\id FRT EN_UST unfoldingWord® Simplified Text
\usfm 3.0
\ide UTF-8
\h Front matter
\toc1 Front Matter
\toc2 Front Matter
\toc3 Front Matter
\mt Front Matter
\imt1 unfoldingWord® Simplified Text - English
\im \em an unrestricted simplified version of the Bible intended for translation into any language as a tool for use by Bible translators\em*
\imt1 Overview
\ip The unfoldingWord® Simplified Text (UST) is an open-licensed adaptation of \bk A Translation For Translators\bk* by Ellis W. Deibler, Jr., which is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://git.door43.org/Door43/T4T). The UST is intended to provide a simple, clear presentation of the meaning of the Bible without using any figures of speech, idioms, or other grammatical features that can be difficult to translate.
\imt1 Viewing
\ip To read or print the UST, see the latest published version of the UST project on Door43 at https://door43.org/u/Door43-Catalog/en_ust/. (Any ongoing development may be seen at https://door43.org/u/unfoldingWord/en_ust/.)
\imt1 Contributors
\ip Contributors to this work are listed in the `contributor` field in the manifest file at https://git.door43.org/Door43-Catalog/en_ust/src/master/manifest.yaml.
\imt1 Introducing the UST
\ip The unfoldingWord® Simplified Text (UST) is a meaning-centric version of the Bible in English.  It is intended to be used alongside the unfoldingWord® Literal Text and other translation resources to give English-speaking mother-tongue translators (MTTs) a more complete understanding of the messages communicated in the Bible.  For MTTs who do not have reading knowledge of the original biblical languages, the UST provides a sense of \em what\em* these messages intended to communicate to the original readers.  It is anticipated that the UST and other resources will be translated from English into the world's Gateway Languages (GLs) so that MTTs worldwide can use them as a set of resources for making accurate translations of the Bible into their own languages.
\imt2 Avoids Translation Difficulties
\ip The UST is designed to be used as a tool for Bible translation in conjunction with the unfoldingWord® Literal Text (ULT) (see https://git.door43.org/Door43-Catalog/en_ult), the unfoldingWord® Translation Words (UTW) (see https://git.door43.org/Door43-Catalog/en_tw), and the unfoldingWord® Translation Notes (UTN) (see https://git.door43.org/Door43-Catalog/en_tn). It is not an end-user Bible, which seeks to transform all of the structures of the original biblical languages into those that are natural and idiomatic in the target language.  Instead, unlike the ULT and unlike an end-user Bible, the UST does not use figures of speech, idioms, abstract nouns, or grammatical features that are difficult to translate into many languages.
\ip The purpose of the UST is to show the plain meaning of all of those things wherever they occur in the ULT. By using both the UST and the ULT together as resources for translating the Bible into a target language (called an Other Language [OL] in this introduction), the OL translator will be able to see the figures of speech, idioms, and other forms of the original Bible in the ULT and also see what their meaning is in the UST. Then he can use the figures of speech or other forms from the ULT that are clear and natural in his language. When the forms in the ULT are not clear or natural in his language, then he can choose other forms in his language that have the same meaning as expressed in the UST translation (or in the Translation Notes).
\ip The primary goal of the UST is to express the meaning of the Bible as clearly as possible. In order to do this, it follows these guidelines.
\im The UST avoids:
\li Idioms
\li Figures of speech
\li Events out of order
\li Complex sentences
\li Passive voice
\li Abstract and/or verbal nouns
\im Furthermore, the UST explicitly includes:
\li Participants where these are unclear
\li Implied information that is necessary for understanding
\imt1 Further information
\ip Further details about translation decisions in the UST can be seen at https://git.door43.org/Door43-Catalog/en_ust#overview.
\imt1 Alignment of the UST with the Original Languages
\ip The words and phrases of the UST have been manually aligned with the original Hebrew or Greek words that they were translated from. Because this is a highly-modified translation, the alignments are often broad stokes (compared to the ULT which has mostly one-to-one alignments). The alignment information is stored within custom z-aln fields in the USFM source files. Alignments can be viewed graphically in the translationCore checking program downloadable from https://www.translationcore.com/, and in the forthcoming translationCore Create and translationCore Study apps.
\imt Ongoing Development
\ip Development of the UST is ongoing and although the bulk of the work has now been completed, consistency checking within the UST and detailed checks against the original languages are still in early stages. Any suggested improvements can be passed to the UST team via the Issues page at https://git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ust/issues.
