Language with the most translations

Ransom

Ransom

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Does anyone know where I can find credible statistics on the languages with the most Bible translations? (By "credible," I mean not KJV-only rant sites complaining about 200+ English translations.)

Intuitively, I'd expect English to top the list, but I've also heard that the language with the greatest number of translations is French, and I'd like to verify/falsify that. Unfortunately, Google hasn't been much help.
 
Ransom said:
Unfortunately, Google hasn't been much help.
Click to expand...

Then the information you seek simply doesn't exist.  ;)
 
Ransom said:
Does anyone know where I can find credible statistics on the languages with the most Bible translations? (By "credible," I mean not KJV-only rant sites complaining about 200+ English translations.)

Intuitively, I'd expect English to top the list, but I've also heard that the language with the greatest number of translations is French, and I'd like to verify/falsify that. Unfortunately, Google hasn't been much help.
Click to expand...

I searched and search my extensive library and do not have an answer :(
 
Ransom said:
Does anyone know where I can find credible statistics on the languages with the most Bible translations? (By "credible," I mean not KJV-only rant sites complaining about 200+ English translations.)

Intuitively, I'd expect English to top the list, but I've also heard that the language with the greatest number of translations is French, and I'd like to verify/falsify that. Unfortunately, Google hasn't been much help.
Click to expand...

Maybe Wycliffe, I have a contact or two in there that might point me in the right direction.
 
My contacts there did not have an answer.

But some statistics that were sad...

6837 languages in the world

471 languages have a complete Bible

2696 have some Scripture (at least 1 book)

2100 have a work in progress of translating

2041 have no Scripture and no work in progress

Stats from September 2011
 
Mathew Ward said:
My contacts there did not have an answer.

But some statistics that were sad...

6837 languages in the world

471 languages have a complete Bible

2696 have some Scripture (at least 1 book)

2100 have a work in progress of translating

2041 have no Scripture and no work in progress

Stats from September 2011
Click to expand...

Wow, that is pretty dismal.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 
But of those 2041 languages that have no Scripture, how many speakers are there? I would guess they are languages not spoken by very many.
 
There is an obscure Alaskan Indian language (I forgot which one) that has only one speaker. There were 2 (two sisters) but one died a few years ago.
 
Maybe Wycliffe, I have a contact or two in there that might point me in the right direction.

Thanks for checking. Your suggestion of Wycliffe actually pointed me in another direction: the Canadian Bible Society.

So I sent off an email to them.  To paraphrase the reply I got this morning: It's hard to define what constitutes a "Bible translation" insofar as there are so many that are partial or incomplete, but the figure that my contact gave me was: 900 whole or partial translations of the Bible into English.

Turns out English is, far and away, the most-Bible-translated language in the world, and whoever told me it might be French was probably way off.

The interesting thing is that there appears to be little to no information on the history of the Bible in French on the Web, compared to the voluminous piles of Web pages available in English.  It's interesting in that English only relatively recently superseded French as the "international" language (speaking French was a necessary skill for international relations and diplomacy well into the 20th century). So you'd expect more historical information.
 
Ransom said:
Maybe Wycliffe, I have a contact or two in there that might point me in the right direction.

Thanks for checking. Your suggestion of Wycliffe actually pointed me in another direction: the Canadian Bible Society.

So I sent off an email to them.  To paraphrase the reply I got this morning: It's hard to define what constitutes a "Bible translation" insofar as there are so many that are partial or incomplete, but the figure that my contact gave me was: 900 whole or partial translations of the Bible into English.

Turns out English is, far and away, the most-Bible-translated language in the world, and whoever told me it might be French was probably way off.

The interesting thing is that there appears to be little to no information on the history of the Bible in French on the Web, compared to the voluminous piles of Web pages available in English.  It's interesting in that English only relatively recently superseded French as the "international" language (speaking French was a necessary skill for international relations and diplomacy well into the 20th century). So you'd expect more historical information.
Click to expand...
I would have to say Greek.

It is unique in its survival.
"In ancient times, books were copied by hand onto manuscripts which were made from parchment and would decay over time. Ancient books are available today only because someone made copies of the originals to preserve them. For example, the original writings of Julius Caesar are no longer around. We know what he wrote only by the copies we have. Only 10 copies still exist, and they were made 1,000 years after he died. Only 600 copies of Homer
 
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