Asacred language,liturgical language orholy language is alanguage that iscultivated and used primarily forreligious reasons (likechurch service) by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.
Some religions, or parts of them, regard the language of theirsacred texts as in itself sacred. These includeLatin inRoman Catholicism,Hebrew inJudaism,Arabic inIslam andSanskrit inHinduism, andPunjabi inSikhism. By contrastChristian denominations outside of Catholicism andBuddhism do not generally regard their sacred languages as sacred in themselves.Akkadian was a long used liturgical language.
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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 laterlinguistic developments.[1][2][3][4] (An exception to this isLucumí, a ritual lexicon of theCuban strain of theSantería religion, with no standardizedform.)
Once a language becomes associated with religious worship, its believers may ascribe virtues to the language of worship that they would not give to their native tongues.[citation needed] In the case of sacred texts, there is a fear of losing authenticity and accuracy by a translation or re-translation, and difficulties in achieving acceptance for a new version of a text. A sacred language is typically vested with a solemnity and dignity that the vernacular lacks. Consequently, the training ofclergy in the use of a sacred language becomes an important cultural investment, and their use of the tongue is perceived to give them access to a body of knowledge that untrainedlaypeople cannot (or should not) access.
Because sacred languages are ascribed with virtues that the vernacular is not seen to have,[4] these typically preserve characteristics lost in the course of language development. In some cases, the sacred language is adead language, while in others, it may simply reflectarchaic forms of aliving language. For instance, 17th-century elements of theEnglish language remain current inProtestant Christian worship through the use of theKing James Bible from 1611, or older versions of theAnglicanBook of Common Prayer. In more extreme cases, the language has changed so much from the language of thesacred texts that the liturgy is barely comprehensible without special training. For example, theliturgy of theRoman Catholic Church remained inLatin after theCouncil of Tours in 813 ordered preaching inlocal Romance or German, because Latin was no longer understood. Similarly,Old Church Slavonic is incomprehensible to speakers of modernSlavic languages, unless they study it.
Sacred languages are distinct fromdivine languages, which are languages ascribed to the divine (i.e. God or gods) and may not necessarily be natural languages.[citation needed] The concept, as expressed by the name of a script, for example inDēvanāgarī, the name of a script that roughly means "[script] of thecity of gods", and is used to write manyIndian languages.
When theBuddha'ssutras were first written down, probably inPali, there were around 20 schools, each with their own version derived from the original. The presentPāli Canon originates from theTamrashatiya school. The Chinese and Tibetan canons mainly derive from theSarvastivada, originally written inSanskrit, of which fragments remain. The texts were translated intoChinese andTibetan.[5]
Theravada Buddhism uses Pali as its main liturgical language and prefers that scripture be studied in the original Pali.[citation needed] Pali is derived fromSanskrit.[6] InThailand, Pali is transliterated into theThai alphabet,[citation needed] resulting in a Thai pronunciation of the Pali language. Something similar also happens in Myanmar, where Pali is also transliterated into theBurmese alphabet, also resulting in a Burmese pronunciation of Pali.
Mahayana Buddhism, now only followed by a small minority inSouth Asia makes little use of its original language, Sanskrit, mostly using versions of the local language. InEast Asia,Classical Chinese is mainly used.[citation needed] In Japan, texts are written inChinese characters and read out or recited with theJapanese pronunciations of their constituent characters.[7]
InVajrayana Buddhism,Tibetan Buddhism is the main surviving school, andClassical Tibetan is the main language used for study,[8] although the Tibetan Buddhist canon was also translated into other languages, such asMongolian andManchu.[9] Many items ofSanskrit Buddhist literature have been preserved because they were exported to Tibet, with copies of unknown ancient Sanskrit texts surfacing in Tibet as recently as 2003.[10] Sanskrit was valued in Tibet as the elegant language of the gods.[11] Although in Tibetan Buddhistdeity yoga the rest of thesadhana is generally recited in Tibetan, themantra portion of the practice is usually retained in its original Sanskrit.[12]
InNepal, theNewar Buddhist form of Vajrayana is a storehouse of ancient SanskritBuddhist texts, many of which are now only extant inNepal.[13] Whatever language is used,Judith Simmer-Brown explains that atantric Vajrayana text is often written in an obscuretwilight language so that it cannot be understood by anyone without the verbal explanation of aqualified teacher.[14]
Old Tamil was used forSangam epics ofBuddhist andJain philosophy.[15]
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Christian rites, rituals, and ceremonies are not celebrated in one single sacred language. Most churches whichtrace their origin to the Apostles continue to use thestandard languages of the first few centuries AD. Many Christian churches make a distinction between a sacred language, a liturgical language, and a vernacular language. The three most important languages in theearly Christian era wereLatin,Greek, andSyriac (a dialect ofAramaic).[16][17][18]
TheGospel of John notes that the phrase "Jesus, King of the Jews" wasinscribed upon thecross of Christ in three different languages, thereby sanctifying them as the first languages to proclaim his divinity. These are:
Liturgical languages are those which hold precedence within liturgy due to tradition and dispensation. Many of these languages have evolved from languages which were at one point vernacular, while some are intentional constructions by ecclesial authorities. These include:
The extensive use of Greek in the Roman Liturgy has continued, in theory; it was used extensively on a regular basis during thePapal Mass, which has not been celebrated for some time. By the reign ofPope Damasus I, the continuous use of Greek in the Roman Liturgy had come to be replaced in part by Latin. Gradually, the Roman Liturgy took on more and more Latin until, generally, only a few words ofHebrew (e.g.Dominus Deussabaoth) and Greek (e.g.Kyrie eleison) remained. The adoption of Latin was further fostered when theVetus Latina (old Latin) version of the Bible was edited and parts retranslated from the original Hebrew and Greek bySaint Jerome in hisVulgate. Latin continued as the western Church's language of liturgy and communication.
In the mid-16th century theCouncil of Trent rejected a proposal to introducenational languages as this was seen, among other reasons, as potentially divisive to Catholic unity.[citation needed]
During theReformation in England, when the Protestant authorities banned the use of Latin liturgy, various schools obtained a dispensation to continue to use Latin, for educational purposes.
From the end of the 16th century, in coastalCroatia, the local vernacular language began to replaceChurch Slavonic as the liturgical language. This change occurred because Church Slavonic, which had been used in theGlagolitic liturgical books published inRome, was becoming increasingly difficult to understand. This difficulty arose from linguistic reforms that adapted theChurch Slavonic of Croatian recension used in Croatia to the norms of Church Slavonic used in Russia. For example, the vernacular was used to ask the bride and groom if they accepted their marriage vows.
Jesuit missionaries toChina initially obtained permission to translate the RomanMissal intoClassical Chinese, a scholarly form of the language. However, this permission was later revoked amid theChinese Rites controversy. In contrast, among the Algonquin and Iroquois peoples, missionaries were allowed to translatecertain parts of the Mass into their native languages.[19]
In the 20th century,Pope Pius XII granted permission for a few vernaculars to be used in a few rites, rituals, and ceremonies. This did not include the Roman Liturgy of the Mass.
The Catholic Church, long before theSecond Vatican Council (Vatican II), had accepted and promoted the use of the non-vernacular liturgical languages listed above; while vernacular (i.e. modern or native) languages were also used liturgically throughout history; usually as a special concession given to religious orders conducting missionary activity.[20]
In the 20th century, Vatican II set out to protect the use of Latin as a liturgical language. To a large degree, its prescription was disregarded and the vernacular not only became standard, but was generally used exclusively in the liturgy. Latin remains the chief language of theLatin liturgical rites and ofCatholic canon law, but the use ofliturgical Latin is now discouraged. The use of vernacular language in liturgical practice after 1964 created controversy, and opposition to liturgical vernacular is a major tenet of the CatholicTraditionalist movement. Meanwhile, the numerousEastern Catholic Churches in union with Rome each have their own respective parent-language.[citation needed]
Eastern Orthodox churches vary in their use of liturgical languages. Koine Greek and Church Slavonic are the main sacred languages used in communion. Other languages are also permitted for liturgical worship, and each country often has the liturgical services in their own language. This has led to a wide variety of languages used for liturgical worship, but there is still uniformity in the liturgical worship itself.[citation needed]
Liturgical languages used in the Eastern Orthodox Church include (but are not limited to): Koine Greek, Church Slavonic,Romanian,Georgian,Arabic,Ukrainian,Belarusian,Bulgarian,Macedonian,Serbian,Montenegrin,English,German,Spanish,French,Polish,Portuguese,Italian,Albanian,Finnish,Swedish,Chinese,Estonian,Latvian,Korean,Japanese, and multiple African languages.
Oriental Orthodox churches outside their ancestral lands regularly pray in the local vernacular, but some clergymen and communities prefer to retain their traditional language or use a combination of languages.
ManyAnabaptist groups, such as theAmish, useHigh German in their worship despite not speaking it amongst themselves.
Hinduism is traditionally considered to haveSanskrit as its primary liturgical language.[21]
Sanskrit is the language of theVedas,Bhagavad Gita,Puranas like theBhagavatam, theUpanishads, the epics likeRamayana andMahabharata, and various other liturgical texts such as theSahasranama,Chamakam, andRudram.
Sanskrit is also the tongue ofHindu rituals. It also has secularliterature along with its religious canon. MostHindu theologians of later centuries continued to prefer to write in Sanskrit even when it was no longer spoken as a day-to-day language. Sanskrit remains as the only liturgical link language which connects the different strains of Hinduism that are present acrossIndia. Thede facto position that Sanskrit enjoyed, as the principal language of Hinduism, enabled its survival not only in India, but also in other areas, where Hinduism thrived likeSoutheast Asia.[22]
Old Tamil is the language of theShaiva (Devaram) andVaishnava (Divya Prabhandham) scriptures.[23]
Most ofCarnatic Music is inTelugu.Amaravati Stupa.[24] It is dated to 2nd century BCE and is probably, the name of a stonemason. Its structural and grammatical analysis played a key role in studyingIndus script byIravatham Mahadevan.[24][25][26]
Several personal names and place names traceable to Telugu roots are found in variousSanskrit andPrakrit inscriptions of 2nd and 1st centuries BCE.[27]
Many Hindu epics were also composed in Telugu. Some examples are the Amukthamalayada, Basava Purana, Andhra Mahabharatam, and the Ranganatha Ramayanamu.
Apart from Sanskrit, several Hindu spiritual works were composed in the various regional languages of India such asHindi,Assamese,Awadhi,Bhojpuri,Bengali,Odia,Maithili,Punjabi,Gujarati,Kannada,Malayalam,Marathi,Tulu, as well asOld Javanese,[28] andBalinese ofSoutheast Asia.[29]
Classical Arabic, or Qur'anic Arabic, is the language of theQur'an.Muslims believe the Qur'an asdivine revelation—it is a sacred and eternal document, and as such it is believed to be the direct word ofGod. Thus Muslims hold that the Qur'an is only truly the Qur'an if it is precisely as it was revealed—i.e., in Classical Arabic. Translations of the Qur'an into other languages are therefore not treated as the Qur'an itself; rather, they are seen as interpretive texts, which attempt to communicate a translation of the Qur'an's message.Salah and other rituals are also conducted in Classical Arabic for this reason.Scholars of Islam must learn and interpret the Qur'an in classical Arabic. According to thefour accepted Sunni schools of jurisprudence, it is a requirement for sermons (khutbah) to be delivered completely inclassical Arabic.[30][better source needed]
The core of theHebrew Bible is written inBiblical Hebrew, referred to by someJews asLashon Hakodesh (לשון הקודש, "Language of Holiness"). Hebrew (and in the case of a few texts such as theKaddish,Aramaic) remains the traditional language ofJewish religious services.Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic are used extensively by theOrthodox for writing religious texts.
Among theSephardim,Ladino was used for translations such as theFerrara Bible. It was also used during the Sephardi liturgy. Ladino is also often referred to asJudeo-Spanish, as it is a dialect ofCastilian used by Sephardim as an everyday language until the 20th century.[31][32]
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{{cite book}}:|website= ignored (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)the ancient church had three important languages: Greek, Latin, and Syriac.
the ancient church had three important languages: Greek, Latin, and Syriac.
Nagabu: Personal name on a pillar in the Amaravati Stupa (ca. 2nd cent. BCE.).
Nagabu: Prob. name of a stone mason. On a granite pillar in the Amaravati Stupa. Dated variously between 2nd cent. B.C.E. and 2nd cent. CE
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Any attempt at translating songs from the Adi Granth certainly involves working not with one language, but several, along with dialectical differences. The languages used by the saints range from Sanskrit; regional Prakrits; western, eastern and southern Apabhramsa; and Sahaskrit. More particularly, we find sant bhasha, Marathi, Old Hindi, central and Lehndi Panjabi, Sindhi and Persian. There are also many dialects deployed, such as Purbi Marwari, Bangru, Dakhni, Malwai, and Awadhi.
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