Mission Work and Bible Translation

Their traditional religion became less important to these people when they made contact with western civilisation. Basically they believed in two gods: the good god in the east and the bad god in the west. It was therefore easier to tell them of God and Satan. The idea of life after death was also not a strange one for these people, as this phenomenon was acknowledged in their traditional religion - the deceased lived on as spirits in the living.

Mission work by the Reformed Churches started in the early sixties in the Gobabis district (in the east of Namibia). Other churches were also involved in missionary work - the Dutch Reformed Church worked in the Tsumkwe area. When the Bushmen came into contact with the christian religion, they joyfully accepted it, as it filled a gap that had arisen when their traditional way of life had to make place for a new one. Their hunting grounds are even today still becoming smaller and smaller due to organised agriculture and industrial development.

The need to have a Bible in their own language grew, not only with the Bushmen, but also with the missionaries who worked with them. In 1967 the planning for a Bible in their language started when the missionaries involved began studying their language and attended translation seminars, organised by the Bible Society of South Africa.

The actual translation work commenced in 1978, but many serious stumbling blocks had to be overcome first. Many biblical words and expressions were totally strange to the Bushmen and therefore naturally also very difficult to translate. Words such as olive tree, a temple and even the walls and rooms of a house were non-existent in their language, as their traditional dwelling was only a grass shelter.

An orthography had to be developed and with the dawn of the computer age it also had to be made possible to use a normal word processor to write down the sounds of the Kung language.

After 18 years, in February 1997, the complete Bible was translated into Kung.

Listen to a RealAudio clip of the first verses of Genesis 1 in the Kung language.

Index page | Language and Culture | Mission and Translation | Distribution

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