Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of the Free State
Doi
Abstract
Many texts written in Eastern Turki, the short-lived successor to Chagatai (ISO 639-3 code CHG) used in East Turkistan from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, have survived thanks to Western, particularly Swedish, missionaries. The Swedish Mission, active in Kashgar, Yarkent, and Altishahr played a major role in producing and preserving these texts. Their 50-year effort to translate the Bible into Eastern Turki culminated in the 1922 Gospel of Luke(Lucas Evangelium),prepared by David Gustafsson and Oskar Hermansson in Kashgar. This article analyses the equivalence of religious terminology in this translation and compares it with the Greek and Hebrew originals. Particular attention is paid to the translators’ use of Islamic or “Muslim-friendly” terminology – an issue that remains highly relevant to modern Bible translation debates. The findings show that adopting culturally familiar expressions enhanced both the comprehensibility and acceptability of the text among East Turkistani readers
