Until recently members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in Myanmar lacked access to a translation of the Book of Mormon in their own Burmese language. The saints in Myanmar could only read the Book of Mormon in English. Ruth Phyu, a freshman finance major from Myanmar, said she served as part of the committee to translate the book into Burmese. It is now available on Gospel Library app.
When she was first introduced to the Church at age 18, Phyu said she preferred to read the King James Version of the Bible because it was available in Burmese and was easier for her to understand. “When I first read the Book of Mormon, it was in English. The church in my home city offered free English classes taught by a senior missionary couple. I went there to learn better English but months later, I started investigating the Church.”
For Phyu, reading the Book of Mormon in English was a challenge as opposed to the Bible. “I wasn’t really sure if I could read the whole Book of Mormon,” she said. “I spoke no English. A lot of the words in the book like ‘nevertheless’ were hard to understand."
When she read from the Book of Mormon, she said she would have a dictionary to help her understand words she didn’t know. “It was such a long process trying to read God’s word in a language I could barely understand.”
YinPhyu Lwin, a freshman also from Myanmar majoring in elementary education, said she had a similar experience reading the Book of Mormon in English. “When I read for the first time, I had no idea. I looked at the dictionary, but it was still hard to understand. There were so many deep words. I asked the senior missionaries to read with me. They ended up making a group of people to read every Sunday. We read together and the missionaries could explain for us.”
Phyu said three years ago, the Church began to make plans for an official Burmese translation of the Book of Mormon. “At the time we had been doing unofficial translations for the members in the branches. The missionaries would translate the parts they used most often, like the famous scriptures.
“Brother Wall from Utah came over from the Book of Mormon translation team and began interviewing people for the translation project. I was brought on as part of the team while they began the translation process.” Along with Phyu, Lwin was also made a part of the reviewing team.
Originally Phyu believed a translation from English to Burmese would be easy. Previously the members in Myanmar had translated the written word of the Book of Mormon into whatever best fit for them. This resulted in mistranslations, she said.
“With the translation team’s guidelines, everything is so strict,” Phyu said. “We had to translate the text into Burmese like it was. We could not add anything or change around the meaning of certain words. It was hard, but very few things were lost in translation during the process.
“In the Book of Mormon, there are a lot of phrases which begin with ‘for behold,’ ‘and it came to pass’ or ‘nevertheless.’ In Burmese, these words and phrases have a different meaning, and it seemed awkward to add them in, but we [the translators] did it anyway. Small details and words needed to be kept. In our language the translation still carries the same meaning over into English.
“We had one main translator and three reviewers, plus an ecclesiastical counselor. Once we finished translating, the translation would be sent to Church headquarters for review. It would come back to us to review again. I was the second reviewer, who would take a look at any errors and send it over to the main translator. The main translator would look at my notes and pray about them. We had to repeat this process two or three times.”
According to Lwin, having the Book of Mormon translated to Burmese is so important to have. "Most of the people in Myanmar can’t read the Book of Mormon in English. They have to rely on the missionary to read with them in the Book of Mormon class that is only once a week on Monday. Also missionaries in Myanmar are so happy because they can share and teach their investigators in Burmese. It’s much easier for those people to feel the Spirit.”
Jared Butler, a sophomore from California double majoring in marketing and graphic design served his mission in Myanmar. When asked about the benefits of having the Book of Mormon available in Burmese, he responded enthusiastically. “On my mission, teaching was very hard because we had to teach with an English Book of Mormon and then translate everything we read on the spot for people. The people there have extreme amounts of faith, and [they] have been prepared and are waiting to hear the gospel.
“The church is young there and being a Buddhist dominated country for centuries, their language does not have some gospel words found in English.
“There is no word for repentance or atonement or other words need to be understood in order to gain a testimony. Every person we taught, we had to explain thoroughly to them multiple times what we were trying to say.
“The church is going to spread more rapidly. Having the Book of Mormon in their language will help more people hear about the gospel and join the church. It will also be easier for members to study the gospel and keep their testimony alive.”
Writer: Elijah Hadley