Translation of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price Announced for Kazakh and Macedonian

The Church recently announced plans to translate the triple combination (e.g. the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price) into two additional languages that have never had translations of Latter-day Saint scriptures available: Kazakh and Macedonian. The Church reports very few speakers of these languages at present, and the decision to translate scriptures into these languages will serve as a tremendous resource for proselytism efforts and testimony development. There appear to be no more than 30 Macedonian speakers within North Macedonia (FYROM), whereas there appear to be no more than 150 Kazakh speakers in Kazakhstan. The number of speakers of these languages in other countries also appears very small. The Church has appeared to utilize Serbian translations to meet language needs of Macedonian speakers, whereas the Church has mainly used Russian translations to meet the needs of Kazakh speakers. The decision to translate scriptures into these languages may signal renewed interest in the Church translating materials into languages with sizable numbers of speakers but with very few Latter-day Saints. According to Ethnologue.com, there are approximately 13 million Kazakh speakers worldwide and 1.62 million speakers of Macedonian worldwide. The article I referenced at the beginning of this post also contains additional updates regarding translation of scriptures and digitization of scriptures already published in print.

New Translations of the Book of Mormon and Triple Combinations

The Church announced in a letter from the First Presidency dated October 9th that the Book of Mormon and the Triple Combination (e.g. Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price) will be translated into 34 additional languages. Languages in which the Book of Mormon will be translated include:

• Burmese
• Efik (select passages already available)
• Georgian
• Navajo (select passages already available)
• Pohnpeian (select passages already available)
• Sesotho
• Tshiluba

The letter noted that the Georgian translation of the Book of Mormon is nearing completion.

Languages into which the Church will translate the Triple Combination include:

• American Sign Language
• Afrikaans
• Amharic
• Arabic
• Bislama
• Burmese
• Efik
• Georgian
• Greek
• Hiligaynon 
• Hindi
• Hmong
• Lao
• Lingala
• Malay
• Navajo
• Persian (Farsi)
• Pohnpeian
• Polish
• Serbian
• Sesotho
• Setswana
• Sinhala
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Tahitian
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Tok Pisin
• Turkish
• Twi
• Urdu
• Yoruba 

 The following languages are nearing completion for Triple Combinations:

• Afrikaans
• Hmong
• Lao
• Malay
• Polish
• Serbian
• Slovak
• Slovenia
• Tamil

Several of these languages have previously had the Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price translated. However, none of these languages have appeared to have had these scriptures translated into a single Triple Combination book.

With these new translations, the Church will have translated select passages or the entire Book of Mormon into 115 languages.