When I opened up Blogger today, the program I use to write this (thanks Blogger!), they had a blurb about "a huge milestone". They've added Arabic, Persian and Hebrew to the other 37 languages into which Blogger is translated. They are excited because unlike the other languages, Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew are written from right to left (which as you can imagine raises a few computer-related issues...).
While this will be a major step forward for our Arabic, Persian and Hebrew blogging brethren and sisteren (suggestions for what is a better word to use there gratefully accepted), I am simply not impressed. 40 languages is less than 1% of the world's languages.
If you want more languages, go to Jesus in My Language at http://www.jesusinmylanguage.org/ where they have parts of the Gospel of Mark (from the Bible) in almost 100 languages. Which is still not 2% of the languages spoken out there.
But if you actually dig into the figures, bits of the Bible have now been translated into more than 2,400 languages. Not bad for a book where the new bits are almost 200o years old. In fact it's the most translated book out there.
So look out for the new Hebrew, Arabic and Persian blogs on blogger. I know I am! But don't expect what they say (or certainly not what I say) to have the staying power of the Bible. Which started out being written in Hebrew anyway... in a part of the world where Arabic is now pretty widely used... and at one stage the Hebrews were taken into exile into what was to become Persia...
Funny how things come full circle, isn't it?
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Monday, 4 February 2008
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