Translation training for Jesus Film in 7 Vanuatu languages

The Jesus Film will be produced into seven Vanuatu languages before the end of this year under a project supported by Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and The Jesus Film.

Jesus (alternatively called The Jesus Film) is a 1979 biblical drama film that depicts the life of Jesus Christ.

It primarily uses the Gospel of Luke as the basis for the story.

As part of a massive worldwide undertaking to bring the message of the Bible to the whole world, the Jesus Film will be produced into the following seven Vanuatu languages: Bislama, Ngunese of Nguna, Hano language of North Pentecost, Lewo of Epi, Paama, Tangoa – South Santo, and Uripiv - Maleukula.

All these languages have been chosen because the New Testament Bible has been translated into the languages.

A five-week training for 21 translators – three for each language - for the seven languages to help them with translation of the script of the film into their languages will end this week at Blue Pango Guesthouse at Pango, just outside of Port Vila.

The training is facilitated by Ryan Kesselhon, Jesus Film Language Production Manager, and Valerie Clayton, Language Production Manager from the YWAM/Jesus Film Project.

They are assisted by nine consultants – three translation instructors and six script checkers. Also helping are people from the Bible Society, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and the Vanuatu Bible Translation.

“They’ve been looking at the Gospel of Luke in their Bible and looking at the Jesus Film script and five weeks of hard work to do the translations into their languages and it gets checked and rechecked until they decide that it’s ready to go,” Kesselhon explained the five weeks training work for the translators.

“Then 10 days of recording when they will bring in the storyteller from the village, who can then read the script and tell the story.”

Clayton adds that: “Once the trainees get done at the training, they will take their papers home for community checks to make sure everything is written correctly.

"We’ll come back together, which will be in October, and we will record it in 10 days.

“Then we will give them the recording in DVD discs, flash drives and SD cards for your phone. So, they can take it anywhere to their family and friends and transfer it to theirs and start spreading the word.

“So, if you can’t have a Bible, at least you can have a story of the Bible and the story of Jesus in your hands in a matter of weeks. That’s what we’ve doing in a nutshell shell,” Ms. Clayton added.

Kesselhon explained that the Jesus Film remains the same but now when the speakers of the seven languages hear it, it will be in their ‘tok ples’ – own language.