Language maps
I find cartography facinating. There’s a map shop on one of the bridges in Bath that I could spend hours in. It’s stacked with maps from all over the world, many hand drawn, showing what the world used to look like from above – or at least what we thought it looks like.
Did you know that Britain is the best mapped country in the world? All thanks to the Ordnance Survey whose origins can be traced back to 1747 (at least according to Wikipedia).
Anyway, this was just a long link to a map that I discoverd this morning, thanks to the Pediatrician in Bostwana blog. He linked to the Missions Atlas Project which maps Bible translation taking place around the world. Well worth a look.
Tanzania Bible Translation
I love maps too. The really old maps get my attention. I think I remember that shop in bath.
Yeah, I love maps too and it’s fascinating to see this kind of thing. It’s worth bearing in mind that the maps are only as good as the information they’re based on though! Some parts of the Tanzania map are quite inaccurate and will be updated in the next edition of the Ethnologue.
Another issue is that for some of the languages marked as having a Bible or New Testament, the Scriptures are either no longer available or the language has changed so the Bible isn’t understandable. So the reality is there are only a small handful of languages with adequate New Testaments or Bibles.
On the positive side there are quite a few language communities marked as having nothing that are in the process of just starting translation!