Amarakaeri New Testament (AMRWBT)

Overview

The New Testament in Amarakaeri (Jesucristo oy oaꞌpak: Kenda Jesucristoa) was published in 2008 by Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc., completing a translation effort that began when SIL linguists initiated contact with the Amarakaeri subgroup of the Harakmbut people in 1957. [1] SIL's fieldwork produced orthographies and bilingual materials through the 1960s and 1970s, with the first New Testament translation completed in 1986; the 2008 publication represents a subsequent revision. [2] Amarakaeri belongs to the Harakmbut language family, a language isolate spoken along the Madre de Dios and Colorado rivers in the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru. [3] The Harakmbut, of whom the Amarakaeri are the most numerous subgroup, inhabit the Amazonian rainforest of Madre de Dios and were first contacted by members of the Dominican Order around 1940, at which time their population was estimated at 30,000; the Amarakaeri specifically sought medical assistance from a Dominican mission in 1951, marking a significant shift toward engagement with outsiders. [2] [4] Subsequent contact, rubber exploitation, and disease reduced the Harakmbut population dramatically to roughly 1,910 speakers today. [2] The experience of the Amarakaeri with SIL missionaries was the subject of an academic study by Thomas Moore published in Dialectical Anthropology in 1979, examining the broader impacts of missionary-linguistic contact on the community. [5] The language has several alternate names including Amarakaire, Amaracaire, and Mashco. [3]

Language and People

Aratbuten huaʼa (ISO 639-3: amr) is spoken by approximately 1,910 people in Peru. [Glottolog: amar1274]

Publishing and Organizations

Published by Wycliffe Bible Translators USA.

References