Photo (CHI10DJ-18): The President of Chile, Sebastian Pinera (left) shakes hands with the Chilean Bible Society’s General Secretary, Francisco Viguera . On the same day that the Bible Society announced the start of the translation of the Old Testament into Romani, in a separate ceremony Mr Viguera gave the President a copy of the Romani New Testament, published by the Bible Society in July 2008.
After a special ceremony to honour the event, the translation of the Old Testament into Romani is now under way in Chile.
The General Secretary of the Chilean Bible Society, Francisco Viguera, led a ceremony on July 9 before a gathering which included guests representing the government, educational and cultural institutions and NGOs with an interest in the welfare of the Romani people.
Later the same day, in company with the Bible Society Chairman, Pastor Pablo Álvarez Navarrete, Sr Viguera presented a copy of the New Testament in Romani to the President of Chile, Sebastian Pinera.
It is exactly two years since the Bible Society published the Romani New Testament and the same translation team, Romani brothers Juan and Jorge Nicollich and Carlos Hernández, a Chilean expert in both Romani and the biblical languages, are working on the Old Testament.
The task will take the team an estimated seven years and when it is complete, the Bible will be the first to have been translated for Romani people anywhere in th
e Americas – where there are reckoned to be 1.5 million Romani people.
Evangelical Christians growing
It will also be the first significant book in a Romani language in the Americas. As such, it will not only profoundly affect the faith of the Romani people, it may well herald the advent of literature and printed educational materials in their language and prove a watershed in the development of their literacy. (To read more about the broad impact of a new Bible translation in an ethnic language, click here.)
Estimates of the number of Romani people in Chile range from 6,000 to 10,000. As well as continuing to speak their own language, many still travel from city to city making a living from palmistry, horse breeding, doing decorative work in copper and dealing in used cars and scrap metal. For some years there has been a growing Romani civil rights movement in Chile and a small but growing number are evangelical Christians.
CHI10DJ-16: Rev Tito Lahaye, UBS Translation Consultant (left), sits beside two of the translators working on the Romani Old Testament, Juan Nicolich (centre) and his brother Jorge (right), at the ceremony marking the start of the project.
The Bible Society’s view is that the publication of the complete Romani Bible will increase national awareness and acceptance of an ethnic minority with whom the rest of society lives for most of the time in an uneasy peace.
Speaking at the project launch ceremony, the Rev Tito Layahe, the UBS Translation Consultant to the Old Testament translation, said, “The Romani language used not to have an alphabet. The alphabet that has now been created will be useful for the language in Chile and also for the Romani people in other parts of the Americas.”
Last year in Puerto Montt, a port city in southern Chile, a group of more than 100 residents attacked a Romani community, setting fire to tents and vehicles. They were acting in the belief that a member of the community had killed a local man in a hit-and run incident. Police maintained there was no connection between the Romani and the death.