About Hindi

Hindi, an Indo-European language, is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Together with Urdu the two languages are known as ‘Hindustani’ and unitedly they have around 600 million native speakers. Hindustani is spoken mostly in India and Pakistan. It is what is known as a ‘pluricentric language’, which means it has several different standard forms—Hindi is written in Devanagari script, while Urdu is written in a Perso-Arabic script, but the language underlying both is very similar. There is a great need for sound Scriptures for Hindi churches. 

Christianity and Hindi

Christianity amongst Hindi speakers in India sits below three per cent, with only a minority of Christians identifying as Protestant. Christianity is thought to have come to India in the second century. Greek kingdoms existed in India, and some Indian kings married Greek women, meaning that it would have been easier for Greek speakers to travel and preach in Greek. From the early eighteenth century various Protestant missionaries (such as William Carey and Henry Martyn) were present in India. 

Early Hindi Bible translations

The history of Bible translations into Hindi and Urdu are closely connected. The earliest Bible translations into Hindi were done by missionaries. These missionaries had great challenges in relation to first learning the languages and the different scripts that are used, as well as then tackling printing and literacy needs. However, a Bible translation was vitally important because it would enable native speakers to spread the Gospel and to establish churches.

In 1745, the German missionary Benjamin Schultze published a Hindi-Urdu New Testament in the Deccani dialect. Then two Englishmen, William Carey (1761–1834) and Henry Martyn (1781–1812), determined to give their lives to this task.

A brilliant language scholar, Henry Martyn learnt Urdu, and within five years from commencing to learn it, he had translated the whole of the New Testament, helped by native speaking helpers. Sadly he died young before its publication in Urdu script in 1814. The title page stated that it was ‘translated from the original Greek by Henry Martyn and afterwards carefully revised with the assistance of Mirza Fitrat and other learned natives.’ The full Bible was later published in 1843, based on Martyn’s drafts of the Old Testament.

William Carey gave himself to translating in other tongues especially Bengali, but also supervised the publication of other Bibles. He longed for translations in all the major languages and this was mostly realised, with dozens of different publications, and the establishment of the Serampore Mission Press in India. A team of translators under Carey’s supervision began work in Hindi and by 1811 the Hindi New Testament was published. This was based on the Urdu by Henry Martyn, and Schultze’s earlier work. Carey and his team also worked on translating the Hindi Old Testament, which was completed in 1819.

A different edition of Martyn’s work adapted to Hindi by William Bowley (c.1780–1843) appeared in 1826 with an Old Testament in 1834. Bowley had to work from the English, however, as he did not have proficient Hebrew. Other missionaries, including William Yates (1792–1845) and John Parsons (1817–1869), undertook to revise the work of Carey. Joseph Owen (1814–1870) worked during the 1850s to finalise the Old Testament.

Modern Hindi Bible translations

As the nineteenth century progressed, Hindi was a unifying language for northern India and the Khari Boli dialect became more influential. This meant that standardisation and refinement of the language was needed because Hindi varies across the different regions where it is spoken, resulting in different forms.

From the late nineteenth century onwards the Hindi and Urdu Bibles were revised further. Some of the changes were related to the language but many were from the new views of the text of Scripture, following the publication of the Critical Greek Text in 1881 by Westcott and Hort. For instance, in 1893 a committee of different missionaries began to revise the Urdu New Testament conforming it to the Greek text underlying the English Revised Version. In 1919 a significant revision of the Hindi Bible was published. This gained a strong position and has been widely seen as the Old Version in continuity with what Carey published. However, this was based on the Critical Greek Text and had verses missing and other textual issues. Various other editions have been published since, including Jehovah’s Witness Versions, and a translation of the NIV.

The TBS project

A new edition of the Hindi Bible is required. While the earlier Carey-era translations are good, we cannot simply digitise and re-publish the text, because there have been so many changes to the Hindi language since then, and it has been more standardised. The current Hindi Bibles are based on the Critical Greek Text, meaning that there is no accurate, reliably translated Bible from the original Biblical languages, in a format that be read by modern day Hindi speakers.

Therefore, in recent years TBS has commenced a Hindi translation project, with reference to the earliest editions of the Old Version Hindi Bible compared with later revisions. It is with great rejoicing that the Hindi Gospel according to John was published, and is now available both in print and on our Online Bible App: tbsonlinebible.com/#hi. Our translator is well underway with translating the rest of the New Testament. Please pray for this project, and that the published Gospel according to John might be blessed to many Hindi readers.