On a research trip in 2020, the survey team sits together under a leaf shelter. It is attached to the jungle-materials house belonging to one of our guides, which we will sleep in. We had hiked from the coast along a narrow ridge to his village in the mountains, which we were to conduct research. From within the shelter’s shade, we see a great deal more mountain above us. The breeze blows chill and there’s a hint of rain in the air, but no running water of any kind on the ridge.
A spot like this was “the last water” before the final ascent up the ridge to the village.
The fire in our midst grows in prominence as sunlight fades, and ease settles over the group as strangeness wears off. Our hands are busy with a mundane task: separating the leaves of what would be our supper from their stems. A huge pile of a garden plant had been brought – it looked far more than we’d need – but between getting rid of the stems, the leaves boiling down, and our hike-induced hunger, we would do justice to our verdant repast.
As the light dies, I listen as the mama of the house gives instructions related to the food. Watch with interest as the old man in the traditional loincloth sits for hours without saying a word. Enjoy my PNGan teammates joking and laughing with each other and our hosts.
preparing supper
I reflect on the trip thus far:
the several dying languages found and documented (minimally)
the competition between dialects (and loyalties) in two villages
the language spoken in only one village, but vital and proud nonetheless
the misunderstandings around what we were there to do – “no, just research, we don’t know about translation yet”
The logistics and cultural expectations of caring for 12 people! – 6 surveyors, 3 guides, 3 boat crew
After supper it rains. Sky-water becomes ground-water, sending probing fingers into our shelter. Ditches are dug to channel it away.
As we sit together, faces barely lit by the fire’s embers, the future in uncertain. It’s likely that life will go on much as it has for these people. Living in small communities, eating from the land, looking for education and business opportunities where they can.
The big question is: will they continue to see God through the clouded lens of another language, or can that barrier be removed by producing vernacular Scripture? How much better that they can see clearly, so they can follow well! Unfortunately, one might argue that their view has always been blurry, and that they need opportunity to “taste and see” without that distortion to discover how much better it is!
Put another way, perhaps vernacular Scripture is like a new food; you don’t know it’s wonderful until you’ve tried it. Soul-food.
Several days later we learned that our participation in the preparation of our supper was perceived as remarkable. Properly dignified guests would perhaps have excused themselves from such duties. But our incarnational savior Jesus set an example of service, and demonstrated that he was very much concerned with – even focused on – society’s outcast, or those deemed unimportant. Pray for these people of the misty mountains, and those on the sandy coasts, and all those everywhere to see God. Pray, and look for a way to participate in God’s care for them. See Call to Action for suggestions.
“God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” Acts 2:36-39
[Mail recipients, please go to the webpage to see the video.]
Inour first post, we invited you to tell us what you want to see here! That invitation stands.
Also in our first post, we said, “[Surveyors] write reports, but we aren’t fully satisfied when readers are just informed. Our research is intended to be applied, acted upon – in the survey context, this means language communities being served as a result of our research into their needs. Likewise, we’d love for you to act on what you see here by praying, becoming part of our team, or getting involved in a more direct way yourself! Jesus’ call to “Go!” is for all believers.
This week, instead of adding to the word count, I want to invite you to action, or to conversation. So, today, I’ll share highlights from posts to date. They’re organized by our call to action: Pray! Give!Go!
Watch the video or read the text below, they are nearly identical.
Pray! – there are many in PNG without Scripture in a language that communicates best
We answered “What is Language Survey?” with “We do applied research, desiring that those we study would benefit from language development.”
We recounted a 2011 survey and defined language survey as: research the sociolinguistic situation to identify needs and desires and suggest strategies for meeting them.
When a Language Dies – the story of a grandma who was the last speaker of her language – explained, “A language is an artistic system to express all of the meanings deemed valuable enough to articulate verbally. A collaborative effort to explain the world. A tug of war between new words striving to find acceptance and old ones reluctant to be forgotten.”
Pray for those who’ve lost a language they loved, to find identity as God’s children. For those losing one to understand its value and to have wisdom to respond. Pray God’s message would be clear, regardless: “The heavens declare the glory of God… Day after day they pour forth speech… they have no words… Yet their voice goes out into all the earth” (excerpts from Ps 19:1-4).
After telling the second half of the 2011 survey, we noted, “Though there is translation work going on nearby, Mur Pano people haven’t been able to partake in a significant way. If you were one of the residents of the village, how would you think about the possibility of Scripture in your language? Would you judge it worth the effort? Will speakers of Mala and Mur Pano be among the “persons from every tribe and language” singing “You are worthy!” to God? (Rev 5:9).”
Pray for the 70 language groups we’ve researched in the past decade! Consider playing a part in researching and advocating for other speakers of minority languages by partnering with us!
Give! – your partnership enables research, which enables strategic Bible translation
As in the canoe described in Furlough & Partnership – Canoeing Sideways, we aren’t steering on furlough… YOU are. God uses you, his Body, to care for cross-cultural workers, send them to their place of service, and support them while there. Without the Church providing transport, overseas workers get dumped in that muddy river.
Furlough is a faith-growing exercise for cross-cultural workers. We do what we can, then wait trustingly – balancing the while – for the Church to say, “Yes, we want to make that happen!” (If you’re ready, get in touch, go to Partner, or ask us for suggestions about work that aligns with your interests.)
In Is It Dangerous? we asked, “Why do we do it?” Here’s one way to look at it:
Problem: people without any Scripture in the languages that communicate best
Solution: experts translate the Bible, guided by research (that’s our job)
Outcome: people engage with Scripture in their languages, better able to know and follow God
Would you go to an event if your invitation was written in a language you don’t know well? “If this is really for me, why isn’t it in my language? I’m not entirely sure what this is about.” God invites people from every nation and tongue to his table. Translating the invitation – the Bible – makes it clear and cogent.
By last count, there were close to 2000 language groups in Oceania, Asia, and Africa about which not enough is known to categorize translation need with confidence.
Solution: RESEARCH! Understanding what type of translation is beneficial and where is the first step towards meeting the needs of these people who are, in some ways, “the least of these” (Mt 25:40, 45).
Research guides translation experts to where they are needed, and often provides strategic information about how to work with a particular people group. Those translation experts do the heavy lifting, often investing 10-30 years working alongside local people to complete a New Testament.
The outcome is wonderful: another people group with God’s Word clear and attractive. “God speaks my language!”
I’m a strong proponent of long-term relational engagement across cultures, walking with God and pursuing him together, using all the languages we speak. Your part in this is pretty special, and critical. Without you, most cross-cultural Bible translation work – and the research that guides translation – just doesn’t happen. You provide the financial, prayer, and relational support needed for translation and research experts to do their jobs in those thousands of languages which remain Scripture-less.
Go! – many skillsets contribute to Bible translation
In What Just Happened? – multicultural teamwork, we stated that our organization in PNG includes staff from 15+ nations and tens of language/culture groups from around PNG. One of my goals as Chief Communications Officer role is to facilitate communication that builds relationships and team and enables collaboration within our organization and with partners.Pray for our staff as they navigate the complexities of multicultural teamwork and build relationships.
We’re all ordinary (if anything created in God’s image is). All followers of Jesus have received the same call. Read how Tikvah responds in Obedience-Based Faith. How are you responding?
In Multi-part Harmony, we described how “[The Wheel of Vitality’s] primary purpose is to assess intergenerational language transmission, [enabling us to] make estimations about [the language’s] future. Since Bible translation is often a multi-decade endeavor, it makes sense to have some confidence that the language will be spoken when the translation is completed!”
While we were there, it felt like we, the translation team, and the local folks were singing a multipart harmony joyfully and beautifully. “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” (Ps 133:1) But our tale in Milne Bay has a twist ending: the translation team moved to a different role a few years after this trip, so translation has slowed since. Pray that all the “singers” needed for effective harmony can be recruited.
A Walk on the Survey Trail: And then I arise [from the river], feet finding purchase among the stones, lungs breathing deep, life’s ebb and flow renewing. It’s time for another village with a different language, time to connect with a new set of beings made in God’s image. The Living Word seeks to be incarnate through Scripture in their language. He is already present in Spirit, but his message is not yet clearly and fully expressed in their tongue.
We’ve met many people in Papua New Guinea who would benefit from having the Bible in their language, enabling them to better know and follow God. There are many other groups whose need is unclear. Answer God’s call to make disciples! Pray! Give!Go!
After completing research in Mala, we reboarded the dinghy and made our way up the coast to Mur village, where detective work was called for. Reports claimed that an undocumented language was spoken there. Could we ‘discover’ a language? Sounded exciting!
Communication infrastructure is such that contacting people in advance of our arrival in their village is usually impossible or impractical (though mobile phone service has significantly expanded since 2011). Mur was one such place. We sat in the shade cast by a house on stilts, awaiting the arrival of a leader who would know what to do with these strange visitors. It is not uncommon for us to be among the first foreigners to visit remote areas of PNG.
PNG offers great backdrops for research!
After a wait, we were accorded the hospitality typical of PNG villages: a house to stay in, food to eat, and all the conversation we could handle! It really is a fantastic environment for learning about each other. There was one weevil in the sago pudding: a young lady had recently died, and the community stopped everything to properly mourn. In villages like these, everyone is related.
community funeral
Research under the moon
We participated respectfully and bided our time, but our detective work paid off after some days. The language situation was as follows:
1 language dead, no longer spoken, but remembered.
1 language named Dawang, reportedly related to Wab to the NW, spoken only by one old man in the village. His name was Moses, photo below. See When a Language Dies for more on dying languages.
1 language called Molet was related to another language, located inland, named Asaro’o.
And finally, yes, an “undocumented” language. You can find it at Ethnologue. Notice the ISO code, [tkv]? Well, some people name stars or islands after their children. We got to link an ISO code to our first daughter’s name, Tikvah; she was born that same year.
Each of these groups has a rich history, but without writing, it can be hard to get at. They had an origin myth of three brothers who’d come down in canoes from the west, one stopping at Mur, one continuing down the coast, and one paddling across to Umboi Island. Lo and behold, Mur Pano is related to two other languages in the areas described: Pano (formerly Malasanga) down the coast and Karnai on Umboi. This supports their origin story.
Languages isolated by time and distance tend to diverge over time, so though the three brothers would have spoken the same variety, there are now three distinct languages. They have some shared words and similar grammar, but are indeed distinct languages, no longer mutually comprehensible, and requiring unique literature in each case.
This trip was before our development of participatory research processes. Because we used individual interviews and lengthy tools, research took more time than it does today, and we’d sometimes work late into the night.
Moses, the final speaker of the Dawang variety of Wab
Why so many languages in this one village, Mur? Because some decades ago authorities asked them to move to a single location for easier administration. Relocation from traditional lands and close contact with speakers of other languages often results in people shifting away from some languages towards others, as had occurred in Mur.
During our 2020 survey to the same coastline, which researched languages between Mur Pano and Mala, we stopped briefly at Mur because our dinghy was based there. I stepped out and wandered into the center of the village, remembering our first survey and old teammates. As at our first arrival, there weren’t many people there – they were likely out in their gardens. Though there is translation work going on nearby, Mur Pano people haven’t been able to partake in a significant way to date. If you were one of the 1,000 residents of the village, how would you think about the possibility of Scripture in your language? Would you judge it worth the effort? Will speakers of Mala and Mur Pano be among the “persons from every tribe and language” singing “You are worthy!” to God? (Rev 5:9).
Thus ended my first research trip, in 2011. In both the Mala and Mur Pano language areas we’d discovered a need for translation; in the later we’d ‘discovered’ an undocumented language. From 2010-present (Jun 2021), the survey team has conducted research among 70 language groups in PNG, some large, some small, most of which would benefit from Scriptures in their language.
Pray for the Mala and Mur Pano, and the 70 language groups we’ve researched in the past decade! Consider playing a part in researching and advocating for other speakers of minority languages by partnering with us!
A grandmother’s trembling voice told a story only two other people in the world could understand. A language which had been used to groan the pain of childbirth, remark joyfully at holding that baby, to say ‘mama’ and ‘papa’ for the first time, to teach the child right from wrong, by the child in delighted play in the jungle, for that child to know her own spouse and children, and on the cycle goes… that language was near it end.
Her voice accelerated with excitement, perhaps from happy memories, then became slow and thoughtful. The audio recorder captured her words. It, like we, heard only empty sounds. Recording and transcribing the story was inadequate, but it was something.
What does it mean to lose a language? A language is an artistic system to express all of the meanings deemed valuable enough to articulate verbally. A collaborative effort to explain the world. A tug of war between new words striving to find acceptance and old ones reluctant to be forgotten.
Let’s not forget, either, the knowledge contained within a language. These people are the leading experts in their particular environment. Over generations, they have captured with their labels and descriptions their best understanding of their place and how to succeed there. Rarely does such knowledge get translated to another language; it is lost.
We have many past and present examples of the horrendous uprooting that can occur when a language is lost through a people’s own choices – this is usually gentler – or because of an external force. Such uprooting can leave its people bewildered and disconnected for generations, identity-less and unable to describe and pursue value or purpose.
When grandmother’s story came to a quivering halt, there was only silence.
Steven from a neighboring group, Steve, local man in traditional attire, grandmother and 1 of 3 remaining speakers, Jed – surveyor, Jonathan – language documentation
Pray for those who’ve lost a language they loved, to find identity as God’s children. For those losing one to understand its value and to have wisdom to respond. Pray God’s message would be clear, regardless: “The heavens declare the glory of God… Day after day they pour forth speech… they have no words… Yet their voice goes out into all the earth” (excerpts from Ps 19:1-4).
Revel in the harmoniously discordant idiosyncrasies of your language, and celebrate others’!
Steven explaining an audio Scripture device in a nearby language with a translation
