Modern Translation Efforts
See also: International Bible Society, Bible Society, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and Institute for Bible TranslationThe Bible continues to be the most translated book in the world. The following numbers are approximations. As of 2005, at least one book of the Bible has been translated into 2,400 of the 6,900 languages listed by SIL, including 680 languages in Africa, followed by 590 in Asia, 420 in Oceania, 420 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 210 in Europe, and 75 in North America. The United Bible Societies are presently assisting in over 600 Bible translation projects. The Bible is available in whole or in part to some 98 percent of the world's population in a language in which they are fluent.
The United Bible Society announced that as of 31 December 2007 the Bible was available in 438 languages, 123 of which included the deuterocanonical material as well as the Tanakh and New Testament. Either the Tanakh or the New Testament alone was available in an additional 1168 languages, and portions of the Bible were available in another 848 languages, for a total of 2,454 languages.
In 1999, Wycliffe Bible Translators announced Vision 2025. This project aims to see Bible translation begun by 2025 in every remaining language community that needs it. They currently estimate that 2,251 languages, representing 193 million people, lack a Bible translation.
In 2001, Mike Coles, an RE teacher in Stepney, translated The Bible into Cockney Rhyming slang and in 2008, graphic representations of The Bible in Manga and Lego brick form were given approval by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Read more about this topic: Bible Translations
Famous quotes containing the words modern, translation and/or efforts:
“The opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings.”
—Anonymous.
A modern proverb along the lines of “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” This form of words has no precise origin, though both Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (16th ed., 1992)
“Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing.... It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift.”
—Harry Mathews (b. 1930)
“There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.”
—Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)