Firstly, I should start at the beginning…what does Wycliffe seek to do? Wycliffe is an organisation that is engaged in Bible translation, Literacy work and language development with minority languages throughout the world. (This is ‘in a nutshell’ so if you want to read more check out our ‘What on earth’ and ‘Wycliffe – a Wisbey intro’ links in the lefthand column, as well as the Wycliffe UK website itself). So Literacy is part of the vision of Wycliffe but not the whole story. Some of our supporters are interested in Literacy above all else, some are excited about Bible translation, some about language development and some about all of those bits put together! Also, some just want to be kept up-to-date with what Matt and Liz are doing! It’s great to have a wide range of supporters who are interested in different aspects. So don’t let it put you off if you want people to have the opportunity to learn to read and write but you can’t subscribe to the Bible translation part! Both parts drive Wycliffe’s dedication to the work, however they don’t both have to drive your interest or support in one or the other.
Anyway, I got slightly sidetracked from my original purpose, Literacy and where it fits into a language project! A language project is a single language or a group of languages (our assignment in Mbeya was in a ‘cluster project’, working with nine languages) that request assistance from Wycliffe to ‘develop’ their language. (‘develop’ is quite an invocative word but really what it means in our context is that we work to help the language community to use their language how they want to. This will often mean they want its use to grow by being written down and people taught how to read and write it.) Wycliffe works alongside other organisations that do a similar job so that is why Wycliffe may not be working with every language in a given country.
The first thing that is done in a new location/language is a Language Survey. Speakers of the language are asked lots of questions such as: how much is the language used? (Is it a vital, living, language or is it dying?) Who uses it and when? How different is the language from surrounding languages? Does it have dialects (variations within the language)? What attitudes are there towards the language and the possibility of a Bible in the language? Etc, etc!
After this stage has happened (or at least an initial survey has been completed) and if it is decided that the language project will go ahead, the next stage that must be started is Linguistics work. The linguists must work with speakers of the language to understand its grammar and phonology (basically the structure of the language and its sounds). They need to find out as much as they can about how the language works. Often the language that is being worked with is a previously unwritten language so an orthography (an alphabet/writing system) must be devised to symbolise the sounds of the language.
Literacy work is something that should start happening as soon as the orthography is settled and will continue for many many years to come (literacy work should continue well beyond any culmination of a translation). This is where we have been working: devising resources and training teachers to teach people to read and write in their mother tongue (This is another misconception: we weren’t actually teaching Literacy classes ourselves but training Tanzanian teachers to do this. Much of our role was office and workshop based a lot of the time, training, equipping and mentoring nationals so the work would continue after we left). We sought to build up a body of literature, books of different levels of difficulty, so that new readers could become experienced readers and get enough practice before moving onto more advanced texts such as the mother tongue Bible when it (or part of it) is finished being translated. So you can see that this job is in some ways connected to the translation work, however it also exists separately of it. Matt and I passionately believe that literacy is crucial for its own sake. If people do not learn to read and write well, people are not empowered and so are unable to learn for themselves. This in turn restricts the opportunities people get in life, and increases the chance for them to be cheated and discriminated against. These are just some of the reasons why we believe literacy, the right to be get a good education in the language that you understand the best, is a basic human right which we are willing to work hard for!
I have already mentioned Translation, and this is a key facet of a language project where Wycliffe is involved. Translation is done by working as a team with nationals who know their mother tongue extremely well and with expatriates who are trained in the principles of Bible translation. The mother tongue speakers do the translation work itself, with the expatriates helping with ideas and questions along the way. It can start happening when an orthography is settled. It may take decades to translate a whole New Testament so this is a long term project. Often translation is started with a gospel, so people can learn about the life of Jesus, and with ‘basic’ chronological stories from the Old Testament such as Jonah and Ruth.
But our work is not completed when there is just another book to sit on a shelf, so another important area of Wycliffe’s work is Scripture Use. The purpose of this is to encourage Christians to use the translated scriptures (you probably could have guessed that for yourselves!). It is important to work with a variety of church denominations so that the new Bible is accepted and will be used by as many of them as possible. Scripture Use workers often train pastors, Sunday school teachers and others, basically any people who will be putting the new translation to use. In Mbeya this work started as soon as the translation work started so as to raise the profile of the translation and to encourage Bible usage in general.
So those are the main parts of a language project. Of course there are many people involved in Wycliffe’s work that are not found in one of these key departments. We need computer, finance and admin people too. Without skilled people in all of these areas of administration the rest of the team would not be able to do the work they do. It is also extremely important to do partnership work with the local churches, to work together to see a language project completed and awareness raised. Wycliffe does not go into communities and insist that their language be developed, literacy classes taught and a translation done. We only work in communities that request the skills we can bring and are fully committed to working with us. We know from our experience in Tanzania that change cannot happen in communities without the local people being completely on board with the vision and willing to carry it to completion themselves with Wycliffe’s assistance.
One final misconception is that our team was made up of all white people from overseas. In fact most language projects are made up of at least 50% local people since they are the language speakers and can do the work much better than quicker then we ever could! In our literacy department in Mbeya, for example, we had 3 full-time expatriate staff and 12 full-time Tanzanian staff (plus lots of volunteer teachers etc!).
After this stage has happened (or at least an initial survey has been completed) and if it is decided that the language project will go ahead, the next stage that must be started is Linguistics work. The linguists must work with speakers of the language to understand its grammar and phonology (basically the structure of the language and its sounds). They need to find out as much as they can about how the language works. Often the language that is being worked with is a previously unwritten language so an orthography (an alphabet/writing system) must be devised to symbolise the sounds of the language.
Literacy work is something that should start happening as soon as the orthography is settled and will continue for many many years to come (literacy work should continue well beyond any culmination of a translation). This is where we have been working: devising resources and training teachers to teach people to read and write in their mother tongue (This is another misconception: we weren’t actually teaching Literacy classes ourselves but training Tanzanian teachers to do this. Much of our role was office and workshop based a lot of the time, training, equipping and mentoring nationals so the work would continue after we left). We sought to build up a body of literature, books of different levels of difficulty, so that new readers could become experienced readers and get enough practice before moving onto more advanced texts such as the mother tongue Bible when it (or part of it) is finished being translated. So you can see that this job is in some ways connected to the translation work, however it also exists separately of it. Matt and I passionately believe that literacy is crucial for its own sake. If people do not learn to read and write well, people are not empowered and so are unable to learn for themselves. This in turn restricts the opportunities people get in life, and increases the chance for them to be cheated and discriminated against. These are just some of the reasons why we believe literacy, the right to be get a good education in the language that you understand the best, is a basic human right which we are willing to work hard for!
I have already mentioned Translation, and this is a key facet of a language project where Wycliffe is involved. Translation is done by working as a team with nationals who know their mother tongue extremely well and with expatriates who are trained in the principles of Bible translation. The mother tongue speakers do the translation work itself, with the expatriates helping with ideas and questions along the way. It can start happening when an orthography is settled. It may take decades to translate a whole New Testament so this is a long term project. Often translation is started with a gospel, so people can learn about the life of Jesus, and with ‘basic’ chronological stories from the Old Testament such as Jonah and Ruth.
But our work is not completed when there is just another book to sit on a shelf, so another important area of Wycliffe’s work is Scripture Use. The purpose of this is to encourage Christians to use the translated scriptures (you probably could have guessed that for yourselves!). It is important to work with a variety of church denominations so that the new Bible is accepted and will be used by as many of them as possible. Scripture Use workers often train pastors, Sunday school teachers and others, basically any people who will be putting the new translation to use. In Mbeya this work started as soon as the translation work started so as to raise the profile of the translation and to encourage Bible usage in general.
So those are the main parts of a language project. Of course there are many people involved in Wycliffe’s work that are not found in one of these key departments. We need computer, finance and admin people too. Without skilled people in all of these areas of administration the rest of the team would not be able to do the work they do. It is also extremely important to do partnership work with the local churches, to work together to see a language project completed and awareness raised. Wycliffe does not go into communities and insist that their language be developed, literacy classes taught and a translation done. We only work in communities that request the skills we can bring and are fully committed to working with us. We know from our experience in Tanzania that change cannot happen in communities without the local people being completely on board with the vision and willing to carry it to completion themselves with Wycliffe’s assistance.
One final misconception is that our team was made up of all white people from overseas. In fact most language projects are made up of at least 50% local people since they are the language speakers and can do the work much better than quicker then we ever could! In our literacy department in Mbeya, for example, we had 3 full-time expatriate staff and 12 full-time Tanzanian staff (plus lots of volunteer teachers etc!).
2 comments:
Thanks so much for taking the time to sit down and go through all that, it was really useful to read and definately helped me put into context what you do. much love to you both x x x
Sarah and Nathan
I've just been talking to our Communications people about the need for support workers. They've got some ideas on communicating this. I'll send them a link to this post.
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