IBT is happy to announce the release of a bilingual edition of Ecclesiastes in Adyghe and Kabardian, closely-related languages of the North Caucasus in the Russian Federation.

First, a little history. The official classification of Adyghe and Kabardian as separate languages appeared in 1922, when the Adyghe (Cherkess) and Karachay-Cherkess autonomous regions were formed inside the USSR. Until that time, the two languages were considered to be dialects of a single Circassian language. Over the past century, Adyghe and Kabardian have each developed independently (especially in their written forms), but some speakers of Adyghe and Kabardian still feel that they belong to the same language community. The Ecclesiastes publication was born out of a desire to preserve and develop the community between these two peoples.

IBT is pleased to announce that the Old Testament books of Ruth and Esther have been published in the Abaza language in a single edition. The first IBT publication in Abaza came out in 2019 – an illustrated translation of the book of Jonah, with a parallel Russian translation.

The Abaza language belongs to the Abkhaz-Abaza branch of the Abkhaz-Adyge group of Caucasian languages. L.I. Lavrov, one of the first researchers of the history of the Abaza people, notes that they were once a large people, with their own centuries-old history. Scholars believe that the Abaza and Abkhaz languages...

IBT has recently published the Old Testament book of the prophet Jonah in the Abaza language. This is the first OT book ever published in Abaza. Previously, IBT had published an excerpt from the Gospel of Luke, ch. 2, in 2000.

IBT has published another translation of Scripture portions in the Avar language, spoken as a mother tongue by over 700,000 people primarily in Dagestan. The new publication contains the books of Ruth, Esther and Jonah from the Old Testament. The Avar New Testament was published in 2008, and previously published OT portions include the book of Proverbs (2005, 2007) and Genesis (2011).

The present translation was prepared by a new translation team consisting  of an independent translator (working directly from the Hebrew original), a philological editor, a field tester, and a translation consultant. Further work is in progress on the historical books of the OT.

There are about 120,000 speakers of the Adyghe language, most of whom live in the Republic of Adyghea in the northwest Caucasus region of the Russian Federation.

From 2002 to 2015 IBT published 11 Old Testament books in Adyghe:  1-2 Samuel (2002), Genesis (2005),  Ruth, Esther and Jonah (2006), Psalms (2007), 1-2 Kings (2009), Exodus (2014), and Proverbs (2014, 2016). The New Testament was published in the early 1990s. Now the book of Daniel has also been published.

IBT has published the second print-run of the book of Proverbs in the Adyghe language (northwest Caucasus, approx. 117,000 speakers). The first print-run of 2014 was very popular and was distributed among Adyghes almost immediately.

IBT is continuing to make progress towards the goal of translating and publishing the Old Testament in the Adyghe language, spoken by about 120,000 people in the Northwest Caucasus in south Russia and many more in the diaspora. The latest trial publication is the book of Exodus, delivered to Adyghea in late February.

IBT has added the Adyghe translation of the Old Testament book of Proverbs to our long list of publications. The Adyghe language is spoken in the northwestern part of the Caucasus area of Russia by about 117,000 people, who are closely related to the Kabardian and Cherkess peoples and together with them make up the Circassian ethnic group.