The Sign Language Conference that was held here at the Wycliffe Centre is over, but some of the delegates came to visit our weekly "Centre Fellowship" meeting yesterday. It was quite a multi-lingual experience as we had three translators, all speaking English as well as a different sign language, and the Swedish sign language speaker had to speak American Sign Language as her translator didn't know Swedish sign language. They emphasised a few basic facts about sign languages:
1. There are many sign languages around the world, maybe over 400, that are as different as any two spoken languages.
2. There is no British Sign Language Bible, although work is in progress. If you're reading this then you speak English. Imagine if your only Bible was in French.
3. Sign Language translations have to be done in the context of the culture they will be used in.
There is more material on Sign Language translation on the Wycliffe International site:
Sign Languages FAQ
Innovations in Sign Language translation
The Silent Language
Many Pies
2 comments:
Simply divine!!
It is awesome to know that Wycliffe is now longing to work with Sign Language Bible Translation.
I'm Saulo Xavier, a Brazilian journalist and Brazilian Sign Language interpreter, who, today, is also a graduate student from the Postgraduate Translation Studies programme (PGET) at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina [Santa Catarina Federal University - UFSC], which is the first of its kind in Brazil and has as its aim, to foster professionals who are capable of translating, research, and lecturing in the area of translation studies [more info: http://www.pget.ufsc.br].
In my case, I'm investigating, by a descriptive and interdisciplinary approach, the translation methods used in translations for Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). My objective is to present the translational methods from Portuguese source-texts to Brazilian Sign Language target-texts considering the teaching contents published at a Virtual Environment of Teaching and Learning - VETL focused on Brazilian Sign Language issues.
Besides that, I'm a YWAMer and lecturer from the University of the Nations. Then, the reason I'm telling you all of this, is just because I would like to be more connected with the updates from this working area of Wycliff: Sign Language Bible Translation.
In addition, I would like to say to you that I am really amazed by and interested on your work developed in terms of Bible Translation, because, here in Brazil there is so much things happening on Signs Language research and, probably, it would be very nice for me to know more about the concepts you have been working in to achieve more theoretical basis for my research work and for my work as a missionary, itself, once that I received God's call to work directly with Sign Language Bible translation.
Finally, congrats on this work, dear brothers. And, sorry for any English mistakes.
Blessings,
Saulo Xavier
YWAMer, Journalist, Translator & Brazilian Sign Language Interpreter
I'm glad you found my blog post. I'll pass on what you said to someone directly involved. What is your email address?
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