Summary: When and how did the Bible get translated into the major languages spoken around the world? Learn more about the varied benefits from the spread of Bible translations.
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”
– Romans 10:17-18 (ESV)
Major Languages of the World
With almost 1.5 billion speakers, English is the most widely-spoken language in the world, when counting both native and non-native speakers. But English drops to third place when counting only those who speak English as their first language.
Below are the top 4 languages spoken around the world in the millions (MM), divided into total speakers and native (first-language) speakers, according to Ethnologue (2023, 26th ed.), an annual publication of SIL International.
Language Total Speakers (MM)/ Native Speakers (MM)
- English 1,452(MM) / 380 (MM)
- Mandarin Chinese 1,118(MM) / 939 (MM)
- Hindi 602(MM) / 345 (MM)
- Spanish 548(MM) / 485 (MM)
Some languages have a long history of Bible translation like English and German, others a very short history or still none at all. Some languages have many versions of the Bible (English with 244!) and some have just a few. Let’s look at Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic and German translations.
Mandarin Chinese (1.118 billion speakers)
Portions of the Bible began to be translated into Chinese around the 7th century, and possibly earlier. Nestorian missionaries, also called “merchant missionaries,” most likely brought Christianity to China during the Tang dynasty (618-907).
In 1625, the Nestorian Stele was discovered in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi Province located in central China. The Stele was written in both Chinese and Syriac. It tells the story of Nestorian missionaries coming to China in 635, led by a Persian bishop named Alopen. For Chinese Christians in 1625, this Stele was a significant find because it proved that Christianity was part of China’s past and not a recent foreign religion, as some who wanted Christianity banned were claiming.
Unfortunately, there are no examples preserved from these earliest Chinese versions of the Bible. Later when Protestant missionaries came to China in the 19th century, Bible translation began in earnest. The first complete Chinese Bible translation was produced by Joshua Marshman and published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1822 (Strauss 2023, 223 – see conclusion). Other versions eventually followed.
The Chinese Union Version (CUV) was produced in 1919 and is the Bible of choice for most Chinese Protestants today. The translation took 30 years to complete and was overseen by a panel of translators from a variety of denominations whose goal was accuracy and readability. The English Revised Version of 1885 was used as a model, along with Hebrew and Greek texts. The version was revised in 2010.
A Catholic version called the Studium Biblicum was published in 1968. It was started by a Franciscan Friar, Gabriele Allegra in 1935. Other contemporary Chinese versions have been translated over the years, such as Today’s Chinese Version (TCV: 1979), The Chinese Living Bible (CLB: 1974), and The Chinese New Version (CNV: 1992). Today, there are 45 Bible versions in Mandarin Chinese.
Hindi and Urdu (602 million speakers)
Hindi and Urdu are almost the same language in terms of phonetics and grammar. When categorized together the two languages are often called Hindustani. Hindi is spoken in northern and central India and is derived from Sanskrit. Urdu is spoken in Pakistan and India and includes words from Arabic and Persian.
Although they sound the same, they are written in different scripts: Hindi in the Devanagari script and Urdu in the Perso-Arabic script. Because of the similarity, they are usually translated together and then written in their separate scripts. Currently, there are 12 Bible versions in Hindi and 12 in Urdu.
William Carey (1761-1834) was the leader of Bible translation in the languages of India. Carey is often called the “father of modern missions.” He was the main translator for Bengali and helped with the Hindi translation, as well as several other Indian languages.
Carey promoted education in India and started a public school in 1794, open to both boys and girls, something which was unthinkable at that time.
Most of the Bible translations in Hindi and Urdu are produced by the Bible Society of India such as the Hindi Revised Old Version, the Hindi Common Language Bible, the New Urdu Bible Version and the Revised Urdu Holy Bible. The Bible Translation Center published the Hindi Easy-to-Read Version in 1995 and the Urdu Easy-to-Read Version in 2003.
Carey would eventually influence the translation of the Bible into 35 languages used in the region of India. A generally underappreciated fact is that many of these efforts required standardizing or creating an entire writing system for a language for the very first time. For these languages, and many others around the world, the blessing of Bible translations not only brought new spiritual life to the people, but their own script, which allowed literacy. Literacy brought knowledge of many areas, and that power promoted intellectual and physical flourishing that would not have happened otherwise.
Spanish (548 million speakers)
The version nicknamed the “Bible of the Bear” or “Biblia del Oso” was the first complete Bible translation in Spanish. Its name came from the picture on the title page of a bear eating honey. It was edited by Casiodoro de Reina and published in 1560 in Basel, Switzerland. A revised version was edited by Cipriano de Valera and printed in London in 1596.
Because of these two editors, this revised Bible version became known as the Reina-Valera (RV) and is the standard for Spanish-speaking Protestants. Today, the most popular version is the 1960s revised edition.
The most widely accepted Catholic version is the Biblia Torres Amat, published in 1825. It was translated from the Latin Vulgate by Spanish Bishop Felix Torres Amat (1772-1849). Other highly respected Catholic versions include La Biblia De Jerusalem published in 1967 and revised in 1973, the Biblia Latinoamericana (1979) and Dios Habla Hoy (“God Speaks Today,” 1979).
Other contemporary versions used by Protestants consist of the NIV-inspired Nueva Version Internacional (NVI:1999), the Nueva Traducción Viviente (NTV:2010) inspired by the NLT, and La Biblia de las Américas (LBLA: 1986, 1995, 1997) from the NASB and the Reina-Valera Contemporanea (2011). There are 32 Bible versions in the Spanish language today.
Arabic (274 million speakers)
The oldest Arabic Bible text, Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151, was discovered in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai and is dated AD 867.This is the same monastery where the famous Codex Sinaiticus was found. This manuscript includes the book of Acts, the Epistles from Paul and the General Epistles. The translator was a Nestorian Christian from Damascus named Bishr Ibn Al Sirri.
The most widely used Arabic version today is from the 1800s, The Van Dyke Version sponsored by the Syrian Mission and the American Bible Society. This version was started by Eli Smith in Beirut and was completed by Cornelius Van Alen Dyck. Like the KJV, the VDV is based on the Textus Receptus. Much of the Arabic is considered archaic and obsolete, making it difficult for contemporary Arabic speakers to understand. A glossary of 3,000 unknown or misunderstood Arabic words is published along with it by the Bible Society.
Other more contemporary versions have been published since then, modeled after the NIV, GNT, and others, making the Bible more accessible for Arabic speakers today. There are currently 19 Bible versions in Arabic.
German Versions (135 million speakers)
German, like English, has a long history of Bible translation beginning with the fourth century Gothic translation, Wulfila Bible (311-380). There are many other German versions that were produced in the Middle Ages. With the invention of the printing press, Bible translation greatly expanded.
The first German printed Bible was the Mentel Bible produced by Johannes Mentelin in 1466. It was followed by 18 other printed versions before the famous translation of Martin Luther, the German monk who started the Protestant Reformation.
The Luther Bible was finished in 1534 and is the most important German translation. Similar to William Tyndale’s English version, Luther’s German version was the first to use Hebrew and Greek texts instead of the Latin Vulgate. For the New Testament, Luther used the Greek Textus Receptus by Erasmus, the same used by the KJV. Until his death in 1546, Martin continued to revise the Luther Bible.
Luther’s version was progressively written in the natural German language of the time, in a more functional than formal equivalent way. By standardizing the many German dialects, the Luther Bible helped create a German national identity.
German has changed over time, like all languages do, and other contemporary Bible versions have been published including the Catholic Einheitsubersetzung (Unified Translation), Hoffnung fur Alle (Hope for All) and Die Gute Nachricht Bibel (Good News Bible). There are 34 versions of the Bible in German today.
Conclusion
To find out more about Bible translations around the world, check out the website, Languages – Find a Bible which has biblical resources for over 7,000 languages. If you are interested in going deeper on the history of the translation of the Bible, another great resource is the book, 40 Questions on Bible Translation, by Mark Strauss (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2023) which will be published later this year.
Missionaries and Bible translators have a long history of obeying Jesus’ command to go out from Jerusalem and make disciples of all nations. In accord with Paul’s words in Romans 10 they have spread the word of Christ to the ends of the earth. These efforts have advanced faith and even had the side effect of providing literacy for millions. But this work is not over. To find out more about current translations in progress for languages that don’t have a Bible yet, check out illumiNations.
Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Nestorian Stele. (credit: David Castor (user:dcastor), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
