Translation projects always have difficulties, but in some areas of Cameroon they are facing exceptional hardships. This blog post from a partner organization, JAARS, highlights what has been going on in a cluster project in Cameroon.

And yet, the translators didn’t give up. “What we started, we must finish,” they said. The translators would hike—sometimes for eight hours—to the village where they worked. They would stay there and translate for two days, then hike back home until the next week, when they would do it all over again.

Sometimes people will mention to us after we share with them about our ministry about “how much we’ve sacrificed”. It’s true, there have been sacrifices. But, when you see the efforts of many of our Cameroonian colleagues who face difficulties well beyond what we have, it makes you think that we have not sacrificed much at all.

What We Started, We Must Finish

Given our roles in supporting Bible Translation in the domains of linguistics and technology, it begs the question about the role of AI and machine learning in Bible translation. This is something that we have been working on more actively recently and will be more and more as we move forward.

There are currently just a few options for low-resource languages to use for Bible translation. In this context, low- resource languages are those without large amounts of recordings or books written and published and available for computers to use in their learning and analysis. The language communities that we are working with are definitely low on resources from a language technology perspective as there may be no written or published materials in the language at all for use in computer modeling. But as linguistics field work and literacy work is done with a language group, there are ways to help move Bible translation forward using computers to help.

ScriptureForge – drafting of Scripture that is based on previously translated Bible text, currently useful for producing back-translations, which are a necessary step in translation checking for accuracy, clarity, and naturalness. In the near future, the hope is that it could also provide translation suggestions into the target language and learn as it goes.
TBTA – grammatically tagged draft from original Hebrew and Greek. This needs a lot of work to make it natural and clear and takes a lot of preparatory work to label the linguistics tags of the target language, sort of like making a grammar and dictionary for the computer to follow.
FLExTrans – interlinearisation of text, using a closely related language as source and based on good linguistic rules of the differences between the languages to make a good draft.

None of these options are perfect and none of them work as well as something like a chat bot but for undocumented languages or those with little previous development, these are options that are worth exploring and trying out, so that is what we are doing.

Next week, there will be an initial training in Cameroon to explore more how AI can be used to draft an Old Testament in a waiting language using an already translated New Testament using Scripture Forge. Please pray with us for good understanding of the possibilities and limitations inherent in using AI and also for a clear way to bring God’s Word to communities sooner.

JAARS, a partner organization of Wycliffe, has highlighted the work of two individuals who have attended the iDelta training in Cameroon. Shannon has worked with both of them. This blog post highlights how they are using their experience in media to share the gospel.

A Good Place to Hear about Jesus

We rejoice that Jesus is the Savior of the world and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~Romans 15:13

2023 highlights include: trips to Cameroon, Ohio, LA & Arizona, successful remote work, Eila’s graduation, Josiah’s driving, and Thad’s baptism. Our teens are in 9th grade, 11th grade, and 1st year of university – all in Michigan.

“Ecrire, lire, documenter, codifier et moderniser la langue sso” This is the goal of the committe and the work which was kicked off this fall for the next year at the center of SIL Cameroon in Yaounde.

CAM 10 Télévision (a Cameroonian news source) ran a brief segment highlighting this meeting. The video is in French, but you might enjoy it even if you can’t understand all the details.

You are invited to join us for Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Fall Scripture Celebration on Thursday, Oct. 12, at 2 p.m. ET. This event will take place in Orlando, but many will be joining via livestream. 

All around the world, God’s Word is transforming lives as people encounter Jesus in a language and format they clearly understand. Scripture Celebration provides us with a unique opportunity to celebrate the life-changing impact of having access to Scripture. Join to be encouraged and inspired as we rejoice together through live music, videos and testimonies! 

Recently, I learned that Sept 30 is Bible Translation Day! Who knew that such a thing existed?!? But now that we know, let’s celebrate!

One way to celebrate might be to read your favorite passage from the Bible in a few different translations. Or maybe you could pray for the Swo or the Jimi communities who are in the very beginning of their journeys to have a Bible translation that they can understand well. Or you could even think about how you could become even more involved in Bible translation – by giving or going to work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We would be happy to connect with you and share more about Bible translation. So, please leave a comment or visit our infomation page to send us a note at: www.wycliffe.org/partner/yee and we will get back to you.

All of the work that we do is with others. We encourage you to check out this brochure from Global Partnerships to see how hundreds of partners around the world are collaboratively carrying out Bible translation work. It includes goals, guiding principles and encouraging details like this one: 1,448,407,629 people are currently being served globally through active projects!

Eila graduated from RFIS! She was one of the top students in her class throughout high school. We are so proud of her perserevance and thoughtfulness. Even though endings are hard, she had a wonderful final semester with her friends and is ready for the next phase – at Calvin University.

Thaddeus was baptized as a believer in Jesus Christ! He took a big step to proclaim his faith in and desire to follow Jesus. We are so proud of his courage and excited to see what comes next for him. “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” -Galatians 5:25 (NIV)