John Batchelor and the Ainu

Discussion in 'Church History' started by Distraught Cat, May 31, 2023.

  1. Distraught Cat

    Distraught Cat Active Member

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    Lest I keep arguing with PDL about something silly, I remembered this guy in another post and thought y'all might like to know about it:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Batchelor_(missionary)

    John Batchelor was a missionary who devoted much of his life to missioning to the Ainu people of northern Japan. He lived among them from 1877 until the outbreak of WWII. The Japanese have been assimilating the Ainu for generations. Today, only a handful of people are reported to speak Ainu natively. That's why I was astounded to find that somebody, this missionary, had translated the BCP into Ainu. To me, that's really cool. That's one way that Anglicans have contributed to preserving global culture, and it's good that missionary societies were concerned about people as far afield as the coldest parts of Japan. And they did have a funcitoning outreach. Here's an article about a poet from the Ainu Christian community. Which isn't something that people much remember or think about.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaeko_Batchelor

    And here's the BCP:
    http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Japan/ainu.htm
     
    anglican74 and Invictus like this.
  2. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    That is SO cool.. the BCP really is in all the languages