A TRIBUTE TO THE TRANSLATORS AND SHORT HISTORY OF TIV BIBLE TRANSLATION HIGHLIGHTING THE MANY ROLES PLAYED BY MANY PEOPLE IN REALIZATION OF THE TRANSLATION PROJECT: BY BENJAMIN ITYAVKASE SHII

[Michael Atovigba]

A  TRIBUTE TO THE TRANSLATORS AND SHORT HISTORY OF TIV BIBLE
TRANSLATION HIGHLIGHTING THE MANY ROLES PLAYED BY MANY PEOPLE IN
REALIZATION OF THE TRANSLATION PROJECT

                                                BY

                             BENJAMIN ITYAVKASE SHII

The Tiv Church was a very happy church when it received the complete
Bible in its members’ mother tongue on November 4, 1964. This was a
labour of love and the devotion of many South African missionaries for
about 50 years….

The translation of the Bible into Tiv language started early in the
history of the mission, when A.S. Judd, a staff of Sudan United
Mission, SUM, came from South Africa to Tiv. land. He had great
linguistic ability and after learning the Hausa language, he started
reducing the Tiv language into writing. In 1914, the first translation
of scripture portions in |Tiv started by A. S. Judd who translated the
book of Mark chapter one just three years after the arrival of the
Dutch Reformed Church Mission, DRCM, in Tiv country. The first real
accomplishment, however, was when Rev. Strydom published the Gospel of
Mark in 1916. The second book to be translated into Tiv language was
the book of Matthew by Rev. Strydom; (Ortese Dogo, he was very tall)
and Rev. Malherbe assisted him with the revision of the manuscript.
The translation was completed and sent to England for printing by the
end of 1918. The printed consignment arrived back from England in
1920.

As can be seen above, the missionaries were not long on the field, and
as a result, their knowledge of Tiv language was still imperfect….This
time there was no Tiv grammar or dictionary as reference source. If
one compares the translation of the book of Mark in 1914 with the
latest revision, the development in the knowledge of the language can
be seen. As the translation programme progressed, the translators
became more and more aware of the lack of Biblical terminology in the
Tiv language forcing them to borrow from Hausa, Greek, and English or
simply coining new words. The Tiv, for example, did not originally
have a word for ‘love’, the main word of the gospel. The translators
had to appropriate dooshima for love. Doo means ‘good’ and shima means
‘heart,’ which means ‘good heart’. This was also the case with words
such as hope, long-suffering, perseverance, conversion and many
others. Even now, there is no clarity or satisfactory consensus
whether the Tiv word for ‘jealousy’ is iyuhe in the sense of ‘I am a
jealous God’. Many people still doubt if it really gives the true
Biblical meaning. In addition, a related difficulty arose from the use
of a single Tiv word ‘Lord’ for two English terms, i.e. ‘Father’ and
‘Lord’. God the father is ‘Aondo Ter’ where the Lord Jesus Christ is
‘Ter Yesu Kristu’. The Lord’s Supper was simply translated as ‘kwagh
yan u Ter’ and many others.

The Tiv orthography was under fire with the translation of the gospel
of St. John, the third book to be translated by Rev. W. A. Malherbe
(Ortese U He, his nickname) in June 1922. Rev Malherbe gave this work
to Rev Botha for revision and there was delay in the publication
because of a disagreement over certainty of some words and ideas in
the translated work, the disagreement was later referred to a
committee to deal with all identified problems in the text. Among
these was preserving words, which are practically used by the
Christendom such as Synagogue and others. Eventually the manuscripts
were sent to the printer in April 1924, and the printed 500 copies of
St. Johns’s gospel in Tiv language were received in Tiv land a year
later.

The commissioning of some people by the government to produce a Tiv
literature further complicated the work of the mission in producing
Tiv orthography. Rev. Dr. G. P. Bargery, a former CMS missionary, who
later became the headmaster of Benue School, Wannune in 1915, was
commissioned by the government to compile a Tiv dictionary, which was
later destroyed by fire that gutted his residence (Chia Wannune played
a great role of mischief in this incidence)….Rev. Dr. G. P. Bargery
insisted that the DRCM should accept his mode of spelling which the
DRCM accepted to a certain point. Thus, the ‘x’ in earlier mission
publications for words like kwax,jixe jixe, ibumex, wex, lanex, etc.
was to be replaced with gh of Dr. Bargery to read kwagh, jighjigh,
ibumegh, wegh,, lanegh etc

In 1925, Rev. E. Bam began the translation of the Acts of the
Apostles, and the scripts were referred to Revs. Botha and De Vos for
revision and the manuscript were sent to the printing press in 1930
and printed copies were received in Tiv land the following year.
Though Rev. Malherbe completed translating the gospel of St. Luke and
the book of Titus in 1928, the work was checked and revised by Rev. De
Vos and Rev. Orffer and the two books were printed at Niger Press in
Jos in February 1932. Twenty one years after mission work was started
among the Tiv, the collection of the first five books of the New
Testament was printed in Tiv language. The problem that confronted the
mission was that it could not retain the services of its pioneer
missionaries. A.S. Judd left to Keana, Strydom who took over from Judd
left for South Africa in 1919 The other problem was insufficient
personnel to man all the sectors of the work; the work of preaching
the gospel, giving medical services to the people, teaching in
schools, building, and Bible translation.

In April 1933, Rev. Malherbe was set apart for Bible translation and
was freed of other responsibilities and was transferred from Sevav to
Mkar, the mission headquarters, and Akiga Sai was appointed to assist
him with the work. Three Reverends were appointed to check and revise
the work. They were Rev. Botha, Rev. De Vos, and Rev. Orffer, each one
receiving a portion of Rev. Malherbe’s translation to work on., Rev.
Malherbe was able to complete his work of translating the remaining
books in the New Testament and Psalms in Tiv language before he left
Tiv land in December 1934 In 1936, the New Testament was finished and
appeared in two separate volumes with the first volume containing the
first four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles printed in one book.
The second portion from Romans to Revelation was published as a book.
In 1936, Rev. Malherbe returned to Tiv land for some months to assist
with the Bible translation. During his short stay, he revised the
gospels, the Acts of Apostles and Psalms on the request of the DRCM
with an eye for uniformity of the terms and the importance of
spelling.

The appearance of one book of the Tiv New Testament Bible was being
expected as the mission’s two volumes edition was now out of stock.
However, the Second World War had started and since the publication
was to be done at the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), the
mission had to wait for eight years for new supply. On the 15th of
May, 1943, the Tiv Christians received the New Testament first books
in a single bound book at Mkar with great joy A special service led by
Rev. Scott (Ortese Bem, the man of peace) was held on the 6th of
June, 1943 during which the Tiv Church received the New Testament…and
about 25000 copies of the New Testament were printed and sold. In 1938
the book of Psalms was printed.

The mission appointed Rev. J Orffer as the translator of the Old
Testament. Working with Akiga Sai as his assistant…it took thirteen
years to finish the translation. ..in 1951, he wrote the last verse in
Malachi, thus finishing the whole of the Old Testament in Tiv
language. The translation ran into 1600 handwritten pages that did not
include the Psalms. In 1953, Rev. Orffer and Rev. Scott were moved to
Kunav station, and relieved of all other duties in order to enable
them give their full time to Bible revision. The revision work by Revs
Orffer and Scott took another 10 years to complete in 1961.

The New Testament was translated in the Ukum and Shitile dialect
because the pioneering missionaries who were responsible for the
translation first settled there and their knowledge of the language,
and spelling was limited at the time. Rev. J Orffer and Rev. W. M.
Scott having settled in Kparev area and being assisted by the two
Kparev assistants, Shawon Ndur and Buter Agba, preferred to revise the
Bible in Kparev dialect. Rev. Scott made some comments regarding the
spelling used in the New Testament. “In one respect, the difference is
slight for the difference in words and syntax is not great. However,
in another respect, it is true that almost no sentence can be written
without revealing one or other of the two dialects”. …There was a
total lack of a suitable translation into Tiv for certain names and
terms such as mole and pelican, many trees and shrubs, pomegranate,
all unknown to the Tiv….The book of Isaiah was the most difficult of
all to the translators to translate into Tiv language. Evangelist
Buter Agba who had perfect knowledge of Hausa language always had an
open Hausa Bible before him, and Shawon Ndur who did mission work
among  the Iyon tribe in the mountains, assisted the translators.

…For whatever reason, it was decided that the clan of a tribe
centrally situated speak better language of that tribe hence,
Evangelist Buter Agba of Ipav …, Shawon Ndur of Kunav, and Mbaahii
Maza of Ukan assisted in the work…. Gideon Ityovenda Aba a typist was
employed to type 2800-page manuscript after the revision had gone on
for some time. These had to be typed three times and a large portion
of it, four times, before it was ready for the press.

On the 23rd day of January 1961, fifty years after the colossal work
of the Bible translation, which began at Sai by A. S. Judd, moved to
Zaki-Biam, Sevav, Mkar, Turan, Mbaakon and finally to Shangev
Mbaakpur, before the whole Tiv Bible was translated. Special prayer
service was held and then the completed manuscript was carefully
sealed, registered and flown to England to be printed by the British
Foreign Bible Society…The society produced the first and second copy
and sent it to the mission in Tiv land, which was checked, and the
society published 30,000 copies of the Bibilo for the Tiv. When the
first shipment of the printed copies reached Nigeria, the entire NKST
and other Christians were invited to meet at Mkar to celebrate this
auspicious occasion. On the 4th of November 1964, the bell at Mkar
tolled and thousands of Christians crowded inside and outside of ther
beautiful spacious Mkar Church. Ortese Teghlee (Rev Gerryts) performed
one of his last assignments in Tiv land, by dedicating to god his
precious word in the Tiv language…

The field representative of the United Bible Societies, Dr. W.
Reyburn, presented the Bibilo to the chairman of NKST Rev. J.E.I. Sai
and two of his fellow ministers, Rev. J. Y. Amachigh and Rev. Tar
Shande…It was a memorable day, which set the fast pace for the sale of
thousands of the new Bible. The Tiv tribe was the seventh Nigeria
language in which the whole Bible was translated and printed.  The Tiv
Church of Christ still remembers the 4th day of November every year in
commemoration of the event sets the Sunday of the week for special
offering and prayer. The Roman Catholic Churches and many other
denominations are also using the Bible.