The Sea Islanders of the Southeast Coast Gain New Respect for their Gullah Language

“Gullah was thought to be a broken language, but Bible translation brought respect to the language,” says Emory Campbell. He is a Sea Islander and former director of the Penn Center, the first school in the south for freed slaves.

Beginning in the late 1600s Africans were brought as slaves to the Southeast coast of America, which includes the Sea Islands, to work on plantations. An estimated 250,000 Sea Islanders live along the Atlantic seacoast, from the Carolinas to Northeastern Florida.

The Sea Islanders who speak Gullah had attempted to write their language and found it difficult. So in 1979 they invited Claude and Pat Sharpe of Wycliffe Bible Translators to help them write Gullah and to translate the Bible into their language.

A team of Sea Islanders including Ardell Greene currently is reviewing the translated New Testament so that it will be an accurate translation. They hope to see it printed soon.

Greene says, “Passages like the familiar John 3:16 will have greater impact when they are available to the Sea Islanders in their heart language.” In Gullah it reads, “Cause God lobe all de people een de wol so much dat e gii we e onliest Son. God sen we um so dat ebrybody wa bleebe on um ain gwine ded. Dey gwine libe fa true faeba mo.”

The Sea Islanders partner with Wycliffe Bible Translators on the Sea Island Translation and Literacy Project. It is a team effort as Sea Islanders translate the New Testament with Wycliffe&rquo;s Pat and Claude Sharpe providing consultant help.

The book of Luke is already in print. “5,000 copies of the Gullah Luke were sent out and they were all gone within the first month,” says Pat Sharpe, “They say their language is respected now.”

Ruth Ash, also a Wycliffe translator, is helping finalize the Gullah New Testament with keyboarding and accuracy checks. She says, “At the Gullah Festival last November 11 they asked when we would have the New Testament in print and when we would start on the Old Testament.” She adds, “We look forward to Sea Islander believers carrying on the translation and reaching their people.”

Ruth and Elmer Ash served in Bolivia and Southeast Asia and now are based at the JAARS Center in Waxhaw, N.C. While Ruth serves as a Bible translator, Elmer helps in other roles. He has been an aircraft mechanic, construction worker, and he coordinates the cassette and video recordings of the Gullah Luke.

JAARS provides technical support services and resources to speed Bible translation. This includes the vernacular media services that Elmer Ash provides the Sea Islanders.

In February 2003, a Fifth Wheel Trailer was donated by JAARS for use in the Gullah New Testament translation project.