On September 26, 2024, the National Library of the Republic of Buryatia hosted the presentation of the first complete translation of the Bible into the modern Buryat language.
The publication was prepared by the Scientific Research Institution "Institute of Bible Translation" (IPB) and the Russian Bible Society (RBO).
The translation was reviewed by the Buryat State University. Dorji Banzarova and at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In his welcoming speech, Metropolitan Joseph of Ulan-Ude and Buryat thanked the translators of the IPB and the RBO for their many years of work on the preparation of the publication, noting that the work on the translation took thirty-three and a half years, which corresponds to the fulfillment of the age of Christ.
Director of the Institute of Bible Translation Bronwen Cleaver recalled that the Buryat edition was the tenth complete translation of the Bible into the languages of the indigenous peoples of Russia (after Russian, Chuvash, Tuvan, Chechen, Udmurt, Tatar, Crimean Tatar, Ossetian and Bashkir). B. Cleaver presented a smartphone application with the text of the Bible in Buryat.
Archpriest Alexander Troitsky, Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Bible Translation, said that the Bible for the Buryat people began to be translated back in the XIX century. In 1827, a translation of the New Testament was published in St. Petersburg, and in 1836, through the efforts of the staff of the London Missionary Society, the Old Testament was published. However, the translations of the 19th century were made in an archaic literary language common to the Buryats and the Mongols, and used the Old Mongolian script. For a modern reader, such a translation is difficult to understand, which was the reason to start a new complete translation of the Bible more than thirty years ago.
Director of the St. Petersburg branch of the RBO V.O. Zhizhin thanked the translators, editors and donors, noting that the RBO staff had prepared a semantic translation of the Old Testament.
The translator, PhD D.A. Raitsanova, told about the history of the project, with which she has been cooperating since 1996, stressing that translation should always be improved and clarified, and expressing hope that the work of the project will be continued.
Philological editor Ph.D. R.S. Dylykova spoke in detail about the difficult work of translators and editors, about overcoming difficulties in translating into the language of the Buryat people, whose cultural realities are very different from the biblical ones, about the process of text approbation.
In conclusion, the Director of the IPB B. Cleaver presented certificates of appreciation to the project participants, and the presentation guests received brochures on the history of Buryat translation and postcards with the translation of the prayer "Our Father" into the Buryat language.
240 copies of the Bible in the Buryat language were transferred to the funds of the Scientific Center of the SB RAS, scientific libraries of higher educational institutions and municipal libraries of the Republic of Buryatia.