Correction – Starts to Workshops…
Thanks!
Donn Hallman
https://wycliffeassociates.org/who-we-are/for-the-press/press-release/666
By 2017, Wycliffe Associates Expects to Reach 1,000 Bible Translation Workshops Using Pioneering Rapid-Translation Method
(Orlando, Florida, USA)—Wycliffe Associates, an international organization involving people in the acceleration of Bible translation anticipates that in 2017, it will reach 1,000 new Bible translation workshops using their pioneering method of Bible translation known as MAST (Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation).
MAST is a collaborative rapid-translation system in which groups of mother-tongue translators work in parallel to translate books of the Bible while maintaining the highest levels of accuracy and quality.
“The whole translation strategy is based on learning principles that have been tested and proven over a long period of time in a wide range of educational settings,” says Bruce Smith, president and CEO of Wycliffe Associates.
New language translations are launched through a MAST workshop, a training program facilitated by Wycliffe Associates, which brings together mother tongue translators, church checkers, and language consultants to work on a new-language Bible translation at the same time.
The result is a significant savings in translation time, often reducing a years-long process to a matter of months or weeks. Using traditional methods, a translation of the New Testament can take 25 to 30 years to complete.
In late 2014, Wycliffe Associates piloted a MAST workshop with mother-tongue translators in a nation where Christians suffer ongoing persecution by members of the majority religion. Thirteen translators were divided into teams of three or four, and each team was assigned one of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Every team member was then assigned a portion of that book to translate. Working 12-hour days, each translator completed approximately 34 verses each day, drafting during the mornings and using a five-step process to quality check the verses in the afternoons and evenings.
By the end of two weeks, the translators had completed the drafting and checking process for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and 1 and 2 Timothy—approximately 48 percent of the New Testament—with no decrease to high quality standards of the translation.
At the request of Wycliffe Associates, translation experts checked the MAST translators’ work and confirmed the accuracy of the team’s translation.
Dr. John Luton, who has participated in checking the work of numerous translation projects around the world says, “The work produced through MAST methodology is excellent. It compares very favorably with texts produced through other methods.”
So far this year, 314 new translation projects have been started using MAST, and MAST teams have completed the entire New Testament in 58 languages, with 100 more translations nearing completion.
“Our breakthrough MAST strategy is accelerating Bible translation beyond anything we could have imagined, even a couple of years ago,” says Smith. “It is not Westerners doing the translation work in remote areas—it’s nationals being equipped to translate God’s Word themselves.”
About Wycliffe Associates
Organized in 1967 by friends of Bible translators, Wycliffe Associates empowers national Bible translators to provide God’s Word in their own language, partners with the local church to direct and guard translation work, harnessing their passion and desire for God’s Word, and engages people from all around the world to provide resources, technology, training, and support for Bible translation.
Because millions of people around the world still wait to read the Scriptures in the language of their heart, Wycliffe Associates is working as quickly as it can to see every verse of God’s Word translated into every tongue to speak to every heart. Last year, 6,279 Wycliffe Associates staff and volunteers worked to speed Bible translations in 75 countries.
# # #
0 comments