The Journey August 2024: Madagascar / Wycliffe Norway - Engaging for Bible Translation in Malagasy Sign Language

In July, 43 Deaf representatives from all over Madagascar gathered for a ‘Discover Your Sign Language’ workshop, to explore and interact with their first language, Malagasy Sign Language, and to be introduced to Bible translation.

Together in Bible Translation (TiBT) is Wycliffe Norway’s partner in Madagascar and is leading this initiative. A team of TiBT and the Federation for the Deaf in Madagascar (FMM) facilitators took part in planning and achieving this first DYL workshop for Malagasy Deaf.

Sigrid Hansen-Ekenes of Wycliffe Norway, who is is preparing to become a Translation Consultant for MSL, led most of the sessions. Here, Sigrid talks about the process and steps involved in translating the Bible.

The Malagasy Deaf are a cultural and linguistic minority. For them to gain a deeper understanding of God’s Word and the opportunity to study it on their own and in groups without assistance from hearing people, a separate Bible translation into Malagasy Sign Language is needed.

The most engaging session was with a standard Swadesh list of 100 words, used in language surveys worldwide. Participants took turns and were filmed as they signed each word on the list. Where there were several variants, quite a bit of happy competition occurred to be the first to sign it. One of the purposes of the word list is to get an idea of any existing language variation.

An important and fun part of the program was storytelling—both personal stories and Bible stories in groups. As everyone watched the best ones from each group, they were encouraged to give feedback on the videos. Many joined in and were clearly very passionate about their own sign language.

Both seriousness and play every day; here from a spontaneous improv theatre, initiated by Lala, furthest to the left, who is the leader of the Deaf Association in Madagascar.

Each participant also worked on a first draft of a passage in John’s gospel. From all the videos made, a few were chosen to be shown to everyone and discussed. It was quite a complicated passage, but the results were great! And we all saw the difference in practice between translation and retelling.

Participants went home satisfied and with a lot to think about—for example, that Bible translation is not done overnight. For many in this group, a dream was born: Imagine having the Bible in our own sign language!

We are grateful for the financial support which made this first workshop possible, received from Wycliffe Norway and from Iris Church in Romania.

Sigrid and Kristoffer Hansen-Ekenes, Wycliffe Norway