The Institute for Bible Translation (IBT, Moscow) has published the result of more than 15 years of work by a large international group of translators and biblical scholars – the translation of the Bible into the Chechen language. This is the fourth translation of the whole Bible in Russia after Russian, Chuvash and Tuvin. It is also the fourth translation of the whole Bible made by IBT in general - after Tajik (1992, IBT Stockholm), Georgian (2002, IBT Stockholm), and Tuvin (2011, IBT Moscow).
In the process of translation of the Bible into Chechen IBT published separate books as follows: John / Acts (1986, 1995), Luke (1998, 2004, 2010), Genesis, Ruth, Jonah (2002), Esther, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and the Book of Daniel (2005), the New Testament (2007) and "Bible Stories" (2010).
The Chechen language has a good literary tradition. The emergence of the written Chechen language dates back to the 18th century, when the Arabic script was adapted for the Chechen language. Later, in 1862, the first Chechen dictionary was produced based on the Cyrillic alphabet. Modern Chechen literature is represented by a variety of genres and writers.
This translation of the Bible in the Chechen language has the stamp of approval of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to reviews by experts in the Chechen language, "the translation has truly been a success.”
The print run of the Bible in the Chechen language is 2000 copies. Given the total number of native speakers (by the last census it is about 1.5 million people) this is not a large number, but we hope that it will be enough to satisfy the needs of libraries, churches and interested readers who want to get acquainted with the Bible in their native language.
