ASL Bible Available for Deaf Through New Technology

Miss-Delectable

Miss-Delectable

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ASL Bible Available for Deaf Through New Technology - Christian Newswire

Deaf Missions is announcing that the complete New Testament is now available in American Sign Language (ASL) for the handheld iPod or other MPEG-4 (mp4) media player. It is also compatible for use with a multimedia slide presentation. The Bible: ASL Translation to go is in data format. The Bible: ASL Translation - New Testament is also available on DVD and VHS.

The Omega Project began in 1981. The purpose of this project is to translate the entire Bible into the visual language of ASL. Scholars, translators and ASL specialists have worked as teams through the years to accomplish this huge task. The New Testament was completed in 2004. The Old Testament translation project continues.

When the project began, current technology was only imagined. That technology now allows the translation to be available through the portable handheld iPod. “The iPod version allows Deaf people to have a pocket New Testament in their own language” says Chad Entinger, Associate Director and Executive Director-Elect for Deaf Missions.

The Bible: ASL Translation to go - New Testament is available from Deaf Missions. A complete 5-set DVD is also available. For more information call 712-322-5493 or go to Deaf Missions: Home.

Contact: Joe Mathis (hearing) 712-322-5493, jmathis@deafmissions.com; Chad Entinger (Deaf) 712-322-5493 tty, chadentinger@deafmissions.com; both with Deaf Missions
 
That is something nice with the video ASL library and they said they would humbly request to make a donation of $5.00 if you want to help support their ministry, I just hope it is in KJV. God Bless !!!!! :angel:
 
Heath said:
That is something nice with the video ASL library and they said they would humbly request to make a donation of $5.00 if you want to help support their ministry, I just hope it is in KJV. God Bless !!!!! :angel:
Click to expand...

If it's in ASL from KJV, it'd be a translation of a bad translation of a bad translation... Not exactly the most accurate of sources.
 
Teresh said:
If it's in ASL from KJV, it'd be a translation of a bad translation of a bad translation... Not exactly the most accurate of sources.
Click to expand...

Hi Teresh, Why don't you actually go and read some of the books on Bible Versions from Book List
 
Interesting. From their website page at:

Deaf Missions: Program Samples & Trailers

I quote:

"“The Bible: ASL Translation” is the first translation of God's Word into American Sign Language. The New Testament and several books in the Old Testament are completed. Translation teams of ASL and original language experts work together to produce a translation that is both accurate and understandable, and which is not dependent on English translations of the Bible. English voice-overs are not included. Some of the many helpful features of this translation include sharp, colorful close-ups of the skilled Deaf signers; on-screen chapter and verse index for easy selection of Biblical passages; and helpful graphics, notes, maps and illustrations."

This sentence: "Translation teams of ASL and original language experts work together to produce a translation that is both accurate and understandable, and which is not dependent on English translations of the Bible." leads me to believe that they have used Greek and Aramaic sources. I would also feel very confident that they did not totally ignore the KJV or any of the other well-known English translations.

Translating one language to another is difficult at best and can be nearly impossible word-for-word since languages do not always contain the same words. I don't know ASL (yet) but I would venture to say that there must be some word somewhere that has to be spelled out from the original English audible language because ASL cannot accurately replicate the word. Now if you don't know that particular English word, spelling it by hand lettering is not going to help much. You can start to see the issues involved in translating any language. A more round about and descriptive phrases of examples may need to be signed in order to describe the original intent of a single English word. Perhaps the English word of "peripatetic" is one that would be difficult to sign. Spelling it out may not help any since few would know what it means. Now if we start adding a bunch of words to clearly explain the word so eveyone can understand that single word without changing the overall thought, we might then be accused of changing what the author wanted. :eek: Simply put, the job of a translator is not easy.

If anyone comes up with more info on this ASL translation, I'd be curious. At this point in time, I did not want to question the authors because I cannot understand their new signed version.

Oh well, back to reading the posts.

Dave
 
I did an internship at Deaf Missions back in the 90's and I am familiar with the process they use. The translation team (Hebrew, Greek, English, ASL language experts) translates from the original language the author used. They do not translate from English. All of the signers on the tapes are deaf native users of ASL. I got to watch them work, and know some of the people on the translation team. Very interesting and worthwhile work.
 
I've been a little curious today and doing some Internet searching. I see where this topic first came up early in 2004 on this forum in this thread:

http://www.alldeaf.com/deaf-news/7934-new-testament-translated-sign-language.html

There is also a more detailed discussion at the SignWriting List Forum from this thread that started in early 2002:

SignWriting List Forum

I found this article an interesting read from the National Catholic Office for the Deaf:

ARTICLES - National Catholic Office for the Deaf

Dave
 
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