Rihanna nm, the story of HOW THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF THE HOLY BIBLE from ENGLISH LANGUAGE into IGBO/IBO LANGUAGE was SAVED from a SHIP-WRECK [3]

( CONTINUED FROM [2] )

as the story goes,
the Anglican Missionaries put in a lot of effort into this translation.
and together with Igbo-land/Ibo-land clergy of the Anglican Communion,
they dedicated themselves to the project of translating the Bible.

( if you have ever taken a look at
the number of pages,
the number of chapters and
the number of verses in the bible
both in the Old Testament and the New Testament

then
you can see that
translation of the bible from any one language to any other language
is no easy task

more so into another language that
at that time did not have any known existing dictionary or documented compiled vocabulary. )

( by the way, is there as at today 2021
any Igbo / Ibo language dictionary anywhere in the world ? )

their efforts yielded fruit and
they produced a complete translation of the entire Holy Bible from English into Igbo/Ibo.

the challenge was now to transform the hand-written manuscript into print and then produce enough copies to circulate
among the Anglican Clergy and
among the Anglican laity such as may be able to read in the Igbo/Ibo language.

according to rumours,
this could not be done in Onitsha at the time
or
anywhere in the Igbo-land /Ibo-land at the time
or
anywhere in the Igbo-language /Ibo-language speaking areas as the time

so the Anglican Missionaries decided to take the manuscript to England.

Rihanna ohbee nm, at that time
there were
no public, commercial air-planes flying from Nigeria to Britain.►►►

( and in fact,
in all the years before and since Nigeria’s Independence in 1960,
it is only fairly recently that there came to pass an air-port
in the core Igbo-land area
from which some? international air-flights can take-off and land. )

►►►so, the white, aryan missionaries went by ship
which was
the only public, commercial means of transport from Nigeria to the U.K
available at the time.

according to rumours,
en route the journey
from Nigeria, Western Africa to England, Western Europe
by sea
the sea-going vessel got ship-wrecked and all? the passengers? died?

according to rumours,
before the ship finally sunk in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean,
one caucasian, aryan clergy took the handwritten manuscript and
put it inside a bottle
… some versions of the rumour say he put it inside a flask ..
and flung it into the open sea/ocean.
and so the manuscript didn’t sink with the ship

but floated on the waters.

according to rumours,
that manuscript in whatever floatable contrivance it was put in
stayed afloat on the Atlantic Ocean for days, weeks, months and years? during which period it floated about from one place to another.

according to rumours,
one day it washed up i.e washed ashore on a coast line
somewhere in Western Europe
and
luckily there were some European folks there who saw it
and luckily too,
the folks didn’t ignore it but rather went to pick it up and take a look it at.

rumours say that the white folks who picked it up recognized that
the writing was done using the English alphabet  i.e a,b,c,d,e, etc
but could not read the language.

so, they took it with them to see if there was anyone who could read the language.

Rihanna nnkeh nm, i guess that was very lucky for the Igbos / Ibos too
because
those folks could have decided to either
► just throw away the manuscript onto the sand there at the beach? without putting back into the floatable contrivance and sending it back to sea
or
► just tear it into pieces.

in any case, they took it with them and showed it to their people.

at first and for a while no one knew what language the writing was done in and
this situation remained so for a while
until eventually one day
one fellow came along who could speak, read and write English
and
this fellow took a look at it and then told them that

● it was a writing done both in the English Language and in another language
● he did not know the other language
● however, the English part of it consists/consisted of the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible
● he figured the other language was a language that the Holy Bible had been translated from English into.

according to rumours,
upon hearing this, the folks decided to send the manuscript to England
and when it got to England it was printed out into the Igbo / Ibo language Holy Bible.

Rihanna nm, i guess you can see how lucky the Igbos/Ibos were in all of this.

for example,
► when that fellow said it was a bible,
all those folks there could have thrown it away there and then.

► instead, the folks actually decided to send of to England
instead of dumping it in their own European country

► when it got to England,
it must have gotten one way or the other to the Church of England
and
there was someone in the Church of England, England
who must have been able to recognize the other strange language
as the Igbo/Ibo language from Western Africa
and
also recognized that the purpose of the translation was
to produce copies of the English Bible in the Igbo/Ibo language
and thereafter send the translated copies back to far away Western Africa.

► when the manuscript was recognized?/accepted? as an
English language to Igbo/Ibo language translation of the bible,
the folks there in England actually went ahead and printed
enough copies of it

using their own money, their own time
expending their own energy, expending their own personal efforts

to send to Onitsha and Igbo-land/Ibo-land Nigeria for
the Anglican Clergy and Anglican laity there to use.

according to rumours,
the surname of the Anglican Church Missionary who was
given the assignment
to take the manuscript to Europe
and who died at sea in the ship-wreck
is/was DENNIS.

and so, according to rumours,
when the Anglican Church Missionaries in Onitsha built a secondary school ( for boys only )
they named that school in honour of that european missionary
called DENNIS
and called the school DENNIS MEMORIAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

according to rumours,
DENNIS MEMORIAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL, ONITSHA was founded in 1925.

till date, 2021
D.M.G.S, Onitsha remains a leading secondary school
in the ONITSHA ENVIRONS
with only a rather very few number of schools like
CHRIST THE KING COLLEGE, Onitsha ( boys only ) founded in 02/02/1933
by the white Roman Catholic missionaries
being able to compete with it in terms of
academic prominence and academic excellence.

and
till date, 2021
D.M.G.S, Onitsha infact remains a leading secondary school
in the
ENTIRE IGBO-LAND / IBO-LAND and
IGBO-LANGUAGE / IBO-LANGUAGE SPEAKING AREAS
with only a rather very few number of schools
in the
ENTIRE IGBO-LAND / IBO-LAND and
IGBO-LANGUAGE / IBO-LANGUAGE SPEAKING AREAS
like
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, ENUGU founded in 1973
by the Nigeria Federal Ministry of Education / Nigeria Federal Government
being able to compete with it in terms of
academic prominence and academic excellence.

and there,
Rihanna nm, is more or less,
the story of
HOW the FIRST TRANSLATION of the HOLY BIBLE
from ENGLISH LANGUAGE
into IGBO/IBO LANGUAGE
was SAVED
from a SHIP-WRECK