Jarawa (Gwak) Scripture Portions
Overview
The Jarawa scripture portions represent 9 books of the New Testament in the Gwak language of Nigeria, published in 2023 by The Seed Company in collaboration with the Language Developers and Bible Translators Association (LDBTA) and available via YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 3644; abbreviation: JGK). The 9 books are: Mark, John, Acts, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and James — 115 chapters total. The title "Jarawa" is the Hausa exonym; the community's own name for themselves and their language is Jar (or Gwak).
The Seed Company's publishing credit reflects their role as distribution and resource partner; the Language Developers and Bible Translators Association is the primary translation organization. The copyright on YouVersion reads © 2023 Language Developers and Bible Translators Association.
Language and People
Gwak (ISO 639-3: jgk; also called Jar, Jara, Jarawa, Jarawan Bununu, Gingwak; Glottolog: jara1263) is a Niger-Congo language in the Benue-Congo → Southern Bantoid → Jarawan languages subgroup. It is "the most populous of the Jarawan languages." The exonym "Jarawa" comes from Hausa, meaning "the Jar people" — derived from the community's own autonym Jar.
In 2012, SIL/ISO reorganized the original Jarawa (Nigeria) code into Gwak [jgk] and Bankal [jjr] due to marginal mutual intelligibility between the two dialect clusters; Gwak retained the main ISO designation and the larger speaker population.
The Gwak-speaking community lives primarily near Bauchi City in Bauchi Local Government Area, Bauchi State, northeastern Nigeria, with speakers extending into Adamawa and Plateau States. The broader Jarawan dialect cluster has an estimated ~250,000 speakers (Ethnologue); Gwak is classified as vigorous (EGIDS 6a) with stable intergenerational transmission.
The Gwak community practices Christianity alongside traditional religion, and is located in Nigeria's northern Middle Belt zone — an area where Christian, Muslim, and traditional religious communities coexist.
Publishing and Organizations
Published by The Seed Company in partnership with the Language Developers and Bible Translators Association (LDBTA). The Seed Company (a Wycliffe Bible Translators affiliate, founded 1993) provides translation consulting, funding, and distribution support; LDBTA is the local Nigerian organization that led the translation project. This is consistent with Seed Company's model of accelerating NT completion through partnerships with indigenous translation organizations.