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Revision as of 12:53, 26 August 2008

Overview

Mormon Translation allows you to help create, improve and share translations of Mormon books and documents in other languages. You benefit from reading the translations here, and others benefit when you help improve the translations, making them better and easier to understand.

The Problem

In the past 175 years or more, more than 25,000 Mormon books and other documents have been written. But today no more than a few dozen are available in any one language except English. While the LDS Church actively translates a lot of basic documents into a wide variety of languages, its efforts are limited to those books, manuals and other materials considered crucial to the functioning of the Church and its members. Novels, poetry, history and even many doctrinal works are not translated by the Church. As a result, members that do not speak English simply don't have access to thousands of valuable and helpful books.

Mormon Translation

This site attempts to provide a solution. Starting with books and other documents in the public domain, Mormon Translation tries to harness the interest and knowledge of a large community of Mormons to translate documents from English into other Languages. Here you can read those translations and help improve them so that others have better access to these works.

Projects

The following is a list of translation projects hosted here.

Before you make changes or corrections to any translation, please review the "discussion" page for that translation project, so that the corrections you make fit the project.

Dialogue of Joseph Smith with the Devil

Description: Written by Apostle Parley P. Pratt in 1844, this short (approximately 5,000 words) dialogue is the first work of Mormon fiction ever published. It represents an important step in the development of Mormon culture. It is a work that all Mormons should know about.

Translating: into Spanish and Portuguese.

Length: 14 pages in each language

Status:

• Google translations complete.
• First drafts complete in each language.
• Portuguese second draft completed.
• Spanish second draft completed.
• Portuguese second draft in process.
• Spanish third draft in process.

Need reviews of the translations by educated native speakers

The Angel of the Praries

Description: Apparently written in 1844, this short story (approximately 7,500 words) is an unusual view of Mormon thought about politics and the future of the US. It was finally published in 1880, but by the early 1900s, its views of the US were anacronistic.

Translating: into Spanish and Portuguese.

Length: 20 pages in each language

Status:

• Portuguese and Spanish Google Translations posted.
• First draft in Portuguese complete. In the process of posting to these pages.
• Spanish draft to come.

The History of the Church

Description: Compiled and edited shortly after 1900 by B. H. Roberts, this seven-volume work is one of the standard sources of information on Mormon history.

Translating: into Spanish and Portuguese.

Length: 109 pages in each language available out of approx. 600 in volume 1. The other 6 voumes are of similar length.

Status: Google translation of Preface, Introduction and first 3 chapters done.

Added Upon

Description: The first widely-read LDS novel, Added Upon was the first widely-read LDS novel, and is the first to present an LDS vision of eternal life in fiction. First published in 1898, it has been continuously in print, except for a short time about 2000, ever since. At least four editions in English are now available.

The novel tells the story of a couple who participate in the decisons made in the pre-existence, come to Earth, where they manage to find both the Gospel and each other, and after passing on to the hereafter, see the Kingdoms of Heaven and find their reward among them.

Translating: into Spanish and Portuguese.

Length: 31 pages are available in each language of 232 pages total.

Status: Portuguese and Spanish Google Translations of posted pages included.

Possible Future Translation Projects

• 50 Important Mormon Books - a description of perhaps the 50 most important Mormon books (excluding the scriptures and periodicals) published through 1980. At least 20 are public domain works that could be translated to other languages without dealing with copyright.