TRANSLATORS face a race against time to be ready after a High Wycombe firm pledged to print the Bible in all 6,900 languages.

Experts at Wycliffe Bible Translators have developed new technology which will allow them to create typefaces for some of the world's rarest languages.

It is a challenge which includes learning the language of former cannibals in Papua New Guinea.

Kent Anderson, Wycliffe's director, said the job would be a "unique achievement" because some of the languages have never appeared in text form before.

He said: "It's a unique achievement because in some languages, the thickness or shape of individual letters changes in relation to others they are placed beside. Our staff have had to overcome huge development problems. It was painstaking, but worth it."

Wycliffe plan to complete the mammoth task and print the Bible in every spoken language by 2025 some task when scholars estimate up to 2,700 languages are without a Bible translation.

Mr Anderson added: "We tell people that God speaks to them in their language so it would seem natural for them to have a written record of God's word in their alphabet.

"At first, we estimated it would take us 150 years, but we now believe it is achievable in 20. When you consider it took more than 1,000 years for the first English Bible to be translated, we've reduced the margin quite a bit."

Wycliffe experts have designed new programmes to accommodate rare scripts, some of which have never been printed before.