David Frank and collaborators spent 26 years translating the Bible into Gullah, a language of slaves still spoken by about 10,000 people in Sea Island, South Carolina. The result? De Nyew Testament.
No matter how often he read Psalm 23, Emory Campbell never could understand that line. "I shall not want: What does that mean?" he'd ask himself.
Then he joined a project to translate the Bible into the language of his ancestors — the language of slaves who toiled for centuries in rice paddies off the Carolina coast.
That first line became: "De Lawd me shephud. A hab ebryting wa A need." I have everything I need.
The word 'Gullah' translated into English means 'people too lazy to pick up a dictionary'. This translated from English to Gullah is 'weez be to week in da hed to stan enlish'.
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