Chiyao translation team perseveres
despite slow progress

“Missionary work among the Yao is making slow progress...This is because the most essential tool – the Bible in Chiyao – is still not available.”

MANGOCHI, Malawi — Progress towards translating the Bible into Chiyao, one of Malawi’s 14 indigenous languages, is often “painfully slow”, according to the German missionary who is acting as consultant and exegete for the project. Work began in 1997, but it is anticipated that the one million Yao people who speak Chiyao will not have the Bible in their own language until 2010 at the earliest.

Winfried Steiner and his wife Hildegard, a doctor, were sent to Malawi in the early 1990s by a German missionary organisation. Since 1997, they have both experienced at first hand the ups and downs of the Chiyao translation project.

“Often the work seems to be barely progressing,” Mr Steiner admits. “We take a step backwards every time somebody falls ill or leaves the team. What’s more, it’s not easy to find suitably qualified people. Not only do they have to speak English and Chiyao, they also need to have undergone theological training.”

Barrier

He explains that political developments in Malawi during the 20th century acted as a barrier to providing the Yao people with biblical material in Chiyao. The Bible was translated into Chichewa, which is understood by more than half of the country’s 11 million inhabitants, as early as 1922, and this meant that Chichewa effectively became the dominant language in religious life and was used in most church services. The position of Chichewa was strengthened by the fact that it was made the national language during the 30-year dictatorship of Hastings Kamuzu Banda. The turning point did not come until 1994, when Malawi became a democratic country and languages other than Chichewa and English began to flourish once more.

There were several earlier attempts to set up Chiyao translation projects, but none of them resulted in a full Bible. There is a Chiyao New Testament, but, as Mr Steiner explains, it contains many errors and its language is now outmoded.

“It doesn’t meet people’s needs today,” he says. “Like all African languages, Chiyao is changing very quickly.”

With financial support from the United Bible Societies, the Bible Society of Malawi is now working on a complete Chiyao Bible in modern, easily accessible language. The actual translation work is being carried out by three native speakers of Chiyao. Although none of the translators had any previous experience of working with computers and had to learn to use word processing and translation programs from scratch, it has already been possible to translate more than a third of the Bible into Chiyao.

Across Malawi as a whole, some 80 per cent of the population is Christian. However, Christians are in the minority in the south, where the Yao people live. Traditional religion still has a significant influence here, and for this reason Mrs Steiner is looking forward very eagerly to the eventual completion of the Chiyao Bible.

“Missionary work among the Yao is making slow progress,” she says. “This is because the most essential tool – the Bible in Chiyao – is still not available.”

Reach out

While the new Bible will make it possible to reach out more effectively to non-Christian Yao people, the Steiners believe that it will also have a great impact among those who are already Christians. For them, hearing and reading the Scriptures in their own language cannot be taken for granted.

“Many of them have never been able to do so,” Mrs Steiner states. “They have only ever prayed in other languages and heard other languages in church services.” (WR 381/16 - 11.03)