Languages with some Scripture
GradeMeasured
Jesus told his followers that "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations" (), and Bible translators have taken up that charge one language at a time. On the Wycliffe Global Alliance's archived yearly figures, languages with at least some Scripture rose from "almost 2700 of the 6837 languages" in 2011 to 3,384 in 2019 and 3,495 in 2021. Wycliffe UK's State of the Bible counted 3,658 in 2023 and 3,756 in 2024, the year when, in its words, "for the first time in history, over half of all languages have some Scripture". The Wycliffe Global Alliance reported in August 2025 that the share of the world's population with access to at least some Scripture "has reached more than 99 percent". For Christians, this steady growth shows the Bible reaching more of the world's peoples in their own languages than ever before.
Measured: the agencies' published counts follow the same definition across the years shown, though the earlier years are rounded ("almost", "over"). The rise is steady, from about 2,700 languages in 2011 to 3,756 in 2024, each year higher than the last. The total number of known languages also grew over the period, from 6,837 to 7,396, as more were catalogued, so the share of languages with Scripture rose somewhat less than the count.
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These are the translation agencies' own figures about their own work, so they may be favourable to it. "Some Scripture" includes partial Scripture, and the population figure counts access through a second language, so the headline numbers say more about availability than about reading or belief. The Wycliffe Global Alliance itself cautions that "No global population or Bible translation statistics are ever exact." Because the work is done deliberately in answer to , its progress shows the effort of Christians rather than a sign that comes about by itself.