On the 21st floor of Salt Lake City's tallest office building, linguists, translators, computer technicians and others are busily working to make the LDS scriptures and other writings more understandable to the world.
They're only part of a small army of hundreds of people in many nations who are endeavoring to carry the message of the 9.2 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through scriptures and other translated materials.The Translation Department's purpose, says managing director Craig J. Hunt, is to translate the approved scriptures, spoken word and other church materials, "ensuring that the meaning of church doctrines and policies is accurately preserved, so that every nation and people may come unto Christ."
Those involved in the work of translation are "committed and love their work. They are very professional and very capable," said Hunt, who discussed the complex task of providing the scriptures and other materials to people across the globe.
The department has working at any one time approximately 300 full- and part-time employees and contract workers worldwide. Their assignment in translating the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price (which along with the Bible comprise the Standard Works of the church) alone is both detailed and time-consuming. The translation process requires excellence in every step, said Hunt, who has headed the department for 4 1/2 years.
While scripture translation is the major task, workers also translate other materials for the expanding church, including study guides and instructional texts. The department also arranges for approximately 200 volunteers to translate sessions of the church's worldwide general conference, held twice each year. The conference is beamed from Salt Lake City by satellite transmission and other means of communication to many areas of the world.
The time involved in translating the scriptures varies from language to language. It generally takes about four years to translate the Book of Mormon from English to another language. Much of the time frame depends on the experience and skill of translators.
The Book of Mormon or selections from the book, which church members believe to be a history of God's dealings with ancient inhabitants of the American continent, have been published in 85 languages. The Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price have been translated and published in 29 of the 85 languages, and plans are under way for additional translations. There are more than 6,000 known languages in the world.
The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve oversee the translation effort, which is closely tied to the church's missionary program. As church officials gain permission to proselyte in more countries, the effort continues to expand.
"We believe the scriptures to be revelations from the Lord and the word of the Lord given through prophets," Hunt said.
Latter-day Saints believe the Bible to be the word of God "as far as it is translated correctly," but the church is not involved in Bible translation.
"We have been quite close to and coordinate with the (various Bible) societies. When missionary efforts are initiated with people of a particular language, it is important that we are able to recommend a Bible that best conforms to and describes LDS Church doctrine," said Hunt, who served as a missionary in the West German Mission from 1969 to 1971.
The Bible now is printed in more than 300 languages. It has been estimated that perhaps as much as 95 percent of the world's population has access to some or all of the Bible.
To expedite the work of translation and publication of the Book of Mormon, the church used to translate only portions of the book into other languages."We no longer do that," Hunt said, explaining that an entire Book of Mormon, for example, is translated before translators move on to other LDS scriptures. It usually takes eight to 10 years for an initial translation, printing and binding of all three LDS scriptures into one volume, commonly known in LDS circles as the triple combination.
Translators are selected in consultation with local church leaders.
"We very carefully select a team of three people in a country to help us translate the scriptures. Those selected are worthy members of the church. They are translating spiritual material, and their work must be accompanied by a spiritual attitude to be able to do the work. Also, they are people who must have a good command of their own language and a good command of English, because the source text from which they translate is always in English," Hunt said.
Translators are trained and do their work in segments. An initial translation of each segment is made, then turned over to another translation team member. That individual conducts an independent and content review, making certain after studying the English text that nothing has been omitted in the language to which the scriptures are being translated. Another independent effort, called a language review, follows in which syntax and other language and grammar rules are checked for correctness in the translation.
At that point, a translation department supervisor at church headquarters meets periodically with the team, making thorough reviews. Scriptural passages, terminology and other items are closely examined to ensure completeness and accuracy.
Throughout the process, the translated material is entered into a computer and a manuscript is produced. A team member-proofreader in the country where the translation takes place examines the material for grammar, punctuation and capitalization. Church leaders in the area, with approval of the Church's Scriptures Committee, then ask three experienced leaders in the country to carefully review the material.
"As questions arise, translation team or other officials meet with them. Should there be unresolved questions, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are consulted. Also, a general authority from the country who is a native speaker of the language may be consulted for a final review of the manuscript. Final changes are worked out between him, the Scriptures Committee and the translation department," Hunt said.
"It's a very detailed, careful process and the whole purpose is that we work in unity and harmony with one another. It is not a process of conflict. It is not a process of contention nor disagreement. It is a process of harmony. The full intent of everyone involved is to contribute the best they can toward the translation," Hunt said.
Much of the translation work takes place in countries outside the United States, but entering the handwritten manuscripts of translators into computers is done at church headquarters. Those who operate the computers must become skilled, particularly if they don't speak or write the language translated.
For some languages, the computer operators must have a working knowledge of four different keyboards for one language. All of these keyboards must be memorized in order for the computer operator to enter the language as accurately and rapidly as possible.
"One of the real challenges for this work is that our computer operators don't speak all the languages in which we are working. There are dozens of languages, and many do not have a Roman alphabet, but alphabets such as Cyrillic (which is used in Russia), Chinese, Korean and Japanese," Hunt said.
"In some languages, such as Urdu, which is spoken in Pakistan, we have had to work with our graphics and typesetting people to develop the actual fonts for the language so that it can go into typesetting and be printed in a book," Hunt said.
Uinise Angilau, originally from Tonga; Jonathon Men, from Cambodia; and Margaret Jacobs and Agatha Runyan, who were born in Holland, are among Translation Department employees who recently explained some of the computer or other intricacies of their work. All seemed happy with what they are doing.
Many of the handwritten manuscripts they and other computer technicians handle are legible and carefully prepared, but working with such materials would likely seem formidable to those not trained to do the work. Some manuscripts - such as those written in Urdu - read from right to left, instead of left to right. In Cambodian, for example, vowels and consonants are sometimes stacked on top of one another in the written text, as well as appearing horizontally.
"If you think it's hard to read somebody's writing in English, try reading it in Hindi, one of the major languages of India, when you don't read Hindi," Hunt said.
Hunt said the most exciting thing to him about translation services is "the faith, devotion and commitment of the people who do the work. It is hearing about their experiences as they serve and how they feel they have received additional help above and beyond their own basic capabilities. They feel it is a sacred work. They feel it is important. They feel it will bring a marvelous message to the people who speak their language. They are extremely devoted and wonderful, humble people," Hunt said.
Runyan and others said they sense God's blessings in their work.
"I couldn't do it without his help," said Runyan, who has worked five years in the department.
The work of translation is continually moving forward, Hunt said, "just as it has for decades. However, we must pick up the pace. As the church grows and missionary efforts expand throughout the world, naturally our work expands dramatically. As the church develops and prints new publications and authorizes them for translation . . . instead of putting them in just a handful of languages as we did 30 or 40 years ago, today we put them into dozens of languages."
The managing director said he believes computers and other technology will continue to aid in the work of translation. "If we are one day going to be able to speed up this work, computers will probably be a major resource to allow us to do it. But we have not had good success to date in actually using the computer to do the translation. The scriptures don't lend themselves well to that because there are so many varied meanings of a single word, and the computer often times doesn't know the context of the word. However, the computer is excellent, for example, in helping us check consistency and accuracy in translation."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Translation is integral part of work to spread Word
A basic tenet of the LDS Church is the responsibility to spread gospel to every nation. Translation is an integral part of that effort. "For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fullness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto this power, by the administration of the Comforter, shed forth upon them for the revelation of Jesus Christ." (Doctrine & Covenants 90:11). Translations
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BOOK OF MORMON (38)
Afrikaans Icelandic
Arabic Indonesian
Aymara Italian
Catalan Japanese
Chinese Kekchi
Croatian Korean
Czech Maori
Danish Norwegian
Dutch Polish
English Portuguese
English-Braille Rarotongan
Fijian Russian
Finnish Samoan
French Spanish
German Swedish
Greek Tahitian
Hawaiian Thai
Hindi Tongan
Hungarian Vietnamese
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Translations
SELECTIONS FROM BOOK OF MORMON (47)
Akan-Fante Marshallese
Armenian-Western Mayan
Bengali Navajo
Bislama Niuean
Bulgarian Palauan
Cakchiquel Pampango
Cambodian Papiamento
Cebuano Persian
Chamorro Pohnpeian
Chinese Quechua-Bolivia
(Simplified characters)
Efik Quecha-Peru
Gilbertese Quiche Guarani Quichua-Ecuador
Haitian Romanian
Hiligaynon Shona
Hmong Sinhala
IIokano Swahili
Kisii Tagalog
Kuna Tamil
Laotian Trukese
Lingala Turkish
Malagasy Tzotzil
Mam Urdu
Zulu