History of Wycliffe Bible Translators

When young Cameron Townsend tried to sell Spanish Bibles in Guatemala in l9l7-l8, he discovered that the majority of the people he met did not understand Spanish. Neither did they have a written form of their own beautiful language, the Cakchiquel.

Townsend abandoned his attempts to sell Bibles and began living among the Cakchiquels. He learned their complex language, created an alphabet for it, analyzed the grammar, and translated the New Testament in the remarkably short span of 10 years.

Convinced that every man, woman and child should be able to read God's Word in their own language, Townsend and like-minded colleagues founded "Camp Wycliffe" in 1934 as a linguistics training school. He borrowed the name Wycliffe from the pre-Reformation hero, John Wycliffe, who first translated the Bible into English.

By 1942, Camp Wycliffe had expanded to form two organizations, Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International). The subsequent need for support services later led to the founding of JAARS, Wycliffe's technical arm, as well as the supporting lay organization, Wycliffe Associates.

Today, SIL International and Wycliffe Bible Translators partner with national Bible translation organizations worldwide to translate Scripture, train field personnel in linguistics and promote interest in translation. Personnel from Wycliffe have been involved in more than 700 New Testament or Bible translations and hundreds more are in progress.

However, the remaining task is enormous. It's now estimated that people in more than 2,200 language groups still need God's Word translated into their languages.