Bible translation milestone: Under 1,000 languages left to start

For the first time in history, the list of languages that still need Bible translation to begin is less than 1,000. 

According to ProgressBible, the entity that tracks global Scripture access statistics, as of 1 September, just 985 languages remain to be started. Those represent just 29.3 million people – less than 1 percent of the global population. For comparison, that is less than the 33-million population of the world’s second-largest city, Delhi, India.

That’s a huge decrease from the waiting list of 1,892 languages and 145.2 million people just three years ago. About 100 million of that reduction occurred in Asia, thanks to several major languages in sensitive areas being started.

It's all a large step within Vision 2025—a vision adopted in 1999 for Bible translation to be started in this generation for every language that still needs it. Some organisations have used the year 2025 as a specific goal, while others see Vision 2025 as more of a general challenge.

Christy Liner, director of partnerships for SIL and the former program director for ProgressBible, remembers forecasting in 2020 that Bible translation starting in every remaining language was still decades away. And there are still significant barriers, including most of the world’s 392 known sign languages, or languages in difficult-access regions like east Asia.

 ‘But if you just look at it as a whole,’ she says, ‘in a way it actually feels like maybe it’s within reach. Maybe it’s not so crazy. And it used to feel like there was just no way. So that’s exciting.’

Twenty more complete Bibles were finished in the past year, bringing the global total to 756. That means 6 billion people now have the full Bible in the language they know best. And 7.3 billion people now have some Scripture in their language—up to 97.3 percent of the global population. Add the people in language communities already served by another language commonly spoken there, and 99.5 percent of all people worldwide either have some Scripture or work in their language is underway.

New projects

Also this year, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s 7,396 living languages have Bible translation work occurring. For some it is the first time; many others are working toward a complete Bible and others are revising previous work. Among that translation progress, Wycliffe Global Alliance organisations are working in at least 3,146 languages in 146 countries.

With so many new projects in the past three years, one category that ProgressBible tracks is especially visible: ‘Work in progress, no Scripture yet.’  It means groundwork is being laid in those languages. Translation and engagement teams are being formed, usually involving local communities and churches. The category now includes 1,524 languages— up an astounding 84 percent since 2021. Better yet, almost 136 million people speak those languages — double the same statistic from three years ago. 

A changing picture

One country seeing the impact of this acceleration is Nigeria. Until this year, it had ranked among the top five countries or language groups needing translation to begin, along with Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, east Asia and global Deaf communities. Now, Nigeria has been replaced on that list by Cameroon.

Terry Dehart, data analyst for ProgressBible, wonders if there even needs to be a list like that any more. Cameroon is one of several countries with similar remaining needs.

‘That’s a sign of real progress, where you don’t really have five huge targets,’ he says—adding that it also indicates perhaps the biggest challenges yet.

‘When I look at the numbers, I don’t expect Vision 2025 to hit zero in 2025,’ he adds. ‘The low-hanging fruit has been picked. We’re down to the hard ones.

 ‘When you look at East Asia, it’s flat. There’s been almost no change since 2020. And we need a movement of God, full stop. We’ve done everything we can think of and it’s flat. So now what? We need God to intervene.’

Additional story: Nigeria's rapid rise

Christy Liner and Terry Dehart of SIL and ProgressBible

Better numbers

Measurement of global Scripture access has evolved significantly as better information has been acquired. As the list gets smaller, there’s less potential for duplication of effort.

‘This is where we’re saying, OK, it is really important that what’s on there is good information, because organisations are starting to bump into each other quite a bit more’, Liner says. ‘It used to be there was just such an abundance of need out there that organisations didn’t even realise another organisation was working in the same country.

When ProgressBible was created in 2016, statisticians began with the assumption that every known language needed Scripture. More recently, in a ‘Data Sharpening Initiative’, they have realised this isn’t always true. For instance, Liner says, if children are no longer speaking a language, that’s a reliable indicator that the language may disappear in the next generation. It may be removed from the list of languages needing Bible translation to begin. And, when consulted, ProgressBible might also recommend that Bible translation movements focus their efforts on vital languages still being spoken by children.

‘The Data Sharpening Initiative was just an attempt to start to collect better information on every language,’ she says, ‘so that we can really try to highlight where the real needs do exist and hopefully divert energies, organisational energies, to those languages where there are actual needs.’

Dehart adds: ‘A significant part of what we’re trying to do is give the best information so people can make the best decisions and actually cooperate with each other.’

A leading indicator

Both Liner and Dehart were quick to point out that the existence of Scripture in a given language does not automatically mean impact.

“The real goal is people being moved and transformed by the gospel’, Liner says. ‘Whereas Vision 2025 is really just potentially a leading indicator.’

‘I’m a numbers guy’, Dehart says. ‘I’ve managed projects. I like to see incremental progress. It’s great that we’ve started in these places. We need to see incremental progress toward the goal and the end goal. … We want to see people actually engaging with the Scripture, having it transform their lives, having it transform the culture. But as a project manager, you also want to see, OK, are we getting there? I don’t want a surprise at the end. … And that’s one of the shifts that I’m seeing in ProgressBible is we’re starting to measure that incremental progress.

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Story: Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance

MORE:

• Our full report on 2024 Scripture access statistics — including downloadable infographics
• Listen to the full interview with Christy Liner and Terry Dehart on The Journey Podcast.