David
It's wonderful to see daily posts from you!
Craig

Wycliffe certainly do some great work and as you said they are very dedicated!

One thing to add - part of the translation for many of these languages is to define the written form of the language. So, not only do you need to translate, but you have to figure out how to represent the sounds of the language on paper.

Wow.

Yeah no kidding. Not only that, as Don mentioned, when a language has dozens of ways to say "carry", instead of one, how do you convey something like, "the Spirit was carried on the wind..." ???

David

I looked into Wycliffe Translation Training (S.I.L.) in B.C., Canada, some years back - Amazing - I've never seen anything quite like it.
Translators move next to and live with people who often have no written language, sometimes as (or when becoming!) families. They bring their laptop computer filled with Greek, Hebrew and Linguistics, often to places without electricity. They become close friends for years, and record peoples' history and other cultural knowledge. The recorded voices are analyzed with the help of software for the 'subtlest' nuances - often much more complicated than English. Information is electronically exchanged with North America to help create the written language, including desktop publishers who design alphabets.
People who had no written language are then taught to read their own language for the first time, and education starts and skyrockets. When an entire group of people learns how to read for the first time, they really enjoy reading to each other. It often becomes like television in the western world.
Even governments who would normally never let people in to help these citizens become educated (beyond basic health and emergency issues), let Wycliffe in, because the governments want a written language to communicate with groups of people about health and emergency problems (which is often the first information passed on). Sometimes this is tricky, since many of these governments are tyrannical. But I've been really impressed from what I've heard about how Wycliffe gently 'tiptoes' its way in to help.
The governments welcome Wycliffe's gift to them: the first dictionary for a new language. And the people welcome what they had wanted, but would have otherwise never been allowed to have: The Bible. And they inevitably enjoy what comes with it: Education, including the gift of reading.