Bible translations into Malay

By the sixteenth century, Protestant European nations like the Dutch Republic and England had begun to encroach into the traditional realms of influence of the Catholic Portuguese in the Malay Archipelago.

As a result of Islamisation and growth in trade with the Muslim world, this era witnessed the penetration of Arabic and Persian vocabulary into Malay.

[4] The first complete translation of the Bible in Malay was begun by Melchior Leydekker on the order of the church authorities in Batavia and was officially sponsored by the VOC from 1691.

[2] The Bible was only published in 1733 as its publication was delayed by the Rev Francois Valentijn while he completed his translation in the Moluccas dialect of Malay.

Partially as a result of the Batavian Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the Dutch no longer held a dominant position in the region and British influence was increasingly present with the establishment of several colonies and protectorates in the Malay peninsula and Borneo.

[8] It was in this period that the Anglican chaplain of the British Settlement of Penang, the Rev Robert Sparke Hutchings, attempted to correct Leydekker's translation.

[2] While awaiting permission to enter China, the London Missionary Society (LMS) established a mission station in Malacca.

Pioneered by William Milne, Malacca was deemed suitable due to its location on the ordinary trade routes to China as well as having a sizable Chinese population.

Aware of Munshi Abdullah's criticism of the Leydekker translation, the LMS sent Claudius Henry Thomsen in 1815 with the specific assignment to work among the Malay people.

Despite their close cooperation in the revision, Munshi Abdullah remained dissatisfied with the work, partially due to the religious vocabulary used — like "Kerajaan Surga" (Kingdom of Heaven), "Mulut Allah" (Word of God), "Anak Allah" (Son of God) and "Bapa-ku yang ada di Surga" (My Father, who art in Heaven) — that may have offended his Muslim sensibilities.

[2] Revision of the Thomsen and Burns translation was undertaken almost immediately after Thomsen left Malaya in 1832 by John Stronach of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions on the instruction of James Legge, the missionary in charge of the LMS work in Malacca, in view of publishing a second edition of the Malay New Testament.

[11] The closure of the LMS mission in the Straits Settlements in 1847 left the work of translating the Bible in British Malaya solely in the hands of Benjamin Keasberry and his long time language teacher, Munshi Abdullah.

[14][15] Meanwhile in the Dutch East Indies, a German missionary working in Surabaya, Johannes Emde, published a revision of Leydekker's translation into the local dialect in 1835.

[16] Valentijn's earlier translation in the Moluccas dialect of Low Malay in 1677 was rejected by the VOC who then had a monopoly on religious instruction and publication in the East Indies and was never published.

Another noteworthy translation into Ambonese Malay was done by Bernhard Nikolaas Johann Roskott (1811-1873), who was a Dutch missionary in Ambon, in what is now Indonesia.

Klinkert, who was married to a local woman, found that his wife was unable to understand the Leydekker translation that was written in literary Malay.

The appreciation of language grew and various efforts were undertaken by the community to further enhance the usage of Malay as well as to improve its abilities in facing the challenging modern era.

Among the efforts done was the planning of a corpus for Malay language, first initiated by Pakatan Belajar-Mengajar Pengetahuan Bahasa (Society for the Learning and Teaching of Linguistic Knowledge), established in 1888.

In 1890, the Anglican Bishop of Labuan, Sarawak and Singapore, George Hose, had written to the BFBS saying that even Keasberry's translation needed to be revised to make it more accessible "for Eurasians, Chinese, Klings (sic), etc.

[20]A revision committee was set up consisting of Bishop Hose, W. H. Gomes of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and a Methodist missionary, William Shellabear.

In 1899, Shellabear was appointed chief reviser by the BFBS and assigned to work full time to complete a new Malay translation of the New Testament.

[21] Shellabear's work was aided by Bishop Hose as well as Muhammad Ibrahim Munsyi, the son of Munshi Abdullah who also served as a scribe in the court of the Sultan of Johore.

The translation work was mired by occasionally acrimonious disputes between the various parties that had an interest in the publication of the Bible; the BFBS, NBG, the Methodist Publishing House (formerly the Mission Press established by Shellabear), the Anglican Church and the British administration.

The British administration had introduced a standardised Romanised spelling for the Malay language in 1902 and the BFBS with the support of Bishop Hose wanted to use it.

A compromise was finally reached where it was agreed that both versions would be printed by the BFBS and the Methodist Publishing House respectively and sold at the same price.

The argument eventually revolved on the suitability of the Dutch East Indies translated versions for use in the Malay Peninsula, both from a linguistic and Romanised spelling perspective.

He was also adamant on the use of language that would appeal to Muslims, insisting on the use of Isa Al-Masih for Jesus Christ instead of Yesus Kristus that was commonly used in the translations from the Dutch East Indies.

The BFBS considered withdrawing from the project despite positive comments received from officials such as Richard Olaf Winstedt and Harold Cheeseman.

As a German national, Bode was interred by the Dutch authorities and the ship carrying him to Britain from India was sunk by the Japanese resulting in the loss of a partial set of translated Old Testament manuscripts.

[28] In 2015, representatives from the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship, the Methodist Church in Malaysia, the Sidang Injil Borneo and other Christian churches formed the Literature and Bible Network or LAB Network to publish and distribute the new completed translation known as the Alkitab Versi Borneo (transl.