Language Statistics

In 1999, leaders of Wycliffe International introduced Vision 2025 with the challenge to believe God for faster progress in the work of Bible translation and other language-related activities. The chart below provides an overview of progress made since that time, by God's grace and with help from partners worldwide.

Progress of Bible Translation	1999	2009
Languages currently without any of the Bible, with probable need of Bible translation:	3,000	2,252*
Number of languages with some or all of the Bible:	2,212	2,479
Language-based development and translation programs in progress in languages without adequate Scripture:	1,500	1,990
Number of active language programs Wycliffe is involved in:	-	1,363
Number of languages in which New Testaments or Bibles were completed with Wycliffe personnel involved:	470	759
* Represents an estimated 353 million people

Source: Wycliffe International. Definitions and methods for collecting and presenting numbers regarding language and translation have changed over time, along with improvements in interpreting previously-collected data. Direct comparison of numbers across different years may lead to wrong conclusions.

Updated: November 2009.

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Other Numbers

World population:
More than 6.9 billion.

Languages currently spoken in the world:
6,909 (Ethnologue, 16th edition, 2008)

Countries represented by the languages in which Wycliffe staff are working:
99 (includes work among people who live outside their traditional homeland).

Wycliffe supported personnel:
5,906 members and employees worldwide. Several hundred more serve as full- or part-time volunteers.

Personnel needed:
More than 2,300. There are ongoing needs for linguist/translators, literacy specialists, trainers, project managers, computer specialists, accountants, administrators and other support roles.

Organizations associated with Wycliffe International:
47 official Wycliffe organizations and 61 affiliated partner organizations.