Edisana Ŋwed Abasi — Idere Scripture Portions (Nigeria)
Overview
Edisana Ŋwed Abasi ("the Word of God") is the Gospel of Luke in the Idere language of Cross River State and Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, published by Beyond Translation under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license and available via YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 4287; abbreviation: IDE). This represents the first scripture translation into Idere, produced through Beyond Translation's Church-Centric Bible Translation (CCBT) model in which local church leaders own and are custodians of the translated text. The title Ŋwed Abasi ("Word of God") uses the same Ibibio-Efik sacred vocabulary shared across the Cross River language area.
Language and People
Idere (ISO 639-3: ide) is a Niger-Congo language in the Cross River branch: Niger-Congo → Atlantic-Congo → Volta-Congo → Benue-Congo → Cross River → Lower Cross / Ibibio-Efik cluster. It is closely related to Ibibio, Efik, Annang, and the other languages of the Ibibio group.
The Idere community inhabits Cross River State and parts of Akwa Ibom State, southeastern Nigeria — in the Lower Cross River basin, one of the most linguistically diverse regions in Africa.
Estimated speakers: approximately 13,000 (Ethnologue).
Cultural Context
The Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria is characterized by extraordinary linguistic density — dozens of distinct languages are spoken within a few hundred kilometers, many by communities of only a few thousand people. The Ibibio-Efik language cluster to which Idere belongs has a long history of literacy and Christian mission dating to the 19th-century Calabar mission (founded 1846 by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland). The shared liturgical vocabulary (Ŋwed Abasi for "Word of God," Abasi for "God") reflects the influence of Efik Christianity across the region.
Publishing and Organizations
Published by Beyond Translation (beyondtranslation.org, Arlington, Texas) under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.