Book of Mormon Translations

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).

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4 Comments

  1. 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

    1. 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.

      1. You literally just said that Afrikaans developed from Dutch. I appreciate your taking the time to provide more context to its development however. 🙂

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