This site is home to an ongoing Bible translation project into the Romani language spoken in North Macedonia. The Romani language is spoken by the Roma people, who have their origins in India but are now found all over the world. The language varies significantly by country, due to the fact that several divergent dialects exist and the fact that a very large proportion of Romani vocabulary is borrowed from the language of the country they are living in. Although there are already translations of the Bible completed and in progress in a number of different Romani dialects, we felt that there was a great need for a separate translation into the Arli dialect of North Macedonia.
The Arli dialect of Romani is the most prominent dialect spoken in Shutka, the world’s single largest Roma community (located outside of Skopje), and is also understood throughout North Macedonia. The language is primarily oral and lacks a standardized writing system.
We began our translation work in 2020 and are currently working through the New Testament. Using the Konstantinov translation of the Bible in Macedonian as a model, we translate into Romani, referring to the original Greek as well as the Macedonian Orthodox translation of 2006, a Serbian translation, and several English translations. The goal is a balance between retaining the meaning and wording of the original Greek and expressing that meaning in clear Romani as it is actually spoken and understood by the Roma of North Macedonia. This task, of course, demands a great deal of prayer, time, communication between translators, research, attention to detail, and checking and re-checking. Once the translation of a particular chapter has been finalized, an audio version is recorded. The audio version can be accessed on this site or on YouTube. On this site, users can listen to the audio version and simultaneously read the text version if they so choose.