Kjell Magne Yri (born 5 November 1943) is a Norwegian priest, linguist and translator. He hails from Hareid. He was interested in linguistics at an early age; during Norwegian classes in secondary school he read books in Greek and Esperanto. During his spare time he read Swahili. He combined the language interest with religious studies after a friend encouraged him to become a bible translator, eventually graduating from the MF Norwegian School of Theology with the cand.theol. degree in 1970. He also minored in Greek at the University of Oslo, as well as studying Latin and Hebrew. He was eventually given an assignment to translate the New Testament for the Norwegian Lutheran Mission, who found the official Norwegian translation too liberal. He was occupied with this translation from 1968 t