They Move to Puerto Rico
ON MAY 9, 1993, the Spanish Translation Department, consisting of 20 members, moved from the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York, to the Watch Tower Society’s new branch office in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Why the move? A responsible member of the headquarters writing staff of Jehovah’s Witnesses explains: “We have found that translators do better work when they live where the language into which they translate is spoken daily. Further, they naturally keep up-to-date with any new variations in that language. Puerto Rico has been selected as a convenient hub for the entire Spanish-speaking world.”
The Spanish Translation Department has been located in Brooklyn, New York, since 1928 and has played an important role in spreading the Kingdom message by helping to make Bible literature available to some 350,000,000 Spanish-speaking persons worldwide. The Watchtower was first translated into Spanish in 1917. Today, nearly 3,500,000 copies of The Watchtower and nearly 3,000,000 copies of Awake! are printed in Spanish each issue. In recent years the Watch Tower Society’s branch in Spain has also given valuable help to this work, especially in translating Awake! magazine. There are over 1,100,000 Spanish-speaking Jehovah’s Witnesses in the world, about 25 percent of the total number of Witnesses worldwide. This figure includes the tens of thousands of immigrants serving in non-Spanish-speaking lands, such as Australia, Germany, Sweden, and the United States.
The move to the larger and newer facilities in Puerto Rico has another benefit. It allows for translators and proofreaders from different countries, such as Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Venezuela, to be united at one central location so that the international flavor of the Society’s publications in Spanish can be further enhanced. This will help to convey the Kingdom message in a clear and precise manner to Spanish-speaking people worldwide. We look forward to Jehovah’s blessing on this new development.