The reality of how many people have NO access to God’s Word breaks our hearts!
This is why Wycliffe South Africa exists. We are grateful for the opportunity to be used by God to change these staggering statistics and to see God’s Word alive in every language that still needs it.
GLOBAL BIBLE TRANSLATION STATISTICS
7388 total languages in the world -
7.4 billion people
3589 languages with some Scripture – 7.1 billion people
3799 languages with no Scripture – 213 million people
1.45 billion people do not have a full Bible in their first language
129 million people, speaking 1680 languages, are wanting and waiting for translation work to begin
In Africa, that's 14 million people speaking 525 languages!
Translation work in Progress:
2846 languages - 157 countries - active translation or preparatory work – 1.1 billion people
Compare with 2021 by hovering over the image:
SCRIPTURE & Language Statistics for Southern Africa
The information in this table represents ongoing and pipeline translation work among LuminAfrica organisations:
Country | Angola | Botswana | DRC | Eswatini | Lesotho | Madagascar | Malawi | Mozambique | Namibia | South Africa | Zambia | Zimbabwe | Other | Total |
# of Ongoing Translations | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 1 | N/A | 20 |
# of Pipeline Translations | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
