YELLOWKNIFE, NWT, Canada, June 12, 2003 — Northern Canada's Dogrib people now have "priceless" Scriptures in their own language.
Though the Bible says that the good news of God's love is for all people, this idea can be hard to grasp - especially if you can't read about this good news or hear it spoken. But for the 2,100 Dogrib speakers in the region bounded by Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake in Canada's North, being able to read the Scriptures and hear them proclaimed is now possible thanks to many years of hard work by a dedicated translation team.
Translation Team Honoured
The dedication and diligence of that translation team was honoured last week before the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.
"The recently published New Testament in Dogrib is the result of many years of hard work," noted Mrs. Jane Groenewegen, MLA for Hay River South, in her June 5 statement, "and a unique collaboration between various institutions from within and outside the Dogrib community."
Groenewegen went on to underscore the importance of the project. "This publication is historic because it is the first time in more than 100 years that a complete new testament has been published in one of the Dene languages... The publication of the Dogrib New Testament and the audio recordings currently worked on are highly important, not just to make the Bible a more open book for the people, but also for the preservation and revitalization of the Dogrib language."
The Gospel Is For Them
Several organizations were involved in the Dogrib project, including Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Canadian Bible Society, but the strength of the translation comes from its Dogrib roots. Mary Siemens and Marie Louise Bouvier-White were two of the numerous Dogrib people actively involved in translating the Scriptures.
For Siemens, it's a "dream come true" for the Dogrib people to have God's Word in their own language. "To be able to express in your own language God's love," she says, "It really touches the heart, makes more sense and has a richer meaning."
While priests and Scripture readers have done some informal translation of small portions of Scripture in the past in the Dogrib language, this undertaking is unique. "Now it's dead on," declares Father Jean Pochat, a priest at the Roman Catholic Church in Rae-Edzo, the main Dogrib community northwest of Yellowknife, "Imagine for me the security that it's well translated... Now that it's done by Dogrib people, it's okay."
For her part, Bouvier-White believes that the Dogrib New Testament will help her people to realize that God's Word is for them too. "The people think it's a whiteman's religion," she says, "But it is for everyone".
In the Community to Stay
The new translation will not be officially launched until August 20, 2003, when its dedication will be a part of the Annual Dogrib Assembly. But the Canadian Bible Society, which handled the typesetting and publication of the New Testament, has already made copies available to the community, where it is quickly gaining favour. The decorative New Testament has replaced the NIV Bible for the many oath ceremonies that are a part of the ongoing land-claims agreements between the Dogrib people and the Territorial and Federal Governments.
Father Pochat uses the translated Scriptures in church services. "Everyday, I praise God for the work they've done," he says, "This is priceless."
"The church may disappear as we know it," Father Pochat observes, "(but) the Bible will stay".
| To order your copy of the New Testament in Dogrib, click here. |
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