Tabasaran New Testament

Tabasaran New Testament (TABIBT)

Overview

The Tabassaran New Testament is the first complete New Testament in the Tabassaran language, published in 2010 by the Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) in Moscow. Tabassaran is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Lezgic branch, spoken by the Tabassaran people in southern Dagestan, Russia. [1] The translation was produced incrementally: the Gospel of Mark appeared in 1997, the Gospel of Luke in 2000, and the Four Gospels and Acts in 2004, before the full New Testament was completed in 2010. [2] IBT has continued translating Old Testament books into Tabassaran, including Ruth and Jonah (2013), Esther and Daniel (2016), and Genesis and Proverbs (2018). [2] Tabassaran is notable for its complex morphology — the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records listed it as having the largest case system in the world, with 48 cases. [1] The language has been written in Cyrillic script since 1937, following earlier periods of Arabic (pre-1928) and Latin (1928-1937) orthography. [3]

Language and People

Tabassaran (ISO 639-3: tab) is spoken by approximately 126,980 people in Western Russia. [Glottolog: taba1259]

Publishing and Organizations

Published by IBT, Moscow. Translation type: First.

References