Bible translations into Cherokee facts for kids
Cherokee is a language from the Iroquoian language family. For many years, people have worked hard to translate important books, especially the Bible, into Cherokee. This helped preserve the language and make these texts available to Cherokee speakers.
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Early Bible Translations in Cherokee
The first part of the Bible translated into the Cherokee language was John 3. This happened in 1824, and it was translated by a Cherokee man named ᎠᏥ (At-see), also known as John Arch. People loved it so much that they copied it by hand many times!
Soon after, in 1825, another Cherokee man, David Brown, translated the entire New Testament. These early translations were shared as handwritten copies because there wasn't a way to print Cherokee words yet.
First Printed Cherokee Bible Parts
The very first time a part of the Bible was printed in Cherokee was in 1827. It was the first verse of Genesis, translated by Samuel Worcester.
In 1828, David Brown and George Lowrey translated the Book of Matthew. This was printed in the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper. Later, Samuel Worcester and Elias Boudinot, who was the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, made a new version of Matthew in 1829. This was printed by the Cherokee National Press in New Echota.
More Books Translated into Cherokee
Many people continued to work on translating more parts of the Bible. Samuel Worcester and Stephen Foreman were two important translators. They worked on books like Acts, John, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, Luke, Exodus, Genesis, Mark, and many letters like Romans and Ephesians. Most of their work was printed at the Park Hill Mission Press.
Other translators, Evan and John B. Jones, also worked on many books. They translated Mark, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Titus, Jude, Philemon, Galatians, Colossians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Hebrews, and Revelation. Their translations were published by the Cherokee Baptist Mission.
Finally, the full New Testament in Cherokee was published in 1860 by the American Bible Society.
Old Testament Translations
Besides the New Testament, some parts of the Old Testament were also translated. Samuel Worcester and Stephen Foreman translated parts of Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah.
Later, in 1888, the Book of Jonah was translated by Amory N. Chamberlain and published in Tahlequah.
In 1953, the American Bible Society published a "corrected version" of some Old Testament parts. In 1965, the Perkins School of Theology published a translation of the Book of Haggai by Jack and Anna Kilpatrick.
The Cherokee Bible Project
In 2001, a group called The Cherokee Bible Project started putting parts of the Bible online. They made the Book of John available in both the Cherokee Syllabary (the special Cherokee writing system) and in Latin letters (phonetics), along with English translations. This was a big step because it made the Cherokee Bible much easier for people to read and learn from.
The project quickly added the entire New Testament and many Old Testament books online by 2005. This included all of Jonah, Haggai, Genesis, and Exodus, plus parts of other books like Kings, Proverbs, Psalms, and Isaiah.
In 2012, the Cherokee Bible Project even highlighted the words of Jesus in red, just like some English Bibles. They also worked to update the text as the Cherokee Unicode (digital writing system) improved, making it easier to read on computers. They even started a Spanish website for Spanish speakers who want to read the Cherokee Bible.
Recent Translations and Collaborations
In 2015, a group of fluent Cherokee speakers and others worked together to create a new bilingual version of the Scriptures in English and Cherokee. Many people helped with this, including proofreaders from Oklahoma and North Carolina.
The next year, in 2016, a limited selection of Old Testament passages were also published in a bilingual English and Cherokee version. This project also thanked many people for their help, including the translators of the Book of Haggai, Anna and Jack Kilpatrick, who had translated it back in 1955.
John 3:16 in Cherokee
Here is how John 3:16 looks in Cherokee from the American Bible Society's 1860 translation:
| Translation | John (ᏣᏂ) 3:16 |
|---|---|
| American Bible Society 1860 | ᎾᏍᎩᏰᏃ ᏂᎦᎥᎩ ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ ᎤᎨᏳᏒᎩ ᎡᎶᎯ, ᏕᏅᏲᏒᎩ ᎤᏤᎵᎦ ᎤᏪᏥ ᎤᏩᏒᎯᏳ ᎤᏕᏁᎸᎯ, ᎩᎶ ᎾᏍᎩ ᏱᎪᎯᏳᎲᏍᎦ ᎤᏲᎱᎯᏍᏗᏱ ᏂᎨᏒᎾ, ᎬᏂᏛᏉᏍᎩᏂ ᎤᏩᏛᏗ. |
| (Transliteration) | nasgiyeno nigavgi unelanvhi ugeyusvgi elohi, denvyosvgi utseliga uwetsi uwasvhiyu udenelvhi, gilo nasgi yigohiyuhvsga uyohuhisdiyi nigesvna, gvnidvquosgini uwadvdi. |
