Below are the years the Book of Mormon was translated into various African languages. Although Afrikaans is derived from the Dutch language, and not “native” to Africa, I mention it here because of its development in Africa. Some African countries have European languages as some of their official languages (i.e. French, English, etc), but I have not included them.
- 1973 – Afrikaans (D&C and PofGP, 1981)
- 1978 – Zulu (South Africa)
- 1983 – Efik (Nigeria)
- 1983 – Kisii (Kenya)
- 1985 – Arabic (N. Africa)
- 1986 – Malagasy (Madagascar)
- 1987 – Akan-Fante [selections] (Ghana); retranslated in 2003
- 1988 – Shona (Zimbabwe)
- 1998 – Lingala (Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire) [selections]; full completed in 2004
- 2000 – Amharic (Ethiopia)
- 2000 – Igbo (Nigeria)
- 2000 – Swahili
- 2000 – Xhosa (South Africa)
- 2003 – Tswana (Botswana)
- 2003 – Zulu (South Africa)
- 2005 – Akan-Twi (Ghana)
- 2007 – Yoruba (Nigeria)
Sources: various Ensign articles. A big thank you to Bookslinger for updates to this list (18 March 2006).
Hi
This is a very informative site. Thank you.
I am an Area Editor for the Church & part of my assignment is to provide content for the Africa SE website africase.lds.org May I please have your permission to use information from your site for our website? If you are agreeable please email me so that I can send you a permission form to sign. I would really appreciate it.
Thank you
Collette Burgoyne
Email sent. 🙂
Hi,
You are not correct in saying that Afrikaans is derived from the Dutch language. In fact it developed along side Dutch from the Dutch spoken in the 17th Century; hulle is eintlik suster tale.
Thank you,
Lesley O’ connell-Maritz.
You literally just said that Afrikaans developed from Dutch. I appreciate your taking the time to provide more context to its development however. 🙂