A New Wave of Scripture in the Language of the People
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1384—John Wycliffe’s English translation from the Latin Vulgate translation. In the 1530s William Tyndale later nearly completed an English translation from the original languages of the Bible, which became the basis of the 1611 King James translation.
- 1530—Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples’ French translation
- 1534—Martin Luther’s German translation
Translation was not limited to the Western world. Christianity continued to spread across the globe, and translations followed. People in every region of the world began to hear God’s Word in their heart languages.
- 1629—the gospel of Matthew translated into Malay, a language of Southeast Asia
- 1663—John Elliot translated the Bible into Natick Algonquin, a language of a native people of Massachusetts
- 1818—the gospel of Luke translated into Tahitian, a language of Tahiti
- 1820s—two translations of the Bible were completed in Chinese, a language of China
- 1793-1834—William Carey and his colleagues translated Scriptures into more than 40 languages of India and Asia.
- 1882—John Ross along with Suh Sang Ryun, Lee Eung Chan and Baek Hong Joon translate and publish, The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke in Korean
- 1884—Samuel Crowther (also known as Adjai) and his colleagues completed the New Testament in Yoriba, a language of Nigeria.
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1887—John Ross finished translating the first Korean New Testament, The Bible of Jesus.
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1900s—Efrain Alphonse was one of the greatest missionary pioneers of this century. Eugene Nida says of Efrain Alphonse in his book, God’s Word in Man’s Language, "Of all the missionary translators in the Western Hemisphere probably no one has entered more fully into the rich realms of aboriginal speech than this humble African American servant of God who (worked) untiringly among a needy people.”
Bible Societies
By the nineteenth century, Bible societies formed focused on furthering Scripture translation and Scripture distribution. Many languages were discovered, but translation progress slowed.
William Cameron Townsend
Then William Cameron Townsend inspired a new generation to continue Bible translation until every last man, 
woman and child had God’s Word in a language they could understand. Townsend founded the Summer Institute of Linguistics in 1934 and Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1942 both with a strategic focus on Bible translation for the remaining languages groups without Scripture. Other Bible translation organizations formed and participated. Translation progress became steady, but much more had yet to be done.
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