The Clash of the Ideals of the BT Strategy and the On-The-Ground Realities of Language Diversity

The Bible Translation Movement (BTM) celebrates language diversity and the Bible in the vernacular; a Bible for every language that needs it has much appeal, in the abstract. However, it clashes with the very real problems associated with language diversity—not just diversity at the country level, but diversity in small regions within the country.

Verlovic (2007) introduced super-diversity to explain instances of high ethnolinguistic diversity in the world's metropolitan centers. This phenomenon was explained as a function of the in-flow of many ethnolinguistic communities through migration and urbanization. This has been assumed to be, primarily, a feature of the modern urban landscape. Census data from Nepal, however, demonstrate that some rural regions exhibit high language diversity--an amalgamation of many ethnolinguistic communities in a single set of villages (Watters and Kidwell, 2024). Early indications in census data from Vietnam and Indonesia suggest similar patterns of concentrated admixtures of ethnolinguistic communities even in rural areas.

This paper examines the ethical dilemma this phenomenon poses for the BTM, showing that the linguistic ideal is what drives expatriate Bible translation strategy. The on-the-ground pragmatic situation of language diversity, on the other hand, is what drives local churches, which must adjudicate between the social and political realities of ethnolinguistic communities, and which must take account of much more than linguistic ideals. This adjudication often recognizes that there is no one language that is "the" language of the local church. This paper argues that the linguistic-ideal strategy fails to account for the communal nature of these linguistically diverse communities which often perceive that the common good is to be preferred over individual rights, including individual linguistic rights. This misalignment calls for new Bible translation strategies that take better account of the locally-perceived ethical landscape.