Bishop translates biblical books into indigenous language

Ethnic Puyuma people can now read the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in their own language, thanks to Auxiliary Bishop John Baptist Tseng King-zi of Hualien, a Puyuma himself.

Auxiliary Bishop John Baptist Tseng King-zi of Hualien signing copies of his translation of biblical books on June 21

Bishop Tseng, the only indigenous bishop in Taiwan, recalled that in 1972 after he was ordained a priest, some elderly Puyuma told him they did not understand the Masses that he celebrated in Mandarin Chinese, the official language in Taiwan.

Two years later, the then Father Tseng began translating the two readings and Gospel for Mass into his mother tongue using Katakana (a phonetic Japanese syllabary) to enable the elderly to “hear the Word of God.”

The Puyuma language has no written form. During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945), tribal people were educated in Japanese. After the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) took power in 1949, they began to be educated in pinyin or Romanized Chinese, the system used to transliterate Chinese words into the Roman alphabet.

Bishop Tseng also decided to use the Roman script to translate the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, a project which took him 35 years. The bishop, who also speaks fluent Japanese, noted that only some Puyuma people can understand Katakana, but the Roman script is popular worldwide.

He said that younger Puyuma people, who are able to read the Bible in Chinese, are conscious of the possible extinction of their language. Some are now learning the Roman script to understand his biblical compilation, he added.

The first 500 bilingual copies of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in both Chinese and Puyuma were released on June 21, with each copy selling at NT$500 (US$15). The income generated will be used for the translation of other books in the Bible.

Bishop Tseng pointed out that in the past, the Puyuma had only a “verbal Bible” — someone would read the Chinese Bible and then translate it immediately into Puyuma for listeners.

“It was a highly challenging task” as the interpreter had to be familiar with both languages, he said. There are only two or three such “talented” persons in each of the eight villages where the 10,000 Puyuma natives live, he said.

Bishop Tseng said he wishes to translate the entire Bible into Puyuma to preserve his “ancestral language in written form.”

Besides the Bible translation project, he has compiled a Puyuma-Chinese dictionary and published a Chinese book on Puyuma myths. He is now translating the latter into his mother tongue.