From Anglican Communion News Service
A team of Bible translators in Kurdistan, northern Iraq, working against the backdrop of civil unrest and religious persecution, has completed the first ever translation of the whole Bible into the Central Kurdish Sorani language.
For the last eight years, Church Mission Society mission partners, Joel and Ruth Hammond* have worked alongside indigenous Kurds and other foreign nationals drafting text, checking names, terminology and style, and finally checking both the Old and New Testaments so they could be published together for the first time as the complete Bible.
The whole translation of Old and New Testaments took 28 years to complete, and will enable six million native speakers of the Sorani language to hear and read the Bible in their own language for the first time. As well as physical copies, the new translation is available digitally, both through the YouVersion app and a newly-designed Kurdish app called Pertukekem (‘My Book’).
Photo Credit: CMS cake celebrating publishing of new translation