LibriVox Forum

There is a Dutch translation of the Bible, called the Statenvertaling, which is an equivalent of the King James Version. It is public domain of course since it was first published in the 17th century, but Gutenberg doesn't have a source text.

I think a Bible translation, especially of this quality, could be a very good candidate for recording on audio, although I do realise that this would be a huge project. Maybe it could be possible just to start with the Gospel of John (Evangelie van Johannes). I'd be happy to volunteer.

But the main question I have is the following: if the Statenvertaling would be recorded for LibriVox, what text source should be used? Gutenberg doesn't have a copy. Would it be okay to use a PDF from Google Books? I have an antique copy of the Statenvertaling myself from the 1800's, which can be bought in The Netherlands for just a few euros. So it wouldn't be a problem for me, but how about the other people that maybe would like to contribute to this project?

Thanks in advance for your answer.

Hello sv,
The Statenvertaling would indeed be a huge job - and there are only a small number of Dutch-speaking volunteers around at the moment.
For text source: especially in a group project, it would be best to work from an online source. A quick google search shows there are multiple sites that have some version of the Statenvertaling. If you want to go ahead with this at some point it would be important that the online source is not somehow copyrighted or changed - and that everyone would be reading from the same version.
I'd advise you to start with a contribution like a chapter or poem to a group project first - to get yourself acquainted with the system here. And then you could look into doing for example one of the Gospels either as a solo project or a group project - setting it up yourself as soon as you are familiar with the way LV works.
Does this make sense?

Thank you Anna for your answer. Yes, I was thinking to maybe begin with the Gospel of John as a start.

I wouldn't mind to do some recordings on other projects first, to get the hang of it.

But would a Google Books scan suffice? Or would that lead to copyright problems?

Thanks in advance for your answer/

Google Books can work, but I've noticed that sometimes Google books restrict viewing the whole book from some countries. Some books are full view if you enter the internet from the USA, but for me from the Netherlands they are not full view - so I imagine it can differ for each country.

I am not a Dutch speaker , but I went and searched Archive and found this .https://archive.org/details/ned-kbn-all-00000142-001
It is the new Testament and it is PD, so it could be used as. But I seem to remember Anna saying that Dutch spelling has changed and so readers might find it difficult to read so it is probably not a practical solution , but just the internet at it's best, letting me see something that is too precious to be ever handled by me.

Anne

Here are some other links featuring the public domain versions of the Statenvertaling Bible:

http://www.statenvertaling.net/ (1618/19 version)
http://www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/view/?mode=1&bible=sv1637 (scan of the 1637 version, plus other Dutch-language Bible translations/versions between 1477 and 1648)
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_sta001stat01_01/ (1637 version)

Finally, has anyone been working on this project in dutch?
Where can I find details?

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=65234
viewtopic.php?t=63947

Anne