Fijian New Version (FIJBSP)

Overview

The Fijian New Version (Ai Vola Tabu Ena Vakavakadewa Vou) is a contemporary Fijian-language Bible published by the Bible Society in the South Pacific. It represents a modern revision of Fijian Scripture, updating the language to sound more natural for today's speakers. [1] The history of Bible translation in Fijian dates to the earliest Wesleyan Methodist missionary work in Fiji. In 1835, David Cargill and William Cross arrived on Lakeba Island and began developing the first written form of Fijian. [2] Rev. John Hunt, a farmworker from Lincolnshire who arrived in the same period, mastered the Bauan dialect and translated the entire New Testament directly from Greek, completing it before his death in 1848 at age 36. [3] The Fijian New Testament was published in 1853, and the complete Bible (Ai Vola Tabu) appeared between 1858 and 1864, with David Hazelwood and Frederick Langham completing the Old Testament work. [4] The missionaries' translation established Fijian orthography and transformed Fijian from an exclusively oral language into a written one. [2]

References

Language and People

Fijian (ISO 639-3: fij) is spoken by approximately 334,710 people in Fiji. [Glottolog: fiji1243]

Publishing and Organizations

Published by Bible Society in the South Pacific.

References