Haida Language
The Haida language is the language of the Haida people of the Haida Gwaii archipelago of British Columbia and on the Prince of Wales Island in southern Alaska.
Bible Translation
Missionaries from the Church Missionary Society (CMS) arrived amongst the Haida in 1876. These missionaries initially worked in the Haida language. They wrote the language down using Latin script with macrons over the vowels.
Rev Charles Harrison
The Rev. Charles Harrison was a CMS missionary at Massett from 1882 to 1890. He translated the first portions of the Bible into Haida. In 1891 500 copies of the Gospel of Matthew were published by the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS). He also translated "Old Testament Stories in the Haida Language" which was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in 1893. He also produced a Haida grammar in 1895. He died in 1926.
Rev John Henry Keen
The Rev. John Henry Keen was born in London in 1851. In 1890 he left for British Columbia in Canada. He lived in the village of Massett in the Queen Charlotte Islands. He learnt the language and wrote a grammar. Whilst there he translated the Anglican Book of Common Prayer into Haida, which was published in 1899 in London by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). He also translated three books of the New Testament. The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) published Acts in 1898, and then Luke and John in 1899. He died in 1950.
Digital Edition
The books of the New Testament were scanned from original copies in the British and Foreign Bible Society archives at Cambridge University in England. They were digitised for the Canadian Bible Society. The four New Testament books have been combined into this project and called Haida Matthew, Luke, John and Acts 1891-99 (Canada).
