Juona, Esta, Ruut: Old Testament books in Jamaican creole launched

The launch which took place at the Hope Fellowship Church in Kingston saw several high ranking members of the clergy plus local and international translators present for the historic event in which three complete books of the Old Testament Bible namely Jonah (Juona), Esther (Esta) and Ruth (Ruut), were presented and their book covers unveiled.

Jamaican creole was not the only Caribbean language celebrated as the three books were also translated into the creole of Belize, as well the San Andres island which is part of Colombia.

Though the concept for the Old Testament translation sprouted over three decades ago, funding for the project plus widespread criticism proved challenging.

The idea was revisited in 2019 with some 12 island nations initially invited to the discussion. In the end, it was determined that three countries had already begun significant work that was in progress. Though the global pandemic threatened to derail the initiative, translators in each of the territories were able to persevere by working from home and consulting when necessary through the use of technology.

The creole translation of the books of the Old Testament is in keeping with WBTC mandate to provide God’s words in a language that the masses would be able to understand as they subscribe to the philosophy that there can be no transformation without translation.

WBTC’s Executive Director Ruth Smith-Sutherland emphasized the need to celebrate the fact that the mother language of the various islands has taken centre stage in the most important book in the world.

“You would want to be in the room when we did the community testing. The young people online and the older ones in person and when the translators start to read you would see people moving forward to the edge of their seats,” she said. “And though they came to read just one or two chapters, they have to read the whole book! People were there with their mouths open as they hear God’s word in their mother tongue, some of them for the very, very first time. The joy on their face was unimaginable. By the time the translator get to Esther, as it has 10 chapters, him mouth dry and them haffi give him two bottle of water. So him sey to himself ‘wey we ago do when we eventually get to Genesis?!’

“But this is exciting work,” Smith-Sutherland added. “I tell you when I get them, I stay up all night just reading through the entire thing though there is nothing like hearing it read which is how it ought to be. God’s work being read and enjoyed in groups.  So now that you all have the books, use them.”

Translators from Jamaica and Belize did oral excerpts from the book of Jonah and Ruth respectively while Dr. Ricardo Gordon May from San Andres shared his own experiences which also highlighted how the islands are forever connected as his own grandfather was Jamaican by birth.

“I come from a small dot on the map, some 27 square kilometres in the middle of the ocean. People say how you belong to Colombia but you look African? I tell them we are all related.  In the 1840s a land owner who lived in Jamaica decided to sell the land and free his slaves. Later this Mr. Livingston converted to Christianity. He freed the slaves but realised that they could not read so he taught them to read with the use of the Bible,” he said. “However, we realize that when you step into a church, there was no place for creole there, so in 1998 we started the Christian University and decided we needed to do something in creole. At the time we spoke creole at home, English in church and Spanish at school so it was very difficult for some but people kept asking for the Old Testament so when I learned about this project I was so glad. Today I’m happy to say that we now have educational material in creole our mother language.”

Guest Speaker Dr. Marlon Winnett, a global translator advisor for over thirty years in Central and South America and global sign language coordinator, emphasized that the recent translation of the three books epitomizes perfectly the Jamaican motto, “out of many one people.”

Said Dr Winnett: “The celebration of creole leads to cultural intertwining and the celebration of people groups meeting like the result of slavery and forced and non-forced migration.  But out of the pain comes something beautiful, a need to survive spiritually, phonetically, etcetera. Out of it is our redemption song that says something to us and to the world. We through the Bible translation are chanting down Babylon and the way our children are ashamed of the way they speak. So it becomes the way to social justice as people who were invisible become visible because God now speaks their language. Bible translation brings people from this marvelous incubator that is the Caribbean together as translators come from our own countries. We are living in exciting times as we recognise that language use does not mean beating up on one or the superiority of another; rather language will now include and not exclude.”

The translation is done in conjunction with the Jamaica Language Unit, which is an arm in the Department of Language, linguistics and Philosophy at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.