The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1937-09-09
The Urdu Bible
By REV. EDGAR CoRDELL POWERS,
Executive Secretary

Executive Secretary
1t has been poined out in these arti-
cles that the two great agencies con-
cerned with translating and distribut-
ing the Holy Scriptures are the Brit
ish and Foreign and the American BIZ
BILE Societies. Their work is done coop
| eratively each contributing it's share
to the work of translation, and never
duplicating any activity. This leads to
most efficient handling of transla-
ton and fine comfy in the field.
Mr.. W. H. L. Church, the British
and Foreign Bible Society's Secretary
in the Panjab, India, gives an inter-
esting account of the way in which
English words have slipped into good
use in the Urdu tongue. Commerce has
paved the way for this. In Northern
India garage announces in Persian
script, but using the English word
translitterated, Batteries recharged
and repaired" or on an office door,
"Life Insurance" Even on the street
English words and expressions find
increasing favor with the educated
classes.
Mr.. Church points out that the Urdu
Bible has few examples of this trend
toward adoption of English words, as
'kan'shaus" for Conscience" and
appeal "apil' in Urdu and
mill" for mile"
The first attempt to translate the
Scriptures into Urdu was made by
Danish Missionary named Schultze,
nearly two hundred years ago. Very
few copies of this edition are now in
existence. Seventy years elapsed be-
fore another attempt was made. This
time the work was undertaken by
Henry Martyr, who completed the
New Testament in March, 1903. This
proved to be a fundamental achieve
ment on which succeeding translators
could build. A great Chancellor of Ex-
eter said of Martyrs work: "He put
his soul into his sentences and He that
dwelt in his soul condescended to dwell
in his sentences, too" 1t was thirty
six years later that he completed the
Old Testament. Several revisions of
this text have been made, notably in
1860, 1870, 1893 and 1904. The last re-
vision was made by a group about
100 per cent native Indians, and all
admirably qualified for such task.
Four sets of alphabets, Arabic, Dew
angari, Persian and Roman, have been
used for printing the Scriptures in
Urdu, the two latter being now in gen.
eral use.
Urdu books, periodicals and even
daily papers are now printed by litho-
graph, which means that every word
had to be written out by hand. The
whole Bible has been written out in
this manner at least four times. No
writer could regularly write more
than two pages, of the Bible size, a
day, or over 600 days for the whole,
without allowing any time for cor
recting mistakes or proof reading.
More than one writer was necessarily
employed, and there could be for that
reason no absolute uniformity.
Since 1913 the New Testament has
been printed from electrotpyes, thus
doing away with the necessity for re-
writing the text when a new edition
is needed.
By 1885 the Bible Society had pub
lished editions of Bibles, Testaments
and Portions aggregating almost g.
100000 copies, making Urdu third in
the list of it's Indian publication,
headed only by Tamil and Hindu.
Urdu is recognized as one of most
important of the Indian languages.
1t is the main channel of instruction in
all schools in the Panjab, Northwest
Frontier Province and Kashmir; also
in many of those of the United Pro-
vinces. 1t has become the Church Ian
guage over wide area, roughly en-