Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: What was the first language spoken in the Bible?
The Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh (Hebrew: תנ"ך), consists of 39 books. "Hebrew" in "Hebrew Bible" may refer to either the Hebrew language or to the Hebrew people who historically used Hebrew as a spoken language, and have continuously used the language in prayer and study, or both. The texts were mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra) in Biblical Aramaic. Biblical Hebrew, sometimes called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language.
The film follows Gospel Recordings, an evangelical Christian missionary group founded by Joy Ridderhof in California in 1939 to make audio recordings of Bible stories in every language on Earth. The group is part of the umbrella network GRN - Global Recordings Network which has sister offices in over 30 countries. The film claims there are over 8,000 languages and dialects in the world and, as of the making of the film, Global Recordings Network has recorded Bible stories in 5,485 of them. It is mentioned in the film that their archive houses more spoken languages in one place than any other single area in the world. The significance of this lies in the notion that the Bible is not only the most published book around the world, passages from it are also translated into the most spoken languages as well. Many of the languages utilized by Gospel Recordings do not have written counterparts, and even if they did, most who spoke the languages would not be able to read it anyway. A benefit of this group's work is the growing set of unspoken languages that are catalogued over the years, which act as a strong counterpart to historical records of various cultures. "The Tailenders" claim that half of all languages occur in eight countries.
The Bible is being translated into the Pipil or Nawat language, spoken by a minority in El Salvador. This translation is being done by Alan R. King, a linguist with "Ne Bibliaj Tik Nawat". The Bible is being translated from the original languages. The New Testament is complete, and work is ongoing on the Old Testament.The New Testament in the O'odham language (Uto-Aztecan family) of the O'odham of the Sonoran Desert of southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico was translated by Dean and Lucille Saxton of Wycliffe Bible Translators. It was published by The World Home Bible League and The Canadian Home Bible League in 1975. Work is being done on the Old Testament.
There are 88 individual languages of Ethiopia according to Ethnologue, with the 1994 Ethiopian census indicating that some 77 tongues were spoken locally. Most of these languages belong to the Afroasiatic family (Semitic and Cushitic languages; Omotic languages are also spoken, though their classification is uncertain). Additionally, Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by what the government calls the "Nilotic" people, though scholars distinguish Nilotic from the Surmic languages, Gumuz languages, and Koman languages and spoken in Ethiopia.
Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 20% of Indians. Other languages belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. India has the world's second-highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (839).A Gujarati translation of the Bible had been issued by the Serampore Mission Press in 1820, and William Carey had contributed to it. James Skinner and William Fyvie of the London Missionary Society continued the work. These were all superseded by J. V. S. Taylor's 1861 "Old Version" which remains the standard version today.
The 'Are'are language is spoken by the 'Are'are people of the Solomon Islands. It is spoken by about 18,000 people, making it the second-largest Oceanic language in the Solomons after the Kwara'ae (also from Malaita). The literacy rate for 'Are'are is somewhere between 30% and 60% for first language speakers, and 25%–50% for second language learners. There are also translated Bible portions into the language from 1957–2008.
Zechariah 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Zechariah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies spoken by the prophet Zechariah, and is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets.Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:
Shor is a Turkic language spoken by about 10,000 people in the Kemerovo Province in south-central Siberia. The Institute for Bible Translation published the first Bible portion in Shor language, Luke 2:1-20 in 2000. In 2004 they published Mark, and in 2008 John 1:1-17. The full gospel of John was published in 2011.
Jonah 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies spoken by the prophet Jonah, and is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets.Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:
The Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible is the Christian Bible in the Gothic language spoken by the Eastern Germanic (Gothic) tribes in the early Middle Ages.
Camaldolese Bible () is the first known complete transaltion of Bible into Slovak language. The Bible was translated from Vulgate by Camaldolese monks at Červený Kláštor monastery. The completed translation had been rewrittten in 1756-1759. The translation is characterized by the effort to use forms and expressions of common Slovak spoken language, with distinctive Western-Slovak elements and some literary linguistic elements of Czech origin.
The List below gives the date-wise listing of the translations of the full Holy Bible into the major spoken languages in the states of North East India.
Martin Luther (1483–1546) was the first one to translate the Bible into German from the original languages in which it was written. Before Luther, any German translations of the Bible had been made mainly from Latin. Luther came to believe that salvation came by grace through faith in Christ as taught in the Bible, and he wanted to bring the Bible to the German people. Martin Luther was born in 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony. Luther began working on his translation in 1522 at Eisenach in Saxony. Martin Luther's six-part translation of the Bible was first published in 1534. At this time, Saxony was one of many separate states making up the land of Germany. Variant dialects of two basic languages were spoken in Germany: High German in the highlands to the south and Low German in the lowlands to the north. Luther translated the Bible into a dialect of High German that was spoken in Saxony. As each part of his High German translation was published, a Low German translation was soon prepared and published by his associates, among whom was Johannes Bugenhagen. Martin Luther's last translation of the Bible was made in 1545. The 1614 Low German Bible is a rare, illustrated Luther Bible.
The first Gospel to be translated into a Romani language was the Gospel of Luke into the Caló language, spoken in Spain and Portugal. It was translated by George Borrow. This was printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1837 and a revision was printed in 1872.
There are advantages and disadvantages of translating into each different register. A translation into one of the varieties of the low register will be easily understood in one specific region but its geographical reach will be limited, and it will be seen as less prestigious than the high and mid registers. Mid Literary is more difficult to understand than the spoken language but has a wider geographical reach. The high literary register can reach even further geographically but it requires people first to learn a literary language in order to understand what is written in it.
The written form of Bora was developed by Wycliffe Bible Translators Wesley and Eva Thiesen with the help of the natives of the village of Brillo Nuevo on the Yaguasyacu river. Wesley and Eva Thiesen's daughter Ruth is also the first recorded non-native to learn the language. First, Bora to Spanish school books were developed. Then the New Testament Bible was translated. Finally, a comprehensive dictionary and grammar book was developed to document and preserve the language's grammar rules. This has since facilitated more text books so that speakers can be taught to read and write in their own language, rescuing it from extinction due to the prevalence of Spanish and Portuguese in the regions where it is spoken.
The first translation of parts of the Bible into Swahili was accomplished by 1868, with a complete New Testament translation following in 1879 and a translation of the whole Bible in 1890. Since that time, there have been several translations into different dialects of Swahili as spoken in different regions of East Africa; these include the "Union Translation" published by the Bible Society of Tanzania in 1950 and the "Swahili Common Language" version.
Henry Hare Dugmore, a Methodist, translated into Xhosa language. Tiyo Soga (1829–1871) was ordained the first African Presbyterian minister in 1856 and also translated.
"Ndandililo ni Kutyoka" is a translation of the books of Genesis and Exodus from the Old Testament into the Yao language published by The Bible Society of Malawi, Blantyre, Malawi 2004.
Zephaniah 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Zephaniah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies spoken by the prophet Zephaniah, and is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets.Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:
Ladakhi is a language spoken in India in regions bordering both China and Pakistan; its neighbouring languages are Purik, Balti, Zanskari, Nubra, and the more divergent Changthang (see map). All these languages are part of the Western Tibetan language grouping and quite distinct from the Central, Amdo and Khams Tibetan spoken varieties. 
Twi (; also known as Akan Kasa) is a dialect of the Akan language spoken in southern and central Ghana by several million people, mainly of the Akan tribe, the biggest of the about 17 major tribes in Ghana and forms some 70% of the Ghanaian population as a first and second language. Twi is a common name for two former literary dialects of the Akan language; Asante (Ashanti) and Akuapem, which are mutually intelligible. There are about 9 million Twi speakers, mainly originating from the Ashanti Region and about a total of 17–18 million Ghanaians as either first or second languages. Akuapem Twi was the first Akan dialect to be used for Bible translation, and became the prestige dialect as a result. It is also spoken by the Southeastern people of Cote D'Ivoire.
Malachi 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies spoken by the prophet Malachi, and is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets.Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:
The first grammar, "A Grammar of the Chinyanja language as spoken at Lake Nyasa with Chinyanja–English and English–Chinyanja vocabulary", was written by Alexander Riddel in 1880. Further early grammars and vocabularies include "A grammar of Chinyanja, a language spoken in British Central Africa, on and near the shores of Lake Nyasa" by George Henry (1891) and M.E. Woodward's "A vocabulary of English–Chinyanja and Chinyanja–English: as spoken at Likoma, Lake Nyasa" (1895). The whole Bible was translated into the Likoma Island dialect of Nyanja by William Percival Johnson and published as "Chikalakala choyera: ndicho Malangano ya Kale ndi Malangano ya Chapano" in 1912. Another Bible translation, known as the "Buku Lopatulika ndilo Mau a Mulungu", was made in a more standard Central Region dialect about 1900-1922 by missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Mission and Church of Scotland with the help of some Malawians. This has recently (2016) been reissued in a revised and slightly modernised version.
Encounters with Europeans began in the 1700s, followed by the era of colonialism in the Pacific. Samoan was only a spoken language until the early to mid-1800s when Christian missionaries began documenting the spoken language for religious texts and introducing the Latin script for writing. In 1834, an orthography of the language was distributed by the London Missionary Society, which also set up a printing press by 1839. The first complete Bible ("Tusi Pa'ia", Sacred Book) in Samoan was completed and published in 1862.
John H. Fisher, author of "The Emergence of Standard English", observes that in Spanish, Italian, French, and English, the written languages became standardised before the spoken languages, and that these provide frames of reference for what is considered standard speech. He said, in an interview for the Children of the Code project:
I came to the conclusion that all of the discussion of standardisation of language was a discussion of the written forms of language. It had nothing to do with spoken language. We don't have the spoken language standardised yet. When we say that we're speaking Standard English, what we're doing is transferring into our spoken vocabulary and syntax the elements of the written language. What is standard in what you and I are talking now is what we get from our writing.
There are grammatical constructions and words that one uses in speech that one generally avoids in written compositions. Even in the most colloquial of online chats, interjections such as "like" are rarer than in speech. 
The history of Bible translation into the Berber language is fairly recent. The six major Berber language/dialects are spoken by 90% of the total Berber-speaking population: Tashelhit Berber, Kabyle Berber, Central Atlas Tamazight, Riffian Berber, Shawiya Berber, and Tuareg Berber.