The Amis Language Bible in My Life: 

A Personal Reflection

By The Rev. Sing Olam

Presbyterian Church in Taiwan

There was a time when the only Bible I could read was the Chinese edition. After I learned some Japanese and some English, I could read from Bibles in those languages, too. But, as a member of Taiwan’s Amis Aboriginal tribe, I longed for the day I would be able to read the word of God in my own mother language.

In 1997 the Taiwan Bible Society published Fangcalay Cudad, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible in the Amis Language. My hope became a reality. Reading the Bible in my mother language moved me to the core of my being. The Lord God surprised me by talking to me in my own words! 

A few examples are in order. John 5:39 in the New Testament quotes Jesus as saying, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.” (NRSV) The Amis language has no exact equivalent term for “study” or “research”. In the process of translation, though, an applicable parallel term, ‘mi-kadad’ was adopted. It implies finding the most suitable truth from thousands of possibilities (like finding the needle in a haystack).

Use of the term ‘kadad’ to convey Jesus meaning of “search the scriptures” greatly excited me. The Bible is full of treasures like this. I was moved to delve ever more deeply into God’s word and find the mysteries of life.

Another saying of Jesus found in the fourth gospel is, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6, NRSV). In the Amis vocabulary, there is no exact equivalent for these terms. However it is possible to use plain and simple words to explain Jesus’ meaning. “Way” was translated ‘lalan’, “truth” as ‘ `sp’lin’ and “life” as ‘ `orip’. This was also very exciting. It drew us through a door into translation.

When dealing with the mystery of the incarnation of Christ we had to deal with the phrase “the Word became flesh” from John 1:14 (NRSV). We selected an Amis word that conveys change. “Back translating” the phrase into English would yield, “The Word changed into a human.” Hearing it in Amis seems a bit vague and strange. The phrase is philosophical and theological, and difficult to translate. Because Amis does not have a corresponding eloquence, the result took some getting used to, but has found acceptance.

The first chapter of Genesis draws me to reflect on Aboriginal stories of human origins. And I’ve found great inspiration. The Lord has used every nation’s myths to explain how the heavens were opened and the earth established. 

In the Exodus I found God standing on the side of the suffering and oppressed. My own people in Taiwan live that out day by day. When commercial interests from the Netherlands arrived in Taiwan in the 17th century, the Aborigines here began to experience outside oppression. To be sure, the Hollanders did some Christian mission work, but the colony’s prime objective was commercial profit.
During the period of Japanese Imperial rule over Taiwan (1895-1945) use of Aboriginal languages was restricted and human rights were trampled. 

When Taiwan fell under the control of the Nationalist Party government from China the abuses continued. Following the road of the colonial administration that preceded them, the new occupation forces stripped us of our self identity, diminished regard for our languages, and even made us give up our native names for “proper” Chinese ones. 

The Exodus story tells us that God stands with the oppressed. These stories, when translated into our mother tongues, help us to see how Taiwan’s Aborigines have much in common with the Children of Israel who served as slaves in Egypt so long ago.

The Amis Bible came about only after decades of investment, work and struggle. The task was begun by a foreigner from The Evangelical Alliance Mission. Conflict arose early on. The government’s Ministry of Education, in an attempt to promote Mandarin Chinese above all local languages, required that the alphabetization of Aboriginal tongues be done using phonetic symbols developed for teaching Mandarin.

In 1957 the Bible Society published a trial version of the Epistle of James using symbols that complied with the government’s edict. But because some sounds used in Amis cannot be depicted using the Mandarin phonetic symbols, the trial version did not win the approval of church leaders. In the face of government disapproval, the translators decided to use the Latin alphabet. Though the translation may not have been approved for publication, it would have been usable in “Samizdat” form.

Latinized script is suitable for use with typewriters. It is also flexible, and enjoys international recognition. Reflecting on that long ago decision from the present, we can see that it was prescient because of the eventual widespread use of computers. 

Use of the Latin script makes the meanings of and relations between words very clear and enables accurate representation of pronunciations. Though no system is 100%, this one is significantly better than the Mandarin phonetics that the government attempted to impose upon the churches. 

One thing that we truly appreciate about current translation efforts for Aboriginal Bibles is that the teams are led by native speakers of the Aboriginal languages. But it must be said that though Aborigines do the work ourselves, we face limitations of human resources, talent, computer skills, and finances. Bible translators need to be able to do more than accurately read the Chinese and English translations from which we work. We must also be familiar with Greek, Hebrew and the other languages of the original Bible manuscripts and have a strong working understanding of our mother tongues. Some terms are difficult to translate into our languages, so we are forced to use “loan words” from foreign languages. In these situations we must be careful and selective, lest we create problems for readers. The main purposes of Bible translation, after all, are to enable readers to understand the word of God and diminish the barriers to Bible reading.

Some people would like to know the exact monetary and human capital costs of producing a Bible translation. That’s impossible to say. In its early stages the work on Fangcalay Cudad was financed and staffed entirely by a The Evangelical Alliance Mission. Eventually the project came under the care of the Taiwan Bible Society, encouraged by the society’s former president Tsai Jen-li. The Society supported revisions of work previously done and completion of the entire Bible. The total amount of money spent is difficult to determine. It includes the costs of translation, revision, publication and distribution. Time spent is also difficult to quantify beyond saying that it stretched across four decades.

Aboriginal languages, like others, have many distinctive local idioms. Localized idiomatic speech can differ significantly. In Amis there are three names for “hat”. In central Taiwan the Amis say ‘tamohong’. In the North and around the city of Hualien, a hat is a ‘toper’. But in Chang-pin Township of Taitung County the word is ‘kafong’. After the translation team did a survey, it was found that the terms ‘tamohong’ and ‘kafong’ were most commonly used. So, to refer to the king’s crown, the “majority term” was chosen. Everyone can understand it. 

It used to be that when Amis from the north conversed with Amis from the southeast there were many misunderstandings and miscommunications. But since we have all been reading the same Bible, singing from the same hymnal, and attending seminars together, there has been some standardization of our separate idiomatic speech. This has overcome a great impediment to our unity. Translation of the Bible into our mother tongue has been a great contribution. We now have a language in which we can understand each other clearly. 

Bible translation helps to preserve Aboriginal languages. Many languages in world history would have disappeared entirely if not for their use in liturgies and scripture. After the Bible was published in Amis it became a storehouse for the language. When scholars of the Amis language write curriculum for mother language instruction, they find a dearth of dictionaries and other published sources. I advise them to turn to the Bible. Though the Fangcalay Cudad is in no way a complete linguistic dictionary, nonetheless, its 600,000 words form an ideal storehouse from which treasures can be drawn out. Because the Bible preserves the beautiful and rich language of our ancestors, it transfers the traditions of our culture on to our heirs.

The church must train up Aboriginal translators! Linguistics and Biblical theology are essential preparations if quality translations are to be produced. The word of God must be rendered into all languages in forms that match the idioms used by the masses. This requires the investment of human and material resources. 

In the face of small Aboriginal populations, the need for good translations is ever more urgent. There will be multiple barriers and challenges, but the task of proclamation does not count the cost. 

But translations are fruitless if church leaders and believers among the groups who have received them do not put these bibles into use. The Spirit of God uses the languages of the people themselves , so that all might hear the mighty works of God told in their own languages. 

(This article appeared originally in Bible Quarterly, Volume 8, published by The Taiwan Bible Society in May of 2003. Translation by David Alexander, Taiwan Church News)