at least 138,000 speakers of Tagbana, making it one of the most important of Côte d’Ivoire’s vernacular languages.

Completed

The other projects already completed recently are translations of the New Testament into Gban and Bété Daloua – both spoken in central west Côte d’Ivoire – and into Ebrié which is spoken in the south. A smaller project, the translation of the New Testament into Alladian, is still in progress.

The Rev Ouattara Dossogmon, the co-ordinator of the Cebaara translation project, is pleased that the project is almost complete.