AUSTRALIA, May 11, 2007 — The annual Katherine Christian Convention is always a very special event for Christians living in isolated communities in Australia’s Northern Territory. This year’s event, the 40th of its kind, was made even more special by the arrival of the first complete Bible in an Australian indigenous language.
A page of the Kriol Bible, the first complete Bible in an Australian indigenous language, launched in May 2007.
The front cover of the Kriol Bible.
A Kriol-speaking family attending the launch of the complete Kriol Bible at the Katherine Christian Convention on May 5, 2007.
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More than 2,000 people gathered in Katherine on May 5 to celebrate the launch of the Kriol Bible. Produced by the Bible Society in Australia, it has many features not previously seen on indigenous Scriptures. Gold edging will protect the paper from dust damage, while three ribbons in indigenous colours will allow people to mark Old Testament, New Testament and Gospel readings. Nearly 400 Bibles were distributed at the event, each in a special bag which also contained a Bible reading plan, a Bible timeline and a bookmark.
The enthusiasm with which this Bible was received will be replicated within countless indigenous communities, believes Gwen Tremlett, a member of the translation team since 1993.
“People are really keen to know all that God’s saying to them,” she says. “One of the highlights of my work has been seeing people’s faces as they hear God’s Word read in their own language for the first time.”
Kriol first emerged through contacts between European settlers and members of indigenous communities in northern Australia, helping them to communicate with each other in a language they all understood. Now, though, there are at least 10,000 people who speak Kriol as their first language. A further 20,000 use it as their second language. The Kriol New Testament and 14 Old Testament books were published in 1991. Since then, missionaries and indigenous Kriol speakers, with the support of organisations including the Bible Society in Australia, Lutheran Bible Translators, the Church Missionary Society of Australia, the Anglican Church Diocese of Northern Territory, Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Australian Society for Indigenous Languages, have been working to complete the project.
The Kriol Bible will make a significant contribution to Church life in this vast region, according to Phil Zamagias, Director of the Bible Society in Australia’s Northern Territory and Outback Ministry, especially in helping people to grasp biblical concepts with which they are unfamiliar.
“Kriol speakers actually now have access to the entire text of the Bible," he says. “This means that they will be able to read it for themselves. They will be able to really understand it and to make their own choices about whether they want to follow Jesus as their Lord and saviour.”
Although some educational materials exist in Kriol, the Kriol Bible is the first formal written text in the language. It is therefore also likely to be very influential in standardising Kriol and encouraging cross-cultural communication.
The web site of the Kriol translation project can be found at www.kriol.info
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