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Show Book of Mormon now available in 80 languages The Book of Mormon, a centuries-old volume of Christian scripture scrip-ture viewed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a companion volume to the Holy Bible, Bi-ble, is now published in 80 languages. lan-guages. The Book of Mormon is a compilation com-pilation of writings of prophets and historians in ancient America. It was translated from a "Reformed Egyptian" into English in the early 19th Century by Joseph Smith, first prophet and president of the church. Church translation officials say the book of scripture, which has the subtitle, "Another Testament of Jesus Christ," was translated into six new languages during 1987: Akan (Fante), Papiamento, Pohn-peian, Pohn-peian, Tagalog, Trukese and Zulu. In addition, a complete Book of Mormon has been published in modern-day Greek. Only excerpts from the book had previously been available in Greek. Akan (Fante) is spoken in Ghana by some three million people. There are approximately 5,000 Latter-day Saints in the country. The Papiamento language is spoken in the Dutch-controlled is lands of the Lesser Antilles Curacao, Cura-cao, Aruba, and Bonaire. It is spoken by some 200,000 people, only 250 of them church members. Pohnpeian is the language of Pohnpei Island, situated in the western Pacific, some 2,200 miles east of the Philippines and 3,100 miles southwest of Honolulu. It is spoken by only 24,000 people, 700 of whom are Latter-day Saints. Although English is the most widely spoken and written language lan-guage in the Philippines, Tagalog is the national language. It is the first language of five million people and the second language of another 37 million. The Church has some 127,000 members in the Philippines. Philip-pines. Trukese is spoken by some 28,000 people, including 1,200 Latter-day Saints, in the Truk Islands, situated in the Pacific about 1,800 miles east of the Philippines. Zulu is spoken by some seven million people, most of them concentrated con-centrated in southeastern South Africa. The Church has a Zulu Branch in the town of Kwamashu and some 14,000 members throughout through-out South Africa. |
