1 of 2

Since the earliest centuries of the church, Christians have been translating the Bible into new languages. Yet by 1900, only 404 languages—fewer than 7% of the world's languages—had at least some portion of Scripture. Translation tended to be the work of a few trained experts who spent decades working on one language, and ordinary men and women often could not understand the translations they produced.

The situation at the beginning of the 21st century is very different, thanks in large part to the pioneering work of two men. Cameron Townsend and Eugene Nida developed new approaches that greatly increased the number of Bible translations and made those translations easier to understand.

In 1943, Cameron Townsend founded what has become the world's largest missionary organization, Wycliffe Bible Translators. Yet Townsend did not start his missionary career intending to found an organization or to translate Scripture. In 1917, the 21-year-old Townsend went to Guatemala to distribute Spanish Bibles. Sales were slow. Many of the people he met were Cakchiquel Indians who did not know Spanish.

Townsend believed that the Cakchiquel needed a Bible in their language. But there was one problem: the Cakchiquel language had no written alphabet. Rather than abandon the project, Townsend and his wife Elvira spent the next 10 years studying the language, creating an alphabet for it, and, with the help of native speakers, producing a Cakchiquel New Testament.

Townsend had discovered a new calling: translating the Bible into the world's unwritten languages. Because he knew that one person working alone would not make much progress, he decided to teach other people how to analyze unwritten languages and create alphabets for them. In 1934, he held a Summer Institute of Linguistics in Arkansas. Two students came to learn about language analysis and translation. The next summer, five students came.

Townsend continued the Summer Institute and alternated his time between Mexico, where he was using his techniques, and the United States, where he and other instructors were creating a cadre of trained translators. By 1943, he had established two related organizations: The Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International) focused on training and teaching, while Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) emphasized translation, evangelization, and service.

Eugene Nida was an early Summer Institute participant. Nida came from a multi-lingual family and was fascinated by languages. After graduating from UCLA with a major in Greek in 1936, he spent the summer at Townsend's institute and then traveled to Mexico to join SIL's work among the Tarahumara Indians.

Townsend recognized a born talent. "Nida," Townsend wrote, "is a genius linguistically." Nida's time in Mexico proved short but significant. Although health problems forced him to return to the United States, he came back with a commitment to using his skills to make the Bible available and easily understood. He earned a Ph.D. in linguistics and in 1943 began working for the American Bible Society. By 1946, Nida was the Executive Secretary for Translations—a job he held until he retired in 1980. He also remained involved with SIL, returning every summer between 1937 and 1953 to teach.

Nida traveled all over the world working with Bible translators and Bible societies. By 1952, he had been to more than 30 countries and encountered more than 80 languages. His experience convinced him that translators needed help making the Bible more accessible. Most linguists translated as literally as possible from the Bible's original Greek and Hebrew, often using words and phrases that made little sense in the new language.

next page... |  1 of 2

share this page

FREE E-Newsletter Sign up for the ChristianHistory.net e-mail newsletter. Discover more about your Christian heritage with this weekly e-newsletter that features key people, topics, and events from the history of Christianity.      RSS Feed   RSS Help