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Bible translations and other Christian materials

Translation of chapter 11 of the Gospel of John

From Leo Reinisch (1878) “Der Irob-Saho in Abessinien”. In Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 90: 121-133. For the complete text see here.

The translation in Saho-Irob of the chapter 11 of the Gospel of John (“The Resurrection of Lazarus”) was made by Abba Tesfay Maryam, an Irob priest from Alitena. But it should be noticed that in his previous article “Das Saho-Volk” (1877), he says that the translator is called Abatye Gere-Maryam.

The text includes a German translation and a fidel transliteration of the latin Saho version. In the original article there are also some grammatical notes on the text.

Reinisch in his Wörterbuch der Saho-Sprache includes several other translations of verses of the Bible, from the books of Genesis (ch. 1, 27, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50), Ruth (ch. 1), Matthew (ch. 5, 10, 16, 26, 27), Mark (ch. 1, 5, 8, 14. 15) and, as in this article, John 11.

Translations of the Gospel of John and other biblical texts

Francis E. Mahaffy and his Saho translator

The following files are Saho language materials developed by the Rev. Francis E. Mahaffy, who served as a missionary of the American Evangelical Mission of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, worked in Eritrea from 1945 until 1968. He produced several booklets in Saho, mainly in the Minifire dialect:

– Yosef (The story of Joseph). See below.

– Abrahim (The Story of Abraham)

– Nabilla ‘esa Iyayto kinni? (Who is the Prophet Jesus?)

– Tracts on Fasting, Prayer, The Trinity

– Bible lessons 1-32

– The Ten Commandments

– The Young Children’s Catechism. See below.

– The Beatitudes

– The Religions

– The Glory of Mary

– Who is God? See below.

– Two Kind of Righteousness

– What Price Forgiveness?

and some other materials like Saho Primer (Book one and Book two – The booklets are available here and here), grammatical notes, etc. The main Saho translators were Mohammed Ali (from Faqhat Xarak – Minifire) and Ibrahim Ismail ‘Americano’ (from Gacaso – Minifire).

The list shown above is taken from Clarence W. Duff (1977) God’s Higher Ways. The birth of a Church. Nutley, NY: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. The book contains many references to the evangelistic work among the Saho in the second half of the XIX century.

For a short biography of Francis E. Mahaffy written by Moreno Vergari (from Siegbert Uhlig (ed.) Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Vol, 3, Harrasowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, p. 645) see here.

Mahaffy used a personal system of transcription for the Saho. Here below there is a table that compares his system with the official Saho orthographies of Eritrea (Latin) and Ethiopia (Fidel) and IPA, for the letters that are different from the ones used in Eritrea.

Source: Photo and texts below are taken from http://mahaffynet.net/?page_id=132

Injil Yohannes [Gospel of John]

Injil Yohannes_cover The translation of John was published in 1964 by Word Home Bible League.

7,000 copies were printed by Park Press (South Holland, IL – USA) and sent to Francis Mahaffy, American Evangelical Mission, Senafe (Eritrea).

Yosef [The story of Joseph]

Yosef_cover This booklet is the translation in Saho of the story of Joseph, (the son of Jacob and grandson of Abraham) taken form the book of Genesis (chapter 37, 39-50).

Yalli [God]

Yalli_cover This booklet speaks about the unicity of God.

Short Catechism

The booklet lists 54 questions and answers about the basic elements of the Christian faith.

The Good Samaritan

A Bible story, The Good Samaritan, translated into Saho by Rev. Francis E. Mahaffy during his time in Eritrea, Africa. The story was written sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. The notebook captures the translation work in progress. The story has the English version on one page and the Saho translation on the next. There is only one story in this notebook, the rest of the page are blank and not included in the PDF. See Saho Bible Stories below for more stories.

Source: https://ia902808.us.archive.org/12/items/SahoBibleStoriesGoodSamaritan/B3_As_BIBLE_STORIES.pdf

Saho Bible Stories

A collection of assorted Bible stories translated into Saho by Rev. Francis E. Mahaffy during his time in Eritrea, Africa. The stories were written sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. The notebook captures the translation work in progress, with handwritten corrections and changes on various pages. Most stories have the English version on one page and the Saho translation on the next (several stories are missing the English version).

Contents:
God Proves Abraham’s Faith
Moses’s Birth and Growth
Moses’ Call
Pharaoh Hardens His Heart
The Passover Lamb
Israel’s Exodus From Egypt
Crossing the Red Sea
Israel’s Journey to Sina
The Ten Commandments
Israel’s Fall
God’s Tent
Ananias and Sapphira
Moses’ Death
Joshua Divides Caanan [Canaan] to Israel
Gideon
The Twelve Spies
Psalm 23
Psalm 51:1-4 (From Heb.)

Source: https://ia802806.us.archive.org/29/items/SahoBibleStories/B6_SAHO_BIBLE_STORIES.pdf

Open Bible Stories

Door43 – Open licensed biblical content

An overview of the Bible contents in 50 stories with illustrations, at: https://door43.org/u/DokuWiki/ssy_obs/419e52e406/01.html

Injiil (Maatiyos, Markos, Luukas kee Yohannis)

All the four accounts of the life of Jesus (Yeesus) in Eritrean Saho. Published by Wycliffe Ethiopia.

Source: https://scriptureearth.org/00i-Scripture_Index.php?sortby=lang&ISO_ROD_index=1608

Audio recordings of Bible texts

GNR The Global Recordings Network (http://globalrecordings.net) has audio recordings of more then 6,000 languages and dialects of the World. There are also some recordings of Bible texts and stories in Saho language: