Open Godʼs Word in Contemporary Chichewa (NYAOGW)

Overview

Open God’s Word in Contemporary Chichewa (Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero) is a full Bible in the Chichewa language, published by Biblica with an initial New Testament copyright of 2002 and a complete Bible edition in 2016. The full Bible was launched in Malawi in late 2017, making it the first contemporary-language full Bible in Chichewa. ^[1] The project reportedly took three generations of effort to complete. ^[1] While Chichewa has had Scripture since the early 1900s — the traditional Buku Lopatulika (Holy Bible) was first printed in 1922, translated by a commission of Dutch Reformed Church missionaries and Malawian contributors — that version uses archaic language that many younger readers find difficult to understand. ^{[2] [3]} The Chewa people are the largest ethnic group in Malawi, and this contemporary translation was designed to be accessible to modern Chichewa speakers across Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique.

Language and People

Nyanja (ISO 639-3: nya) is spoken by approximately 14,381,000 people in Malawi. [Glottolog: nyan1308]

Publishing and Organizations

Published by Biblica. Translation type: First.

References

• [1] Chichewa full Bible a first in Malawi - Mission Network News, 2017. Report on the Biblica Chichewa Bible launch.
• [2] Buku Lopatulika turns 100 - Bible Society of Malawi. History of the 1922 Chichewa Bible.
• [3] New Chichewa Bible launched in Mzuzu - Malawi24, 2017. Coverage of the Bible launch event.
• Full Bible - Online text, Faith Comes By Hearing
• Nyanja/Chewa (1906) Bible - Internet Archive. 1906 Nyanja Bible published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
• find.bible entry - find.bible. Bible catalogue entry for NYAOGW.
• Global Bible Catalogue - Global Bible Catalogue entry.
• bible.com - YouVersion.
• ebible.org entry - ebible.org.