Lack of Progress Translating LDS Materials into Additional Languages

Within the past three years, essentially no progress has occurred for the Church in regards to translating basic LDS gospel materials into additional languages. Currently the Church reports 188 "published languages," whereas nearly 20 years ago the Church reported 175 languages with translations of at least one LDS material. In contrast, Jehovah's Witnesses report more than 850 languages with proselytism materials translated - a remarkable 100 more languages than one year ago. There remains a significant need to revamp translation efforts in the Church in order for proselytism, convert retention, and member activity rates to improve in many areas of the world.

Click here for more information on the Church's translation efforts.

Meeting Language Needs

According to the LDS Church's statistics, ecclesiastical materials are available in 166 languages. The Book of Mormon is translated into 107 languages. Below is a list of the most widely spoken languages without translations of any LDS materials. There are 15 languages with over 15 million speakers without translations of LDS materials. Chinese languages which use Chinese characters have been omitted from this list. Data for the number of native speakers per languages comes from Ethnologue.com and information regarding languages with LDS materials can be found at here.

1. Javanese (84.6 million) - Indonesia
   
2. Gujarati (46.5 million) - India
   
3. Bhojpuri (38.5 million) - India
4. Awahdi (38.3 million) - India
   
5. Maithili (34.7 million) - India
6. Sunda (34 million) - Indonesia
7. Oriya (31.7 million) - India
8. Sindhi (21.4 million) - Pakistan
9. Uzbek (20.3 million) - Uzbekistan, minority language in surrounding countries
10. Azerbaijani [North and South] (19.1 million) - primarily Azerbaijan and Iran
11. Chhattisgarhi (17.5 million) - India
12. Oromo (17.3 million) - Ethiopia
13. Assamese (16.8 million) - India
14. Kurdish (16 million) - Turkey, Iraq, and Iran
15. Rangpuri (15 million) - Bangladesh

These 15 languages are spoken by 6.6% of the world's population. Seven of the 15 languages are spoken in India, two are spoken in Indonesia, and two are spoken in Iran. I am not aware of any plans for prospective translations of Church materials in any of these languages. Church materials are not currently in these languages as the Church does not have a presence in most areas in which these languages are spoken. Only Javanese is spoken in an area with multiple LDS congregations whereas other languages are spoken in areas without LDS congregations.