IBT is continuing to publish online editions of our new translations even as we wait for printing-houses to open up once the covid-19 quarantine ends. The latest of these editions is the Balkar version of the Old Testament books of Ruth, Esther and Daniel.

The Turkic-language Balkars constitute about 10% of the population of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North Caucasus area of the Russian Federation. Together with the closely related Karachay people, there are about 300,000 speakers of this language in Russia.

Speakers of the Nenets language are already familiar with the Institute for Bible Translation's prior publications, such as Stories About Jesus (2003, 2011), the Gospel of Luke (2004), the Gospel of Mark (2010), the Gospel of John (2014), and the Gospel of Matthew (2018). The newest addition to this list is IBT’s illustrated publication of Gospel Parables.
Despite the coronavirus quarantine, the Nenets do not have to wait for the printing houses to resume their work and for this new book to be delivered to their cities.  Why? Because Gospel Parables is being made available online from the very beginning. It can already be downloaded as a PDF file from IBT's electronic publications page. In the near future the audio recording of the book will also be made available...

The Institute for Bible Translation has recently published Bible Stories in the Altai language. Earlier publications in this language include the 1910 edition of the Four Gospels (reprinted by IBT in 1975); the Gospel of Mark (1996); Jesus, Friend of Children (1997); the Gospel of Luke and Acts (1999); the Children's Bible (2002); the New Testament (2003); and the New Testament (2nd edition, bilingual, 2017).

In order to help Altai readers access Bible Stories, the Institute has also produced an audio recording of the text, which in the near future will be available for download in the audio section of the IBT website. One can already find the PDF version of the book in the electronic publications section. An Android application with this illustrated book, as well as the audio recording and a parallel Russian text, is also being developed.

IBT has recently published 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings as a single edition in the Kumyk language of Dagestan. Kumyk is the largest Turkic language of the N. Caucasus, with more than 500,000 Kumyks living in Russia (according to the 2010 census).

The Kumyk translation team is continuing to work on the rest of the Old Testament, with current work in progress on several of the Minor Prophets. The next publication in the Kumyk project is expected to be the Pentateuch in 2021.

The Institute for Bible Translation has translated and published the first book of the Bible ever produced in the Siberian Tatar language, the book of Jonah from the Old Testament. According to the Ethnologue, Siberian Tatar is an endangered language, spoken by approximately 100,000 people. It is widespread in the central Siberian regions of Omsk, Tyumen, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Kurgan and Sverdlovsk.