The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is a translation of the Bible published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society; it is used and distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses. The New Testament portion was released first, in 1950, as The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, with the complete New World Translation of the Bible released in 1961.
The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society produces a significant amount of printed and electronic literature, primarily for use by Jehovah's Witnesses. Their best known publications are the magazines, The Watchtower and Awake!
The beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses have engendered controversy throughout their history. Consequently, the denomination has been opposed by local governments, communities, and religious groups. Many Christian denominations consider the interpretations and doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses heretical, and some professors of religion have classified the denomination as a cult.
Kwanyama or Cuanhama is a national language of Angola and Namibia. It is a standardized dialect of the Ovambo language, and is mutually intelligible with Oshindonga, the other Ovambo dialect with a standard written form.
Jehovah is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָהYəhōwā, one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The Tetragrammaton יהוה is considered one of the seven names of God in Judaism and a form of God's name in Christianity.
The Ilocano Bible, published in 1909, is the second Bible to be published in any Philippine language, after the Tagalog which was published in 1905.
There are two main translations of the Bible into Japanese widely in use today—the New Interconfessional Version and the New Japanese Bible. New Interconfessional Translation Version is published by the Japan Bible Society and the New Japanese Bible is published by Inochinokotoba-sha(いのちのことば社). The New Japanese Version aims to be used as a literal translation using modern Japanese while the New Interconfessional Version aims to be ecumenically used by all Christian denominations and must therefore conform to various theologies. Protestant Evangelicals most often use the New Japanese Version, but the New Interconfessional Version is the most widely distributed and the one used by the Catholic Church, the United Church of Christ, Lutheran Church factions and many Anglicans in Japan.
The Bible has been translated into Italian many times since the first printed translation, the so-called Malermi Bible, by Nicolò Malermi in 1471. The CEI Bible published by the Episcopal Conference of Italy is the official version of the Italian Catholic Church. Prior to the initial publication of the CEI edition in 1971, the most common Italian translation of the bible was that of Archbishop Antonio Martini, published from 1769–1781. The 1607 Italian translation by Giovanni Diodati is the standard reference used in Italian Protestantism; a revised edition of this translation in modern Italian, Nuova Diodati, was published in 1991.
The known history of Bible translation into Ukrainian began in the 16th century with Peresopnytsia Gospels, which included only four Gospels of the New Testament.
The modern Vietnamese alphabet chữ Quốc ngữ was created by Portuguese and Italian Jesuit missionaries and institutionalized by Alexandre de Rhodes with the first printing of Catholic texts in Vietnamese in 1651, but not the Bible. Some New Testament extracts were translated and printed in catechisms in Thailand in 1872.
Translation of the Bible into Malayalam began in 1806. Church historians say Kayamkulam Philipose Ramban, a scholar from Kayamkulam, translated the Bible from Syriac into Malayalam in 1811 to help the faithful get a better understanding of the scripture. The Manjummal translation is the first Catholic version of the Bible in Malayalam. This is the direct translation from Latin. The four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles were translated by the inmates of the Manjummal Ashram, Fr. Aloysius, Fr. Michael and Fr. Polycarp. The Pancha Granthy came out from Mannanam under the leadership of Nidhirikkal Mani Kathanar in 1924. The Catholic New Testament was published in full in 1940. and has influenced development of the modern language.
The first Marathi translation was made by Vaidyanath Sarma under the supervision of the Serampore missionaries and William Carey at Fort William College. However Carey's translation was found lacking, and was revised by two American missionaries, Gordon Hall and Samuel Newell in 1826, with a subsequent edition in 1830. Further, David Oliver Allen "superintended a translation of the Scriptures into the Mahratta language" while in charge of the Bombay printshop 1844−53.
The modern Hindi language and Urdu language are mutually intelligible in colloquial form, but use different scripts when written, and have mutually intelligible literary forms. The history of Bible translations into Hindi and Urdu is closely linked, with the early translators of "Hindustani" simply producing the same version with different scripts: Devanagari and Nastaliq, as well as Roman.
The history of Bible translations into the Tamil language commences with the arrival of Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg at Tranquebar in 1706.Johann Philipp Fabricius, a German, revised Ziegenbalg's and others work to produce the standard Tamil version. Seventy years after Fabricius, at the invitation of Peter Percival a Saiva scholar, Arumuka Navalar, produced a "tentative" translation, which is known as the "Navalar version," and was largely rejected by Tamil Protestants.
The first attempt to translate Bible into Kannada was by the Serampore missionaries and they appear to have it completed by 1809. However this manuscript was lost in the 1812 fire at the Serampore press.
Languages spoken in the Indian Subcontinent belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 20% of Indians. Other languages belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. India has the world's second-highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (839). The first known translation of any Christian Scripture in an Indian language was done to Konknni in 1667 AD by Ignacio Arcamone, an Italian Jesuit.
Bible translations into the languages of Indonesia and Malaysia have a lot of common history up until the modern era. Apart from the shared Malay language which historically was the lingua franca of the Malay archipelago and forms the basis for the national languages of Indonesia and Malaysia today, portions of the Bible have been translated into a variety of indigenous languages in the region.
The Bible has been translated into multiple Philippine languages, including Filipino language, based on the Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines.
The entire Bible was published in Thai in 1894 and there are currently several translations of the Bible in the Thai language.
The Bible has been translated into the Nepali language several times. Beginning in 1821 with the first New Testament translation, these were historically translated and published in India. More recently, translations like the Nepali New Revised Version in 1997 have been translated and published in Nepal. Other recent versions like the Trinitarian Bible Society edition continue to be made in India specifically in the dialect of Nepali spoken in India.
