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**List: Ganda Ministry
the Bible ( the Bible )
(Lu)Ganda...
"The most northerly of the great
Bantu family of languages
spoken in central and south Africa, Ganda or Luganda, the chief
of many tongues spoken in the Protectorate of Uganda, exercises
a wide influence over the natives in that part of Africa.
Pilkington, in his "The Gospel of
Uganda," tells us that the
Swahili language was first used as a
temporary bridge, on which to
stand to build what from the first was recognized as the only
permanent bridge between God’s thoughts and the native mind,
a version in the Ganda tongue itself. "For a long
time," he
writes, "the Swahili New Testament was the text-book of
Uganda; day after day the most intelligent of the Christians
translated from it into their own language . . . appealing to the
European as to the exact force of the original . . . until a version
was produced which was faithful to the original and idiomatic, a
splendid piece of work, and a grand basis for future
translation."
The first committing to writing of an unwritten language is
naturally a task of very great difficulty. This had been chiefly
carried out by the pioneer, Alexander Mackay, who in the first
place had printed reading-sheets from wooden type cut with his
own hand. Elsewhere he states, "Luganda is ten times
as hard
as Swahili . . . it is undoubtedly difficult." So the saving of
labor
was no part of the decision to substitute the permanent "bridge"
for the temporary one. Out of such experiences rises the urgent
cry to the Church at home to send out
to Africa only men who
are gifted in language-study,--"Cambridge men, e.g.,
who have
at least got a Second in Classics. . . . If men, interested in lan-
guage, knew what a magnificent field this is, they might come
for that reason; but I had rather they came for the Gospel’s sake
--but the other reason might do as a counterpoise to fever, jour-
neys, and other annoyances."
How these Uganda translations drew farther and farther away
from Mosl_m influence is shown by the re-issue of the
original
version in 1914, with Isa changed to Jesu as the name for
Jesus,
and Masiya to Kristu as the word for Christ. Though the masses
for whom this version was made came over into Christianity from
paganism, the region lies right in the path where Isl_m’s advance
crosses the advance of the Gospel and
its Book. The early and
adequate rendering of the entire Bible
into the language of this
powerful tribe, and into two others of the languages spoken
within the diocese of Uganda, besides Testaments and Portions
published in several other tongues of the Protectorate, has had,
and will certainly yet have in the future, a great role to play, in
the redemption of the whole region from the doubtful blessings
of Isl_m."--1000 Tongues, 1939 [Info
only: See BBTI.]
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