The Olivers In Thailand

During the summer whilst the Oliver family were back in England, work continued on checking of the Wa Bible. On our return to Chiang Mai it was our turn to produce the typeset (Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Left to right: Adrian, Jenny, Dr Paul (sponsor), Pastor Joseph, Pastor John (Wa translator), team member, Pastor Niti, more team ...

We still have a little more work to do on the layout to get the format as compact as possible to achieve a lower page count and thus lower paper cost.

In the mean time, I have built some checks into our text-to-USFM conversion program. The program now checks for matching pairs of quotes (single or double) within a chapter. It also checks that each reference marker has a corresponding reference defined, and also that each reference defined has a corresponding usage marker.

This simple checking has reported about 1000 errors that need to be checked and corrected.

It has been interesting to realise how the whole process of Bible translation has been transformed over the years by the use of computers.

We have been given the opportunity to try out a prototype of a new Bible editing tool. It has some useful features but the main point is that the tool is "aware" of the basic structure of the Bible which is consistent for most translations regardless of the language used. I.e. there are a fixed number of books each with a known number of chapters, paragraphs and verses. Once the name of each book is defined, cross-reference text can be automatically generated.

It is fascinating to consider the use of these tools in remote third-world settings.

We have also learned that software exists to produce a translation from one language into other languages that have the same structure and grammar rules. This enables new translations to be produced in significantly less time than previously taken.