New Testament translated into Tokelauan

Updated May 27, 2009 15:30:43

The New Testament has finally been translated into Tokelauan - 160 years after the island nation converted to Christianity. Tokelauans have been making do with Samoan and English language versions of the Christian scriptures until now. Translators have already made a first draft of the Old Testament in Tokelauan, and hope to have a final version of the entire Bible ready in five or six years.

Chief translater Ioane Teao says with the number of Tokelauans living overseas now much greater than those at home, it's now economical to print the Bible in their own language.

Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speaker: Ioane Teao, Chief Tokelauan bible translater

TEAO: (Tokelau language biblical verse) If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender by body to the flames, but I have not love, I gain nothing.

HILL: That's First Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 3, but read in Tokelauan - which until last week did not have its own New Testament. It's significant that the official launch of the Tokelauan New Testament occurred in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. It's hope to a significant Tokelauan community and the chief translater of the New Testament, Ioane Teao, says it's the growth of these diaspora communities that have made the project possible.

TEAO: For 160 years or so, since we've had Christianity in Tokelau, we've had mostly missionaries from Samoa and we use the Samoan Bible and I suppose because of that, and together with the small number of people - there are not many people in Tokelau - there wasn't really a need for the translate the Bible. But as the population grew over the years, and many of course are now living in New Zealand and Australia and Hawaii and other places, the need for our people who are not living in Tokelau to learn to continue to maintain their language is becoming very urgent. And also I think it has been a dream of many people, certainly in my generation, for God to be able to speak to our people directly in our own language. We've learned about God from other languages, from Samoan to English, which is good, and we are very thankful about that, but I think we've got to the point where we now have I think worldwide, we have a population of around 10,000 people and we think that is enough people to justify a Bible. Some Pacific Island nations have had their Bible translated for over 150, 140 years ago and I think one of the reasons they are so far ahead in terms of language maintenance, so far ahead from us, is because they have had their Bible.

HILL: Ioane Teao says a translation does more than just use different words. He says it's actually a very different experience for Tokelauans to read scripture in their own language.

TEAO: It is. I think it is for the first time that our people have had the New Testament in Tokelau and I have already had a lot of feedback from people. They notice how different. I think it's just the language. I think it's a sense of identity. I think it is thing where people think 'oh this is my language'. This is God talking to me in my own language.

HILL: Is it an easy job to translate something which arose from the classical world, from the Greco-Roman world into a Pacific Island language? I mean concepts like spirit and flesh and theological concepts can often be difficult to translate, can't they?

TEAO: There are many challenges, there are many changes and of course one of the tools that we use is as I managed specially susceptible is to in certain circumstances we can use our local equivalent if it helps to make it a lot more easier for people to understand.

HILL: And now you are getting to work on translating the Old Testament. That's going to be quite a major job and possibly even more of a translation challenge?

TEAO: It is, it is in terms of volume, but I think we've learnt quite a bit of skills in terms of translating the New Testament. We've drafted a whole Old Testament now, but there is still a long way to go. According to our current planning, we should be able to complete the whole Bible within six years.

CORRECTION: On yesterday's program, we ran a story about the New Testament being translated into Tuvaluan. In fact, the translation is in Tokelauan. We have replaced the audio here online. Tuvalu has had a bible in its local language for many years. We apologise for the error, and we thank those of you who emailed us to point out the error. And if you have any feedback on the program, the address is pacbeat@radioaustralia.net.au