Sacred languages

[lpetrich]

Most of the more literate religious traditions end up having sacred languages. These are usually the languages that their sacred books are originally written in, and sometimes the languages of translations considered canonical.

Judaism has Hebrew, the language of the Tanakh: the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament.

The Greek Orthodox Church has Ancient Greek, the language of the New Testament and of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament.

Slavic Orthodox Churches have Old Church Slavonic, a medieval Bulgarian dialect.

The Roman Catholic Church has Latin, the language of the Roman Empire and of the Vulgate, Jerome's translation of the Bible.

For many English-speaking Protestants, it seems to be King James English.

Islam has Classical Arabic, the language of the Koran, and in Islam, the Arabic version of the Koran is the only canonical version, with translations of it being commentaries on it.

Hinduism has Sanskrit, the language of the earlier Hindu religious literature the Vedas.

Buddhism has Pali, the language of the earliest Buddhist writings, and later Sanskrit.


Which makes it seem like God only speaks Hebrew or Greek or Latin or King James English or Arabic or Sanskrit.

 

[Tigers!]

The languages may say sacred things but the languages themselves are not sacred.
Languages can come and go. Latin is almost extinct compared to 300 years ago.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Sacramental, p'raps.

 

[Swammerdami]

The languages may say sacred things but the languages themselves are not sacred.
Languages can come and go. Latin is almost extinct compared to 300 years ago.

I think the inclusion of "King James English" in the list was slightly sarcastic.

Sacramental, p'raps.

Much better term. I think the standard term is "liturgical language." @ Linguists -- Am I correct that liturgical languages change much more slowly than vernaculars? Did this assist in identifying Sanskrit and its relatives as being kin to Greek and Latin?

Here in the Kingdom Thais memorize long chants in Pali but AFAIK the language has no use outside temple.

 

[Politesse]

Well, it never sounds quite the same in modern translation, does it? You know you aren't using the words your ancestors used. Some people are fine with that, others will always prefer the weight and community of the centuries. I have no problem with that, as long as it comes from a place of love and continuity.

What I don't like is when mastery of old languages is used to gatekeep, construct unearned authority, or obscure historical truths. As sometimes occurs. I don't think there's any inherent harm in learning and using, Pali, Langay, or Greek, though. If anything, greater public literacy in the languages of their source texts and rituals would be a balm to many of those problems. It's harder to use Sanskrit as cudgel if everyone can read Sanskrit just as well as you and knows you're full of nonsense because they re-read the Diamond Sutra just yesterday and have their own informed opinion about it.

 

[lpetrich]

Yes, a common term is "liturgical language". Wikipedia has  Sacred language also mentioning "holy language".

A sacred language is often the language which was spoken and written in the society in which a religion's sacred texts were first set down; these texts thereafter become fixed and holy, remaining frozen and immune to later linguistic developments.

That article has a big list of them, and here are some more.

Ancient Egyptian, one of the two oldest written languages, survived as Coptic, the sacred language of the Egyptian Orthodox Church.

Some 3,500 years ago, the Hittites of central Anatolia preserved a lot of religious documents that were in Hattic, another language, sometimes having translations into Hittite alongside them. In fact, that's just about all of our knowledge of Hattic.

In Mesopotamia, Sumerian, the other of the two oldest written languages, was used as a sacred and highbrow language for some centuries after it had dropped out of ordinary use, lasting until about 100 CE.

 

[lpetrich]

Here in the Kingdom Thais memorize long chants in Pali but AFAIK the language has no use outside temple.

Seems like Theravada Buddhism.

Other premodern Buddhists used Sanskrit or local languages like Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese, and Japanese.

 Nichiren Buddhism features a chant,  Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō in kanji: 南無妙法蓮華経

JapanDict: Japanese Dictionary
南無 - namu - amen, hail, devotion, glory
妙法蓮華経 - Myōhō Renge Kyō - the Lotus Sutra, a Buddhist text
妙法 - myōhō - mysteries, excellent methods, mystic law, dharma
蓮華 - renge - lotus flower
経 -kyō - sutra, Buddhist text


Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism feature "om" or "aum", a word that one chants when meditating. It's from Sanskrit, and its origin is obscure.

 

[Swammerdami]

Here in the Kingdom Thais memorize long chants in Pali but AFAIK the language has no use outside temple.

Seems like Theravada Buddhism.

Yes. Theravada is the oldest and purest form of the Buddha's teachings. Thailand and Sri Lanka are cited as the key Theravada countries.

In the Anglican and Roman churches, at least three Bishops will normally be present for the Consecration of a new Bishop. ("Normally" is a key word here: they don't want their sect to become extinct if the total number of Bishops drops to two or even one. I suppose they may even have a contingency plan if the number of Bishops drops to zero.)

But ordination of a Theravada bhikhu requires a ceremony with at least five already-ordained bhikhu and Asians tend to be sticklers. Due to wars and such the count of bhikhu in Sri Lanka dropped below five at least once. What were they to do? They sent to the King of Siam "Please send us some Buddhist monks!"

(That's the story as I heard it. Googling now, it seems that extinction threatened Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka more than once; and that Burma may have helped out at least once instead of Siam.)

 

[aupmanyav]

Which makes it seem like God only speaks Hebrew or Greek or Latin or King James English or Arabic or Sanskrit.

Why African Gods will talk in Hausa, Oromo, Yoruba, Igbo, etc.
Indo-Aryans talked about their Gods and Goddesses.The indigenous silently continued to worship their Gods and Goddesses.
When the Aryans realized that the indigenous are not going to change their ways, then they too took up worshiping indigenous Gods and Goddesses.
So Sanskrit became the language for talking about Gods and Goddesses, for Aryans as well as the indigenous.

 

[steve_bank]

In the RCC Latin was the sacred or perhaps the secret language. Until the reformation I beve the European bible was Latin which the masses did not know.

In the 50s RCC mass was done in Latin, changed in the 60s.

Christians living in Rome adopted Latin and it became the Church's language in the fourth century. Saint Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, an edition called the Vulgate, because he used the common (or "vulgar") Latin language.

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/factbox-use-of-latin-in-the-roman-catholic-church-idUSL07383020/

August 9, 20072:10 PM PDTUpdated 17 years ago
(Reuters) - The Vatican said on Saturday it wants its official language Latin to be used more often in the Roman Catholic mass.
Here are some details on how Latin has been used in the Catholic Church:

Italian is the lingua franca of the Vatican and replaced Latin as the official language of the Synod of Bishops in 2014. The Holy See, the entity with authority over the state (yet legally distinct), uses Latin as its official language and Italian as its main working language in administrative and diplomatic affairs.

The literal meaning in English has been expressed as "praise to the jewel in the lotus", or as a declarative aspiration, possibly meaning "I in the jewel-lotus". Padma is the Sanskrit for the Indian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) and mani for "jewel", as in a type of spiritual "jewel" widely referred to in Buddhism.

he Japanese phrase Namu-myoho-renge-kyo literally means “I take refuge in the Lotus of the Wonderful Law.” Chanting daimoku is the principal practice of all Nichiren Buddhists. By reciting this mantra practitioners endeavor to change their karma, overcoming obstacles to success or happiness.