Full Bible now available in 807 languages after record-equalling year, Wycliffe says

Wycliffe Bible Translators UK & Ireland published its State of the Bible 2026 report on Wednesday, Sept. 30, the United Nations' International Translation Day. It says 28 complete Bibles and 70 New Testaments were launched over the past 12 months. Wycliffe says 28 complete Bibles equals the highest number it has recorded in a single year. Together the 98 launches come to more than one new Bible or New Testament every four days, Christian Today reported, citing the report.

One of this year's launches took the number of languages with a complete Bible past 800, Wycliffe says. Its statistics page, which draws on the September 2026 snapshot from ProgressBible (a database of translation status), puts the total at 807. Another 1,844 languages have a New Testament and 1,519 have portions of Scripture, and each language is counted in one category only. Wycliffe says the 807 languages are spoken by about 6.2 billion people. It adds that not all of those speakers can actually get a whole Bible in their language, for political, geographical, financial or other reasons.

Translation work is under way in 4,414 of the world's roughly 7,400 languages, according to Wycliffe. Wycliffe counts 543 languages, spoken by about 38 million people, that it considers vital enough to benefit from translation but where no work has begun. Five years ago, Christian Today reported, that figure was close to 1,900. Wycliffe also says about one in five people worldwide still do not have the complete Bible in their first language.

Among the year's launches was a complete Bible in Marakwet, in Kenya, on Aug. 1. The Marakwet community received its New Testament in 2012. Wycliffe says sign languages still lag far behind: of 383 known sign languages, American Sign Language is the only one with a complete Bible. In Ethiopia, the deaf community marked the completion of 239 Bible stories in Ethiopian Sign Language in July.

"It is so wonderful to see the progress in Bible translation continue," said James Poole, Wycliffe's executive director. "But the numbers aren't the goal. What matters is that more people can know Jesus through the Bible." Wycliffe credits the pace to more local translators, better technology and support from churches and donors. It says the remaining languages will be harder to reach because many are in isolated or conflict-affected areas.