Chosun Bible (KORWTL)

Overview

The Chosun Bible (조선어성경) is a Korean New Testament using North Korean dialect orthography and vocabulary. The term "Chosun" (조선) is the traditional and North Korean name for Korea. The underlying text derives from a translation commissioned by the North Korean government through the Chosun Christian Association in the 1970s and 1980s, based on the Common Translation Bible published by the Korean Bible Society in 1977. The North Korean government assembled a group of biblical linguists, including descendants of the original missionaries to North Korea, and printed 10,000 New Testaments in 1983 and 10,000 Old Testaments in 1984. A second edition combining both testaments was published in 1990 by the Pyongyang General Printing Factory with assistance from the United Bible Societies in China. [1] [2] This 2018 digital edition is released under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license with the designation "올미랭" (Way Truth Life).

Language and People

Korean (ISO 639-3: kor) is spoken by approximately 77,300,000 people in China. [Glottolog: kore1284]

The North Korean dialect (Chosun-eo / 조선어) differs from the South Korean standard (Hanguk-eo / 한국어) in vocabulary, orthography, and some grammatical conventions, reflecting decades of separate linguistic development since the division of the Korean peninsula. Voice of the Martyrs Korea, founded in 2003 by Rev. Dr. Eric Foley and Dr. Hyun Sook Foley, has been active in distributing North Korean dialect Bibles and broadcasting daily shortwave radio programs containing readings from the Chosun Bible by North Korean voice actors. [3] In 2015, Voice of the Martyrs Korea published the first North Korean/English Parallel Study Bible in partnership with Wycliffe MissionAssist (UK), SDOK (Netherlands), and Voice of the Martyrs US. [4]

References