The Bible has been translated into many of the

languages of China There are several hundred languages in China. The predominant language is Standard Chinese, which is based on central Mandarin, but there are hundreds of related Chinese languages, collectively known as ''Hanyu'' (, 'Han language'), that are spo ...

besides

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

. These include major minority languages with their own literary history, including Korean, Mongolian,

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

Kazakh Kazakh, Qazaq or Kazakhstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kazakhstan *Kazakhs, an ethnic group *Kazakh language *The Kazakh Khanate * Kazakh cuisine * Qazakh Rayon, Azerbaijan *Qazax, Azerbaijan *Kazakh Uyezd, administrative dis ...

Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kyrgyzstan *Kyrgyz people *Kyrgyz national games *Kyrgyz language *Kyrgyz culture *Kyrgyz cuisine *Yenisei Kirghiz *The Fuyü Gïrgïs language in Northeastern China ...

, Russian and Uyghur. The other languages of China are mainly tribal languages, mainly spoken in Yunnan in Southwest China.

Chinese

Jingpho/Kachin

The Bible was first translated into the

Kachin language Jingpho (''Jinghpaw'', ''Chingp'o'', ''Jìngphòʔ gà'' / ဈိာင်ဖေါစ်) or Kachin ( my, ကချင်ဘာသာ, ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of the Sal branch mainly spoken in Kachin State, Burma and Yunnan, China. Ther ...

in Burma in 1927, by a Swedish Baptist missionary,

Ola Hanson Ola Hanson (June 25, 1864 in Åhus, Sweden – October 17, 1929 in St. Paul, Minnesota) was a Swedish-American missionary who worked with the Kachin people in Burma. Hanson came to the United States in 1881, settling in Oakland, Nebraska. He at ...

. Amity Press published the Jingpho Bible in 1989 and again in 2013.

Lahu

The complete Bible was first published in Lahu in 1989.

Lisu

Lisu is part of the Tibeto-Burman family. Samuel Pollard and

James O. Fraser James Outram Fraser (Chinese: 富能仁; 1886–1938) was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. He pioneered work among the Lisu people, of Southwestern China, in the early part of the 20th century. ...

prepared simple Christian literature while they were in the first stages of learning the Miao and Lisu languages, later moving on to translating the New Testament. In the Central Lisu dialect, Fraser, after creating the Fraser alphabet, first worked on Mark and John. He then handed on the translation task to Allyn Cooke and his wife, Leila, coming back to help the team with revision in the mid 1930s. Isobel Miller Kuhn also worked on the translation. The New Testament was finished in 1938, and the complete Bible in 1968.

Eastern Lisu/Lipo

The New Testament in Eastern Lisu, translated by George E. Metcalf, was first published in 1951 in Hong Kong, however no copies ever got back to Yunnan.For background, see Tian, Rukang.
Peaks of Faith: Protestant Mission in Revolutionary China
'. Leiden, The Netherlands; New York: E.J. Brill, 1993 pp. 45-46. The Old Testament in Eastern Lisu is not yet fully translated. Covell, Ralph R. "Christian Communities and China's Ethnic Minorities." In R.G. Tiedemann, ed., ''Handbook of Christianity in China Volume Two 1800-Present'' (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 726.

Miao

Sam Pollard Sam Pollard may refer to: * Sam Pollard (missionary) (1864-1915) British missionary to China * Sam Pollard (filmmaker) Samuel D. Pollard is an American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered numerous awards suc ...

began work translating the New Testament into the Large Flowery Miao language of northeastern Yunnan in 1906, publishing parts of it, however died of typhoid in 1917 before he could finish it. Colleagues completed the work. The book was typeset in Japan, and eventually 85,000 copies were distributed. In the late 1980s, Miao Christian leaders decided to finish Pollard's work and translate the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

. After discussion with the Yunnan Christian Council and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, semi-official organizations, a translation team was formed in

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...

. One question was whether to continue to use the Pollard script, which was familiar to Christians from their reading of older materials, or to use the new script promulgated by the government in 1956. In the end, a modified version of the old script was used. When Pollard's Miao characters were not yet included in Unicode, standard computer word processing programs could not handle the text. Consultants from among the missionaries created keyboard shortcuts, but their unique characters could not be copied or the text checked. The Pollard script has since been added to Unicode released in version 6.1. The new translation was launched at a ceremony in Kunming in September 2009, with an initial printing of 10,000 copies.

Naxi

The

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to h ...

was translated into Naxi, spoken in Yunnan, by Elise Schapten using the Pollard script and published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1932.Gospel according to St. Mark in Naxi
tr. Samuel Pollard, Elise Schapten (British & Foreign Bible Society, 1932).

Wa

The New Testament in Wa was translated by Vincent Young and published in 1938 by the

British and Foreign Bible Society The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply the Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world. The Soc ...

. The entire Bible was completed by Wa Christians in the nineties, and a trial version was published. Since the trial version, the Bible Society of Myanmar has been worked on a thorough revision of the text, and a finalized Wa Bible was published in April 2012. Amity Press has published the New Testament in Wa, available o
YouVersion

Chinese

Jingpho/Kachin

Lahu

Lisu

Eastern Lisu/Lipo

Miao

Naxi

Wa

Xishuangbanna Dai

Yi

See also

References

Further reading