LINGUIST List 3.388

Wed 06 May 1992

Sum: Dialect Bible

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1. Stephen Ryberg, summ of dialect Bible translations

I have prepared a summary of the responses I received to my question
about tranlation(s) of the Bible into modern Glasgow dialects.
Thanks to all those who responded--

Ken Beesley at Xerox PARC
Gavin Burnage of the British National Corpus group and HUMGRAD
Paul Caron at McMaster U
Richard Coates at U of Sussex
Jacqueline Kowtko at U of Edinburgh
R. Glenn Wooden at St. Andrews
and via forwarding
Frank Maloney of Microsoft
David Morning of Glasgow U

--I appreciate it.

First, Mr. Coates suggested as a general reference for dialect biblical
literature _The book of a thousand tongues_, Eugene Nida, ed., United Bible
Societies (1972), 2nd edition.

Mr. Beesley mentioned a 1983 translation into "broad Scots", which
included a temptation of Christ passage in which Christ speaks the Scots
dialect and Satan the Queen's English. Mr. Burnage forwarded mention
of the same edition in a similar discussion from a Celtic discussion
list: here, Mr. Maloney and Mr. Morning discussed Presbyterian Church of
Scotland elder Jamie Stewart's rendition _The Glasgow Gospels_ (the 4
gospels only), as well as _The New Testament in Scots_, by William L.
Lorimer (1983, Edinburgh, Southside publishers Ltd, ISBN 900025 24 7).
Some claimed the latter is "hard going at times" without intimate knowledge
of the dialect. Mr. Caron mentioned that one of these texts had been
discussed recently on the CBC radio show "As It Happens".

Jacqueline Kowtko in Edinburgh suggested contacting the Church of Scotland
at the following address for other info:

Church of Scotland Book Shop
117/119 George Street
Edinburgh EH2 4JN Scotland
44 31 225 2229

Finally, R. Glenn Wooden also mentioned having seen a Bible translation
done in an American South dialet called _Cotton Patch NT/Bible_.

Thanks again for the responses.
Steve
 _________________________
Stephen Ryberg
Department of Linguistics
Northwestern University
rybergcasbah.acns.nwu.edu
 _________________________