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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

I heard that Iceland is very concerned with the purity of their language, and have some committee to oversee the matter.

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001879.php

http://www.thehistorychannel.co.u...CELANDIC%20LANGUAGE&enc=23251

http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/germ/icelandic.html

And, the French are this way also. It irks them that people will use foreign expressions such as "Le Week End".

Up until Vatican II in the 1960s, the Roman Catholic church had a doctrine considered by the Eastern Orthodox to be heretical (termed philetism); a belief that the Mass/Liturgy can only be served in the three "sacred" languages , Hebrew, Latin and Greek (the three languages used on the sign above the cross "King of the Jews"). Saints Cyrill and Methodius, in the nineth century, went to the Slavic nations and devised the cyrillic alphabet out of Greek and Hebrew letters. Of course, that first language of the Russian Church, Church Slavonic, became a sacred cow,and for centuries, people were reluctant to pray in any other language.

And yet, the alleged miracle at Pentecost, described in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, is a miracle of many languages; each person in the crowd simultaneosly heard the same apostle speak in the listener's own native tongue. Modern Pentecostals misinterpret the passage, and feel that they must develop the gift of speaking in some tongue unknown even to themselves, as a sign or token of their spiritual development. Even Paul, in one epistle, rebukes people for such practices, and says that only one should speak at a time, and someone else should translate.

I imagine that somewhere, there must be Muslims who experiment with prayers and service in a language other than Arabic.

One young Pakistani swore up and down to me that the prayers of his Masjid were in his Urdu language (a version that he could not understand).

When one speaks of being progressive, and of reform, then it is only natural to move towards the worshiper's mother tongue.

I tried my best to learn the Greek of the Orthodox liturgy, and the New Testament, and I made much progress in understanding, but my comprehension and fluency never equaled my mother tongue of English.

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