Moses and Jonah in the Dungan language
May 25, 2020

The Institute for Bible Translation has just expanded its Dungan-language Stories of the Prophets series with two publications that tell the stories of Moses and Jonah. This series relates the Biblical narratives about the greatest prophets that are revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.

The first installment of the series, Noah, appeared in 2016, followed by the stories of Abraham and Joseph in 2019. The Dungan stories are accompanied by a parallel Russian text and colorful illustrations produced by the talented Dungan artist Khalida Shimova. The biblical characters in these stories appear just as the Dungan reader would imagine them, in their own cultural environment and dressed in their traditional clothing. To aid the reading experience, each book is accompanied by an audio CD with a Dungan recording of the text. This is available on the IBT website in the audio recordings section.

The Dungan people came to Central Asia from China and number about 130,000. Although their language is related to Chinese, their alphabet is based on the Cyrillic script, and they traditionally profess Islam.

IBT’s Dungan books are available for downloading on IBT's website, and they can also be viewed on mobile devices through either Google Play or AppStore apps.