Benamanga New Testament
Overview
The New Testament in Benamanga was published by The Word for the World International (TWFTW). It is available online via YouVersion/Bible.com (New Testament, 27 books).
Note on country: All linguistic databases (Ethnologue, Joshua Project, SIL) place Benamanga (ISO 639-3: egm) in Tanzania, not the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country_id has been corrected to TZ accordingly.
Language and People
Benamanga (ISO 639-3: egm) is a Bantu language belonging to the Niger-Congo family, classified within the Bena-Kinga group (Guthrie zone G.63). It is spoken by the Bena Manga people, a community representing an intermingling of the Bena and Kinga ethnic groups in southwestern Tanzania.
The Benamanga-speaking area lies in the Njombe Region of Tanzania (historically part of the Iringa Region before Njombe was separated as a new region in 2012), in the southern highlands. The broader Bena people number approximately 600,000 and inhabit the Njombe District between Mdandu and Njombe town. The Benamanga sub-group is smaller; exact speaker numbers are not well documented, and Ethnologue notes that direct evidence of language vitality is limited, though the language is thought to be in active first-language use within the community. Benamanga is not taught in schools.
The Bena are an agriculturally oriented people, cultivating Irish potatoes, maize, wheat, peas, beans, pyrethrum, and coffee as major crops. They are closely related to the Kinga, who live in Makete District of the Njombe Region and Mbeya Region.
Publishing and Organizations
The Word for the World International (TWFTW) is an indigenous-led Bible translation organization founded in South Africa in 1981. It operates in 32 countries across Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, with translation programs in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo among others. TWFTW focuses on empowering national translators to produce translations for their own language communities. As of recent reports, the organization has completed 94 New Testaments and 7 full Bibles across its 373 active projects.