The Institute for Bible Translation has published a beautifully illustrated selection of four parables from the Gospel of Luke in the Dungan language. The selection includes the Parables of the Good Samaritan (10:30-35), the Wedding Feast (14:16-23), the Prodigal Son (15:11-32), and the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (18:10-14), and comes with an audio recording of the text on CD.

Working in coordination with the Bible Society of Kyrgyzstan and the Orthodox Diocese of Kyrgyzstan, IBT has produced the Kyrgyz translation of  the Six Psalms (Hexapsalmos) that are used in the Orthodox church service. In mid-December, IBT’s deputy director Marina Lomova presented the diocese with 200 copies of this translation, which was printed in Bishkek by Al-Salam Publishing House.

IBT has recently published an illustrated edition of “Bible Stories” in the Dungan language, spoken primarily in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and China. This book is a short version of IBT’s beloved Children’s Bible that introduces readers to 58 stories from the Old and New Testament.

IBT has already had a significant amount of experience translating the Scriptures into languages with no writing system of their own or with a writing system that was only recently created for the language.  For example, IBT published the Gospel of Luke and the book of Proverbs in the Bezhta language of Dagestan in 2000 and 2005, respectively. Another related language has now been added to this list, after almost two decades of work: the Andi language.

IBT has published a new book containing the first-ever translation of the Old Testament books of Jonah, Ruth and Esther in the Ingush language of the North Caucasus. Ingush is spoken as a mother tongue by more than 300,000 people in the Russian Republic of Ingushetia, with a total of about a half million ethnic Ingush in the entire Russian Federation. It is closely related to the neighboring Chechen language.