THE SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ON THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LIBRARIANSHIP
ISSN 2217-5563
 

Novi broj


Predrag Mutavdžić
Univerzitet u Beogradu Filološki fakultet
— Katedra za neohelenske studije
predrag.mutavdzic@fil.bg.ac.rs


The First Printed Translations of the Bible in Romanian,
Albanian and Aromanian Language


Summary
The Bible is one of the most translated books in the world: as a complete work it exists in 459 languages, while the entire New Testament is translated in 1213 languages, and partly in another 836 languages.
Şerban Cantacuzino founded the first printing press in Wallachia in Bucharest where he published, at his own expense, in 1688 the complete translation of the Bible. In relation to all other translations in Balkan languages, with the exception of the Greek, Romanian translation of the Bible was the only complete translation until the Serbian translation (although it was initially presented in two books) and later translation into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian and Aromanian language.
A complete and contemporary translation of the Bible in Albanian language didn’t exist until 1994, when it was published in Prizren by the Roman Catholic priest Simon Filipaj.
However, the first translator of parts of the Bible (the Old and then the New Testament) into Albanian was Constantine Christoforides, to who the Bible Society in London signed a contract in 1865 to translate the Bible. This idea was not carried out entirely for two reasons: there was no single standardized form of Albanian language, and the term „Albanian language” represented two rather severely confronted dialects, northern­Gheg and southern­Tosk.
Aromanian no longer belongs to the Balkan Peninsula language group, which have not a complete translation of the Bible: for the translation was published in 2004 in the reformed Latin alphabet and with the new orthography. Today, the Bible is not translated only into Megleno­Romanian and Istro­Romanian language.

Keywords:
Bible, Albanian, Romanian, Aromanian, New Testament, translations.



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