IEM Ministry since 2017
In the year 2010 with Bibles International from USA tried to translate Bible in Deori language, within ten days they have done John Gospel with the help of native people in both Assamese script and Romans but it was not use by Deori Christians due to there was not proper fellowship since they are not together at the same time few in number plus lack of ownership, so they failed. After 7 (seven) years later in 2017 3rd February IEM leaders had sent Mr Seikhohao Haokip as a pioneer cross-cultural missionary among Deori people to do Evangelism, Church Planting & Bible translator. Apart from all these IEM also doing Literacy work under the project of NEISEL (North East India Scripture Engagement & Literacy).
We the Deori Christians community understand that electronic media is a strong instrument in this modern world to communicate the general people in order to serve the purposes/ aims and objective very effectively and quickly. As such, the website entitled "deoriforc.in"(Deori For Christ) would certainly facilitade to reach the unreach Deori community which messages of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What is the primary function/purpose of the translation?
The purpose of the translation is for Deori speakers to be able to understand the Word of God in a language they can understand adequately. They envision to use it in the church services, Bible studies and in for personal devotions. The potential readership is realistically the younger generation and men and women in the village who are already literate. Illiterate people will most likely benefit and use the audio Bible rather than the printed Scriptures. The Deori language group covers 70,000 according to 2011 census in Assam in Arunachal Pradesh.
Who is asking for the translation?
Deori believers have been using Assamese Bible in the church services and personal devotion. But the old, aged believers are finding difficulties to understand the Word of God, since most of them do not properly understand Assamese. So, believers keep requesting Bible in their own dialect, God of heaven heard their prayer and spoke to Deori Christian Forum to find out some organization that help them to do Bible translation. So, the leaders of Deori Christian Forum approach NEISEL-IEM for helping them to translate New Testament in their heart language.
Who is going to use the translation?
Right now, just a handful of believer’s 100-200 believers are found among the Deori community in different districts of Assam. There are no accurate details of how many Deori believers are in Arunachal Pradesh, but Deori believers attending different churches since there is no church building yet in Deori villgaes there are few worship groups among Deori so far. There will be all kinds of users: literate users, non-literate audio listeners, oral users, leaders, youth, the older generation, and both genders. Since this will be the first written in Deori even Deori who are unbelievers belong to others faith will also love to use it.
What dialects are covered in the language?
No dialect issues are present in the Deori language as per the sociolinguistic data is concern. Although, the sociolinguistic survey report showed 3 clusters of speech varieties just slide different tone and some wording, community members maintained that everyone in the Deori-speaking area can understand one another.
