The LDS Church first organized the Translation Department in 1946 to facilitate the translation of church materials and scriptures. By 1900, translations of the Book of Mormon were published in ten languages (Danish, German, French, Italian, Welsh, Hawaiian, Spanish, Swedish, Maori, and Dutch). Dutch, Welsh, and Spanish were among the first languages to have church materials and LDS scriptures translated. LDS materials were first translated into additional languages in the mid-nineteenth century. This essay explores the history of church translation work, identifies languages spoken by over three million native speakers with and without translations of LDS materials, analyzes the successes, missed and current opportunities, challenges, and needs of expanding translation work and compares LDS translation efforts with other missionary-minded Christian groups. However dozens of languages with had only one or two materials translated in 2000 remain without additional translations of church materials today. Since 2000 the Church appears to have placed a greater emphasis on translating remaining LDS scriptures and additional church materials into languages which already had some LDS materials or scriptures available rather than initiating translation work with languages without any LDS literature previously translated. Expanding the number of languages with LDS materials available and the number of translations of LDS materials in these languages is essential for accelerating church growth and a lack of translations of LDS materials in additional languages over the past decade appears to have contributed to the worldwide slowdown in membership and congregational growth. Dismal progress translating LDS materials into additional languages appears attributed to a lack of church planting vision, policies which forego translation projects until a sizable body of Latter-day Saints speak a language, the slow, arduous translation process, and uncoordinated communication between capable local member translators, area presidencies, and the Church Translation Department. Some previously "unreached" languages which recently had their first LDS materials translated include Georgian, Uzbek, and North Sotho (Sepedi). With only a handful of exceptions, the LDS Church has not actively pursued the translation of church materials into additional languages for over a decade. LDS materials are available in the first language of approximately 4.6 billion people which account for two-thirds of the world's total population. Of the approximately 155 distinct languages with LDS materials listed on the Church's online store at, 44 have fewer than one million native speakers (28%) and 18 have fewer than 100,000 speakers (12%). Languages which only have a couple administrative materials translated such as the sacrament prayers may no longer be included in the official tally and explain the decline in the number of languages with translations of LDS materials available. The decline in the number of languages reported to have translations by the Church appears due to the discontinuation of some languages with only one or two materials if past translations have become obsolete or perhaps due to political reasons such as the case with Hebrew. In 1997, the Church reported that there were 175 languages with translations of at least one LDS material higher than the number reported in 2003 (173) and in 2011 (166). With only a few exceptions, all languages with LDS materials at present had their first translations completed before the year 2000. Of these 166 languages, approximately 10 consisted of variants of languages, such as Akan (Fante and Twi), Hindi (India and Fiji-spoken), Serbo-Croatian (Croatian and Serbian), and Braille (English and Spanish). In October 2011, listed 6,909 living languages spoken worldwide whereas the LDS Church reported that there were 166 languages which had at least one LDS material translated. Translating Church Materials into Additional Languages LDS Growth Case Studies Translating Church Materials into Additional Languages Return to Table of Contents
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