Bible now translated into 717 languages

Efforts to translate the Bible into more world languages are accelerating, despite the pandemic.

Wycliffe Bible Translators says 717 languages now have a full Bible translation – almost 10% of the number of languages spoken in the world – an increase of 13 languages on the previous year. Although one in five people are still waiting for the Bible in their own tongue, one new translation was launched every week during the pandemic.

Executive director of Wycliffe, James Poole, says he is encouraged by this progress: ‘Many people are rejoicing because, for the first time ever, they’ve been able to read God’s word in their own language and see for themselves what we take for granted’.

For example, a Sangu man in Tanzania, on receiving his Sangu New Testament last year, described it as being like the ‘key to entering heaven’.

Furthermore, the number of languages with a complete New Testament has risen to 1,582, from 1,551 last year, and a further 1,196 languages have some parts of the Bible translated (up from 1,160 last year). There are believed to be a total of 7,135 languages in the world.

But Poole says there is still much work to do: ‘Despite this tremendous progress, we remain deeply concerned for the 1.5 billion people worldwide who still do not have the Bible in their language. Translation teams worldwide are working urgently to rectify this.’

The emergence of local translation teams, greater collaboration between Bible translation organisations, access to technology and the development of software are all making progress easier.

Wycliffe hopes that in the next 10–15 years 95% of the world’s population will have the whole Bible, that 99.95% will have a New Testament, and everyone will have access to at least some portion of Scripture (currently 145 million people have absolutely none).

Poole concludes: ‘A key milestone in world history is fast approaching – when everyone will have at least some Scripture in their own language for the first time! These projections give fresh inspiration and motivation for people to get involved in the work of Bible translation.’