₦airaland Forum

Pls can someone tell me with proof who translated the Bible to Igbo Language for the first time.

Goldmind1:
Pls can someone tell me with proof who translated the Bible to Igbo Language for the first time.

Ajayi Crowther

It was not Ajayi Crowther. The first man to translate the bible to igbo was a sierra Leonean(a former igbo slave) John Christopher Taylor in the 1800s. We worked under Ajayi Crowther who was the Bishop of the Niger at that time. The second attempt was in 1913 by John Dennis. Let us get the facts straight.

Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther learnt Igbo, translated the Bible into Igbo Language, making him the first person to produce an Igbo Language Bible, and also produced the first book in Igbo language in the mid 19th century. Although, with the help of simon Jonas the igbo slave from free town.

However, he went further and produced the first comprehensive dictionary in Igbo Language in 1882- Vocabulary of the Ibo Language . In 1883 however, Crowther and Federick schon jointly revised it and added more words and finally came out with Vocabulary of the Ibo Language, Part II an English-Ibo dictionary.

If people could learn how the English bible was written, they might lose their faith—no doubt a tool of control of power that men use to control the masses.