The Kinyarwanda translation of the Book of Mormon has been completed and published online. Kinyrwanda is the primary language spoken in Rwanda. The new translation can be accessed here.
The Kinyarwanda translation of the Book of Mormon has been completed and published online. Kinyrwanda is the primary language spoken in Rwanda. The new translation can be accessed here.
6 comments:
Amazing news! I love it whenever the messages of one of my favorite books can be delivered to more of God's children.
On a related note, one of the great side effects of the missionary effort to spread the gospel to every kindred, tongue, and people (both within our Restored Church and broader Christendom) for people interested in language (such as myself) is the translation of a huge body of literature into hundreds and thousands of languages for free. It really helps to broaden access to little-known languages for interested learners and researchers.
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14 November 2023 - SALT LAKE CITY
News Release
Funeral Services Scheduled for
M. Russell Ballard
Friday, November 17, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. MST in the Tabernacle
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/funeral-services-scheduled-m-russell-ballard
The new "Los Tuxtla Mexico Stake" was updated on the Meetinghouse Locator mapsite today with 5 Wards and 3 Branches.
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/stakes/609633
We pray that the translation of this Testament will translate into literacy in the secular sense for thousands, and Gospel literacy, an awareness of Jesus Christ and the will to know and honor His priesthoods. I have been aware of the Hutus and the Tutsis since 1994 when the horrible tragedies occurred. These people of Rwanda and Burundi are in need of peace and prosperity, and I think many will relate to the battles and contentions of the Nephites, Lamanites, and all the other -ites.
The number of French speakers in the Church might be approaching one million, right?
Perhaps the biggest number of African nations that have no missionaries also speak French? If we count Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Niger, and Chad as French-speaking?
It will be an amazing day when the Book of Mormon exists in Tuareg and Tubu. Africa is filling up with the Book of Mormon, along with the Holy Bible. The Quran is making strides, too, of course.
Kinyarwanda is also spoken by million in DR Congo. My understanding is that the language of Burundi is also similar. They may be close enough that people in Burundi can use this translation. Some populations in Tanzania also speak a language that is close and they may be able to read this book.
In the case of DR Congo, while many Kinyarwanda speakers came there after the events of 1994, there have been Kinyarwanda speakers there since at least the 19th century, and there were significant influxes in the 1920s, 1950s and 1960s.
One of my daughters spent 5 months earlier this year working as a nurse in Kigali and visiting with her fiancee from Liberia who is one his 3rd year of his electrical engineering and software development degree. It was still very far from where she lived, so they only went every two or three weeks. They talked about the branches conducting their business in Kinyarwanda and that there baptisms of 15-20 people on most days they went. They talked with someone who spoke French and English who said that until a year or two before all the branches were in English, but that they started conducting the meetings in Kinyarwanda. In prior years there were only a person or two a month who were getting baptized. The change of language has made a huge difference in convert baptisms. The local respondents indicated that they thought it was due to a new mission president, but they really didn't know.
This conversion to Kinyarwanda didn't help my daughter, originally from Liberia via 8 years in a refugee camp in Cote d' Ivoirie or her fiancee from Liberia understand the proceedings, but by the second time they ran into some people who translated for them into English mostly, but some French the next eight times that they went together to church in Kigali.
John you are right there are about 25 million people who speak Kinyarwanda in 5 countries: Ruanda, Burundi, Tanzania, DR Congo, Uganda. Additional went from French to English as a national language.
By the way, I went to Kigali, Goma, and Bukavu 12 years ago. While in Kigali I went to a French speaking branch. In Goma and Bukavu there was no church in these cities with 2 and 1 million people respectively. Part of the reason I was there was to negotiate Chinese-national telecom workers for Huawei supporting the telecom and IT infrastructure who were being held ransom. All went well with the negotiating and everyone was safe, but it underlies why the church is not in the Eastern DR Congo; political and economic instability.
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