First Inuktitut Bible at draft stage

TORONTO, Canada — The first draft of the Bible in the Inuktitut language was completed in December. Inuktitut is one of three official languages of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, in northeastern Canada, and is the mother tongue of some 28,000 Canadians, mainly the Inuit people of the Canadian Eastern Arctic and northern Quebec.

The translation project, a joint effort by the Canadian Bible Society and the Anglican Church of Canada, has so far taken 23 years, in which time the translators faced many challenges.

Daily life

“Many living languages have no words to describe daily life in ancient Palestine,” said Hart Wiens, Director of Scripture Translation for the Canadian Bible Society. “For example, the Inuit people recognize six or seven ‘seasons’ that do not really correspond either to English terms (spring, summer, fall, winter) or to biblical seasons (rainy, dry).”

No written form

Inuktitut has a long history as an oral language but the Inuit people had no written form of it until the late 1800s. It is a phonetic form of writing originally developed by the Rev James Evans for the Cree Indians, and adapted for the Inuit so that they would have a way to record their history, which until then had been preserved only through oral tradition.

The Inuktitut New Testament was completed in 1992 and one woman, when reading it for the first time, declared, “This is the first time I could see what was written!” The translation was well received, with 10,000 copies being sold, and some people were reported as staying up all night to read it.

“Translating the Bible into Inuktitut has given our language importance and has preserved it,” said the Rev Jonas Allooloo, a member of the translation team.