A translation of the Gospel of Matthew was made into Turkmen, by James Bassett (missionary). This was published in 1880. He revised it in 1884 and these were published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
IBT has published both the New Testament and several Old Testament books [1] in the Turkmen language, as well as a more recent complete translation of the Bible. The first recent publication was in 1994 and was of the New Testament (the 'Injil'), Psalms ('Zebur') and Proverbs (Suleyman's Tymsals) in one hardback volume. This edition was presented to the Language and Literature department of the Academy of Sciences in Ashgabat in November 1995 and was generally well received. It was sold widely on book tables throughout Ashgabat. Since then a paperback version of the New Testament was published, and also the Pentateuch ('Töwrat'), and a new version of Proverbs. The whole Bible is now available online from on the IBT website www.ibt.org.ru and was published in 2016.
In 2019 Jehovah's Witnesses released the complete New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in the Turkmen language in Istanbul, Turkey.
AfghanBibles.org released the Bible book of Ruth in the Turkmen-Persian script commonly used in Afghanistan. Little is known about the translations or even if a complete Bible is available in the Turkmen-Persian script.
Translation | John (Ýohanna) 3:16 |
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Mukaddes Kitap Terjime Instituty, 2016 | Hudaý dünýäni örän söýendigi sebäpli Özüniň ýeke-täk Ogluny berdi. Ol muny Ogluna iman edenleriň hiç biri heläk bolman, baky ýaşaýşa gowuşmagy üçin etdi. |
Turkmen Truth | «خودای دونیَهدَکیلِری قاتی کَن سُیِندیگی اوچین اُزونینگ یِکِجه اُغلونی بِردی. اُل مونی اُغلونا ایمان گِتیرِنلِرینگ هیچ بیری هِلَک بُلمان، اِبِدی یاشایشا قاووشماغی اوچین اِتدی. |
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 2019 | Hudaý adamlarya şeýle güýçli söýýär welin, olar üçin ýeke-täk Ogluny berdin, sebäbi Hudaý Ogluna iman eden her bir adamyň heläk bolman, ebedi ýaşaýşa gowuşmagyny isleýärň |
The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of November 2024 the whole Bible has been translated into 756 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,726 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,274 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,756 languages.
Turkmen is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch spoken by the Turkmens of Central Asia. It has an estimated 4.3 million native speakers in Turkmenistan, and a further 719,000 speakers in northeastern Iran and 1.5 million people in northwestern Afghanistan, where it has no official status. Turkmen is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Turkmen communities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and by diaspora communities, primarily in Turkey and Russia.
The Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) was founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973 by the Bosnian-Croatian poet Borislav Arapović, its main task being to publish Bibles for "non-Slavic peoples in Slavic countries," not just Bible translations into the languages of Russia but also Central Asian languages.
The Bible has been translated to Armenian since the beginning of the fifth century.
Bible translations into Persian Languages have been made since the fourth or fifth century, although few early manuscripts survive. There are both Jewish and Christian translations from the Middle Ages. Complete translations of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament from original languages were first made in the 19th century by Protestant missionaries.
Part of the Bible was first available in the Kurdish language in 1856. Modern translations of the whole Bible are available in standard Kurmanji and Sorani, with many portions in other dialects.
The history of Bible translations into Icelandic began with the country's conversion to Christianity around 1000 CE but efforts accelerated with the Icelandic Reformation in the mid-16th century. Since then, 11 complete translations of the Bible have been completed into Icelandic. Currently, the Icelandic Bible Society oversees translation and production of Icelandic-language Bibles with the most recent full translation completed in 2007.
The modern Hindi and Urdu standards are highly mutually intelligible in colloquial form, but use different scripts when written, and have lesser mutually intelligibility in literary forms. The history of Bible translations into Hindi and Urdu is closely linked, with the early translators of the Hindustani language simply producing the same version with different scripts: Devanagari and Nastaliq, as well as Roman.
The history of Bible translations into the Konkani language begins with Ignazio Arcamone (1615–1683), an Italian Jesuit working in Salcette, Goa was the first to translate parts of the Bible to Konkani language. It was published under the title "Sogllea Vorunsache Vanjel" from Rachol Seminary Printing Press in 1667. Copies of this book are not available.
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 Konkani in 1667 AD by Ignazio 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.
There are some Bible translations into Pashto, a language spoken in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Full translations were published in 1895, 1991, and 2019.
Romani languages are the languages spoken by the Roma people, commonly called Gypsies. The language is often called Romanes.
Traditionally Russia used the Old Church Slavonic language and Slavonic Bible, and in the modern era Bible translations into Russian. The minority languages of Russia usually have a much more recent history, many of them having been commissioned or updated by the Institute for Bible Translation.
The first portion of the Bible, the Gospel of John, in a Tibetic language was translated by Moravian Church missionaries William Heyde, Edward Pagel, and Heinrich August Jäschke, and later Dr. August Francke. It was printed in 1862 at Kyelang capital of Lahul in Kashmir. The whole New Testament was printed in 1885 in Ladakh. Another version was translated in 1903. So as not to have the problem of various dialectal differences it was translated into classical Tibetan, but this was not understood by most people. Yoseb Gergen, a Tibetan Christian translated the entire Bible, complete in 1935. This version was translated into a dialect of Tibetan Gergen had accidentally stumbled across, and which was understandable by all Tibetans. It was finally published in 1948. This is known in India as the Tibetan OV Bible. Eliya Tsetan Phuntshog published a New Testament in 1970. There is currently a project going on to translate the Bible into the East Tibetan dialect.
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.
Across Afghanistan, proverbs are a valued part of speaking, both publicly and in conversations. Afghans "use proverbs in their daily conversations far more than Westerners do, and with greater effect". The most extensive proverb collections in Afghan languages are in Pashto and Dari, the two official languages in Afghanistan.
The Hakka Bible: Today's Taiwan Hakka Version (TTHV), is the most recent revised Hakka language translation of the Bible used by Hakka Protestants in Taiwan and overseas Hakka communities. Work on the translation commenced in 1984 with the TTHV New Testament & Psalms completed in 1993, Proverbs was published separately in 1995. The entire Bible was made available on April 11, 2012 at the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan's annual General Assembly meeting. An ecumenical dedication and thanksgiving ceremony was held on April 22, 2012 at the National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu with over 1,200 Hakka Christians in attendance.
The Bible translations into the languages of Taiwan are into Taiwanese, Hakka, Amis, and other languages of Taiwan.