Introduction to translationAcademy

Introduction to the Translation Manual

The Translation Manual is intended to enable anyone, anywhere to equip themselves so that they will be able to make high-quality translations of biblical content into their own language. The manual is designed to be highly flexible. It can be used in a systematic, in-advance approach or it can be used for just-in-time learning (or both, as needed). It is modular in structure.

The Translation Manual contains the following sections:

• Introduction - introduces translationAcademy and the unfoldingWord project
• Translation Tips and Practices - explains the basics of translation theory and practical translation helps
• Learning Topics - these are practical translation helps that are also linked from the translationNotes
• Checking - explains the basics of checking theory and best practices

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Why We Translate the Bible

The purpose of translationAcademy is to train you to become a Bible translator. Translating God's Word into your language to help your people grow as disciples of Jesus is an important task. You must be committed to this task, take your responsibility seriously, and pray that the Lord will help you.

God has spoken to us in the Bible. He inspired the writers of the Bible to write his Word using the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages. There were about 40 different authors writing from around 1400 B.C. to A.D. 100. These documents were written in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. By recording his Word in those languages, God ensured that the people at those times and in those places could understand it.

Today, people in your country do not understand Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. But translating God's Word into their language will enable them understand it!

Someone's "mother tongue" or "heart language" means the language they first spoke as a child and the one which they use at home. This is the language in which they are most comfortable and which they use to express their deepest thoughts. We want everyone to be able to read God's Word in their heart language.

Every language is important and valuable. Small languages are just as important as the national languages spoken in your country, and they can express meaning just as well. No one should be ashamed to speak their dialect. Sometimes, those in minority groups feel ashamed of their language and try not to use it around the people who are in the majority in their nation. But there is nothing inherently more important, more prestigious, or more educated about the national language than there is about local languages. Each language has nuances and shades of meaning that are unique. We should use the language we are most comfortable with and with which we best communicate with others.

Credits: Taken from "Bible Translation Theory & Practice" by Todd Price, Ph.D. CC BY-SA 4.0

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Statement of Faith

Statement of Faith

Found at Bible In Every Language

• We believe in the divine inspiration and consequent authority of the whole canonical Scriptures
• We believe in the doctrine of the Trinity
• We believe in the fall of man, his consequent moral depravity and his need of regeneration
• We believe in the atonement through the substitutionary death of Christ
• We believe in the doctrine of justification by faith
• We believe in the resurrection of the body, in the case of the just and the unjust
• We believe in the eternal life of the saved and the eternal punishment of the lost

The following statement of faith is subscribed to by all member organizations of and contributors to the unfoldingWord project. It is in agreement with the Lausanne Covenant.

We believe that Christian belief can and should be divided into essential beliefs and peripheral beliefs (Romans 14).

Essential beliefs

Essential beliefs are what define a follower of Jesus Christ and can never be compromised or ignored.

• We believe the Bible to be the only inspired, inerrant, sufficient, authoritative Word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; John 10:30).

• We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ (John 1:1-4; Philippians 2:5-11; 2 Peter 1:1).

• We believe in the humanity of Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, and in His ascension to the right hand of the Father (Matthew 1:18,25; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8; Hebrews 4:15; Acts 1:9-11; Acts 2:22-24).

• We believe that every person is inherently sinful and so is deserving of eternal hell (Romans 3:23; Isaiah 64:6-7).

• We believe that salvation from sin is a gift of God, provided through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, attained by grace through faith, not by works (John 3:16; John 14:6; Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:3-7).

• We believe that true faith is always accompanied by repentance and regeneration by the Holy Spirit (James 2:14-26; John 16:5-16; Romans 8:9).

• We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the follower of Jesus Christ is enabled to live a godly life (John 14:15-26; Ephesians 2:10; Galatians 5:16-18).

• We believe in the spiritual unity of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, from all nations and languages and people groups (Philippians 2:1-4; Ephesians 1:22-23; 1 Corinthians 12:12,27).

• We believe in the personal and physical return of Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:30; Acts 1:10-11).

• We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; the unsaved will be resurrected to eternal damnation in hell and the saved will be resurrected to eternal blessing in heaven with God (Hebrews 9:27-28; Matthew 16:27; John 14:1-3; Matthew 25:31-46).

Peripheral beliefs

Peripheral beliefs are everything else that is in Scripture but about which sincere followers of Christ may disagree (e.g. Baptism, Lord's Supper, the Rapture, etc.). We choose to agree to disagree agreeably on these topics and press on together toward a common goal of making disciples of every people group (Matthew 28:18-20).

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Translation Guidelines

The following statement on the principles and procedures used in translation is subscribed to by all member organizations of and contributors to the unfoldingWord project (see https://unfoldingword.org). All translation activities are carried out according to these common guidelines.

1. Accurate — Translate accurately, without detracting from, changing, or adding to the meaning of the original text. Translated content should faithfully communicate as precisely as possible the meaning of the original text as it would have been understood by the original audience. (see Create Accurate Translations)
2. Clear — Use whatever language structures are necessary to achieve the highest level of comprehension. This includes rearranging the form of a text and using as many or as few terms as necessary to communicate the original meaning as clearly as possible. (see Create Clear Translations)
3. Natural — Use language forms that are effective and that reflect the way your language is used in corresponding contexts. (see Create Natural Translations)
4. Faithful — Avoid any political, denominational, ideological, social, cultural, or theological bias in your translation. Use key terms that are faithful to the vocabulary of the original biblical languages. Use equivalent common language terms for the biblical words that describe the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. These may be clarified, as needed, in footnotes or other supplemental resources. (see Create Faithful Translations)
5. Authoritative — Use the original language biblical texts as the highest authority for translation of biblical content. Reliable biblical content in other languages may be used for clarification and as intermediary source texts. (see Create Authoritative Translations)
6. Historical — Communicate historical events and facts accurately, providing additional information as needed in order to accurately communicate the intended message to people who do not share the same context and culture as the original recipients of the original content. (see Create Historical Translations
7. Equal — Communicate the same intent as the source text, including expressions of feeling and attitudes. As much as possible, maintain the different kinds of literature in the original text, including narrative, poetry, exhortation, and prophecy, representing them with corresponding forms that communicate in a similar way in your language. (see Create Equal Translations)

Identifying and Managing Translation Quality

The quality of a translation generally refers to the fidelity of the translation to the meaning of the original, and the degree to which the translation is understandable and effective for the speakers of the receptor language. The strategy we suggest involves checking the forms and communicative quality of the translation with the language community, and checking the fidelity of the translation with the Church in that people group.

The specific steps involved may vary significantly, depending on the language and context of the translation project. Generally, we consider a good translation to be one that has been reviewed by the speakers of the language community and also by the leadership of the church in the language group so that it is:

1. Accurate, Clear, Natural, and Equal — Faithful to the intended meaning of the original, as determined by the Church in that people group and in alignment with the Church global and historical, and consequently:
2. Affirmed by the Church - Endorsed and used by the Church. (see Create Church-Approved Translations)

We also recommend that the translation work be:

1. Collaborative — Where possible, work together with other believers who speak your language to translate, check, and distribute the translated content, ensuring that it is of the highest quality and available to as many people as possible. (see Create Collaborative Translations)
2. Ongoing — Translation work is never completely finished. Encourage those who are skilled with the language to suggest better ways to say things when they notice that improvements can be made. Any errors in the translation should also be corrected as soon as they are discovered. Also encourage the periodic review of translations to ascertain when revision or a new translation is needed. We recommend that each language community form a translation committee to oversee this ongoing work. Using the unfoldingWord online tools, these changes to the translation can be made quickly and easily. (see Create Ongoing Translations)

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Open License

A License for Freedom

To achieve unrestricted biblical content in every language, a license is needed that gives the global church "unrestricted" access. We believe this movement will become unstoppable when the Church has unrestricted access. The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License provides all the needed rights for translation and distribution of biblical content and ensures that the content remains open. Except where otherwise noted, all our content is licensed CC BY-SA.

The official license for Door43 is found at https://door43.org/en/legal/license.

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Source Texts

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• http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)">CC0 Public Domain Dedication (CC0)