Buying Words

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 15, 1906

The story of Bible translation is an interesting one. Often the missionary has had to search long to find the right words. In an interview with Dr. Gunn, who has been translating the New Testament into Futana, the language of one of the New Hebrides Islands, this experience is related:—

“When I first started translating any portion of the Scripture, I found a great difficulty in getting suitable words for certain expressions. After some years in the island I offered to pay the natives at a fixed rate for every hundred words they brought me. The more intelligent of the younger men would write down lists of words, sometimes getting from the older men words that were not in general use, and I paid for all those that were new to me. I gave them a present equal to about nine pence per hundred. In this way I added considerably to my vocabulary.”