Summer Institute of Linguistics
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DOI: 10.7252/Archives.He.0195 Correspondence of Rodger Hedlund: Summer Institute of Linguistics Archives Special Collection: Papers of Roger Hedlund Digital version at http://place.asburyseminary.edu/rogerhedlundpapers/ The copyright of this material belongs to Asbury Theological Seminary’s Archives, B.L. Fisher Library. These items are available for noncommercial and educational uses, such as research, teaching and private study. B.L. Fisher Library has licensed the digital version of this work under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ . For all other uses, contact: B.L. Fisher Library Archives Asbury Theological Seminary 204 N. Lexington Ave. Wilmore, KY 40390 - Box 2270 lVTanill'l, Philippi n '::' 2flfJ I PhOlW: Gfl3· -I776 Callt· !\.( <lre-s: LL"lG II. "rA .•f.\i'\JLA , v ia RC AREA DIREC10R Daniel H. Wea l1c r August 13. 1982 ASSO I Ar~ A REA DI TOR Don Gregson Dr Roger E. Hedlund Church Growth Research Centre Poat Bag 768 Kilpauk. Madras INDIA 600 010 Dear Dr Hedlund. Don Gregson returned from his recent trip which included the INA Confere ce and brought with a copy of your book B the C h and your paper "Uureached Peoples Research s." ve enjoyed reading theee very much and pro.pted~ ask a couple questions. One of the you often aention is (Bihar W. Bengal. M.P., Orissa. etc.). These people are also Kurux Kurukh), and other things as well. We are particularly interested in knowing if there ia an active progra. of Bible tranalation going on at the present time. (The New Testa.ent was completed-- or rather. publiahed-- in 1950 for one of the dialects. In survey work I had done in the mid-seventies I found that this translation wa. not in use and that in two dialects it was not even intelligible due to language c etc.) The Bible Society of India had begun a new translation for • the Oraon. at Ranchi but I believe this has been discontinued. Do you have any information' Another group you mentioned was the Sorry I it was not you but Ebeaezer Sundaraj-- located in Raj.a of Bihar along the bend in the Gange.. Anyway ••• Ebenezer gives this group a. one of the receptive people. of India. (The Ma1ars are rather closely related to the Oraona, yet distinct.) Do you have any inforaation in your files reagrding this group? Who/which groups of Malars are receptive? Who are working among the.? Is there any Bible translation going on1 (Some of the Malar are .lrt ly monolingual.) Another question: have you identified additional staff to help you gather data in tbe field? (I have seen oorrespondence between you and Warren Glover and Don Greg8on, but we have.'t heard back trom you on this.) Would you consider having such field personnel trained in sociolinguistic survey techniques? I ask that beoause the Central Inatitiute of Indian Languages (CIIL). X;ysore. have beea doing socio- linguistio and part of the reason for doing thea bas been to -2- determine if Yernaeular liter cy aaterials and literature are needed. (In one group, the KuYi of Koraput. Orieea, CIIL haTe produced a Pri and Copybook.) I'm not sure to what extent CIIL viII seek literacy and literature production s for Indian Yernaoulars but I think their sensitivity to the need in this area indicate that surveys done for evangeli and growth purposes ..y need to haye a strong sooiolinguistic orientation. What do you think' Please let us know how we may subscribe (pay for) the Church Growth Bulletin published by CGRC. Did you oyerlap at Fuller with Wayne Dye (SIL, Papua New Guinea)? Yours in Shepherd's Care, Kent Gordon Aeade.ie Coordinator Mr. nt Gordon, e Coordl tor 24 r, 1982. Summer Institute of ltngufstics 2270 ' en' 1., Phflfppfnes 2801. r Hr. Gordona Tn you for r 1 of ust '13, 19 2. I s tor th w kl, p th Y in wrttl • Let at t • brf 1, to your questfons. 1) I lorry I no further fnfo~tlon on It UI translation project. can r. cont~t b 1. Soct ty ..d 1et you know t rep y. MOnth I going to fhar II Inqufre there. 2) ,t Ie. contal n no 1",o".tl on thf I group • Sorry. • 1",' no ot our men to I •• If he can find "tn" re. , 3) I 11 that ,OU I • a researeh coord' r f n the 0"1 c. we r ft reJectl fn .s. do trat 'Ie tn I eldl 81 are pra,f no and ing for ndten I tely to tlon. In •• GR ' TM ICC .1 s tted to ncfple 0' working In rtMrshfp with t •• d purposes. would cert n y be , t n 0' the.. lona. ' the tt .e ledge peop 1e with .oct te.I/1t ngulst' logic ort on tor re ...rch end "I no. be Of unfwrlfty "secul.r" sources to .... hel In thta .re•• • • ~') h ... off.red this' or , on on I. our t d, hal run out COnsfderlng 81ter tvea. In Indt we , ..1 ton- rf ton 0' 10/a ..... Id • ,. U•• • ( f • , 5) '.s I did at 'ull.,. 1, I hi. wf • , ",. We prar 'or God" g1or,. AI 'u 1., I to • • , • , , • , • • • d1 1 Is • fn 11tp f 6) f d cor I • regson f ch I d not r. is ttl not 1 recall tht s cor • 1 do let f r n Glo.r ,. ,. , 1982. Whtch I about to • Sorry tf I over 1 f ng. Our offl ce peop Ie notr 11 vtng thts corre • Let rs tt t • Is tng I'd to In this reg • Ag 'n. • for wrf t ng. • Your' 'n Chr'st, • • I. 1 • cc: Dr. ran • GI • • • a • • • • • • • • • • • • • I • • • , • • • • - - Box 2270 ,1onila. PhiJippin s 2801 Phom': 693·-:1776 Cabl Acldr ('~' : LING Ur. T l\lA. ILA, AREA DIRECTOR Daniel H. Weaver ASSOCIATE AREA DIRE.CTOR Don Gregson October 19, 1982 Dr, Roger E. Hedlund Church Growth Research Centre Post Bag 768 Kilpauk Madras 600 010 INDIA Dear Dr. Hedlund, Thank you for your le·tter of September 24. Thanks, too, for making l.nqU1.r1.es. " reqarding the status of the Oraon trans lation project. I will certainly look forward to any news you have as a result of your visit to Bihar. Regarding the Maler (language name: Malto) our updated Ethnologue entry reads as follows: HALTO (MALTI, MALTU, MALPAHARIA, RAJMAHALI ): 88,645 (1961 census) . Bihar (Rajmahal hills) , vlest Bengal. Dialects" KUMARBHAG MALTO, ~l.ALPA HARIA MALTO , SAHRIYA (SAURIA) MALTO. (One section of the tribe called Marpaharia--distinct from Malpahariya--speak a dialect of Bengali not too unlike the Kharia Thar of ManbhLlm (Bihar). SAWRIYA speakers num- bered 53,576 in 1965 (Mahapatra 1979.9). Dravidian family, Northern branch , Kurux-Halto group. Portions 1889. possible translation need. As you can see , we have given ~1alto the rather nebulous distinction "possible translation need" because of a lack of information regarding what, if any, translation work is being done and also because of lack of sociolinguistic inforlilation regarding the viability of Halto for purposes of separate trans lation/literacy efforts. It seems a safe hypothesis that at least the Saw riya dialect of Malto is a viable translation/literacy need. It is also a safe hypothesis that however many Malto speaking Christians there are, they have been assimilated into a non-~-1al to speaking Christian community. That is, we have no evidence at all that there is a MalLo speaking church in the Malto speaking areas. I see from Warren Glover ' s letter to you of September 30th) stating his be lief, that it would be difficult to find support from indigenous Indian mis- Slons• source for a man engaged in r search. I think this is to be noted with sadness and yet with the hope that the underlying situation viz., that such ministries are not "spiritual" , may be changing. At the moment we are looking to the Lord for provision of an SIL team to lead what we are calling "1\s ssing the Task Surveys" for Asia. One of the outstanding needs for 1\sia is, of course, India where in spite of the availability of puhlished bits and pieces of information regarding the people/language groups,we lack specific statistics regarding language use , language attitudes , linguistic distinctive ness, and language viability--kinds of things which need to be assessed in order to determine whether there be translation/literacy need or not. Speci fically we are looking to the Lord for the provision of a Commonwealth team who would head up a sociolinguistic survey geared to assessing the remaining translation task in India and neighboring countries. In the meantime, we are assembling as much information r garding each people/language group in India and surrounding countries as we can , relevant to determining translation/ literacy need . Essentially, our interim task here amounts to keeping the Ethn9- • 4 logue updated. (I am assuming you have a copy of the 1978 edition of the Ethno- logue published by WJeliffe Bible Translat rs. An upclated edition is due to come out later this year or early in 1983 , I believe. Even so , the usefulness of the Ethnologue will primarily be in the ar a of indicating where we need to do more extensive survey as indicated , for example, by the recurring phrase in the India section of the Ethnologue , "possible translation need" .) It is envisaged that the leader of such a survey in India would amon~ other things be involved in training nationals,whom Lhe Lord would raise UR in sociolinguistic survey techniques.