Margaret Bender is Professor of Anthropology at Wake Forest University. She is the author of Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life and editor of Linguistic Diversity in the South: Changing Codes, Practices, and Ideology. Thomas N. Belt (Cherokee Nation) is a retired Cherokee language instructor at Western Carolina University, where he received an honorary doctorate. He is a fluent Cherokee speaker and the author of articles on Cherokee language and worldview.
Description
This wonderful collaboration draws our attention to what is found in translation: the creativity of Cherokee speakers and the power of the Cherokee language-based world view in nativizing Biblical books. Bender and Belt have made a major and original contribution not only to the study of indigenous Christianities, but to translation studies, linguistic relativity, and language ideologies more generally." - Paul V. Kroskrity, editor of Telling Stories in the Face of Danger: Language Renewal in Native American Communities "The fascinating insights into Cherokee philosophy, cosmology, and ways of knowing revealed by the authors' meticulous attention to how language encodes biblical concepts in Cherokee moral and epistemological frameworks are unrivaled in the literature. This book lights a fire that students and scholars will follow for years to come." - Joshua B. Nelson (Cherokee Nation), author of Progressive Traditions: Identity in Cherokee Literature and Culture