The Halam people of India have received Scripture in their language for the first time following the completion of a translated Gospel of John, which also serves as the tribe’s first-ever written material.
The distribution of 5,000 copies, published by the Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS), is a major milestone for the 108,000 speakers, who had never had written material of any kind in Halam, which remains a developing language.
The Gospel was translated from the Authorised (King James) Version and written in a standardised form of the language, encompassing the three main tribal varieties with assistance from a linguistic specialist. Due to the lack of other material, it is being used as a key literary resource as well as a spiritual text.
The Halam tribe are mostly from the state of Tripura, and their lives centre around farming and animals. Most are Christians and TBS says the gospel has been received positively so far. It has been especially helpful for pastors, whose churches have relied on the Mizo Bible, which is a related language, but not an ideal solution.
TBS hopes the book’s publication is only the start, with the regional team hoping to complete translation work up to Acts by the end of this year and the entire New Testament by the end of 2027, before potential publication in late 2028 or 2029.
TBS’s Alex Artola told en of the challenges translators faced: “The team worked without many of the resources that would typically be available in larger language projects, such as dictionaries, grammars, and digital spellcheckers, due to the fact that they simply don’t exist.
“Certain terms that have clear definitions in major languages can prove far more difficult to express in languages such as Halam … Some theological concepts are in a similar vein, and suitable words need to be coined to provide the best linguistic fit.
“The translation team are compiling a word list as part of their labours to aid in translation consistency. We expect that such a list will also be helpful in any future endeavour to produce a Halam lexicon/ dictionary.”
