The traditions involved in religious Ritual and Liturgy quite frequently provide a place where Archaic forms of language occur. One of the last places the obsolescent English Pronoun '' Thou '' remains in frequent use is in religious liturgy; wherever the Authorised Version of the Bible is read, or older versions of the Anglican '' Book Of Common Prayer '' are in use.
The use of a sacred language represents a further development of this practice. Here, language has changed so far from the language of the Sacred Text s that the language of the old liturgy is no longer comprehensible without special training. Missionary and Pilgrim faiths may then spread the old language to populations which never spoke it, and to whom it is yet another foreign language. Once a language becomes associated with religious worship, its believers often ascribe virtues to the language of worship that they would not give to their native tongues. The sacred language is typically vested with a solemnity and dignity that speech in the vernacular lacks. The enterprise of training Clergy to use and understand the sacred language becomes an important cultural investment. Their use of the tongue gives them access to a body of knowledge that untrained lay people cannot access.
A number of languages have been used as sacred languages. They include:
- Aramaic , used as a liturgical language by Syria n Christians (members of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Syriac Catholic Church , and as a language of prayer, teaching and study in Judaism .
- Classical Arabic , for Muslims the only true language of the Qur'an ; it differs markedly from the Various Forms Of Contemporary Spoken Arabic .
- Avestan , the language of the oldest portions of the Avesta , the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism .
- Classical Chinese , the language of older Chinese literature and the Confucian , Taoist , and in East Asia also of the Buddhist sacred texts, which also differs markedly from contemporary spoken Mandarin .
- Coptic , a form of ancient Egyptian , is used by the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Coptic Catholic Church .
- Etruscan , cultivated for religious and Magical purposes in the Roman Empire .
- Ge'ez , an older variety of Amharic , used as a liturgical language by Ethiopia n Christians (in both the Orthodox Tewahedo and the Catholic churches).
- An old variant of German is used in Amish communities for Bible readings and sermons.
- Hebrew , the language of the Hebrew Bible used in the liturgy of Judaism .
- Koine Greek , which plays a similar role in Greek Christianity . It differs markedly from Modern Greek , but remains half-comprehensible for Modern Greek speakers.
- Ladino, as a form of Judeo-Spanish closer to the original Hebrew syntax, was reserved for Bible Translations by Sephardi s.
- Latin , for Western Europe ans perhaps the sacred language ''par excellence'', which for centuries served as the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic Church (and still to this day).
- Mandaic , an Aramaic language, in Mandaeanism
- Various Native American Languages are cultivated for religious and ceremonial purposes by Native Americans who no longer use them in daily life.
- Palaic and Luwian , cultivated as a religious language by the Hittites .
- Pali , the original language of Theravada Buddhism .
- Some Portuguese and Latin prayers are retained by the Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians) of Japan, who recite it without understanding the language.
- Classical Punjabi is the language of the holy scripture of Sikhism . It is different from the various dialects of Punjabi that exists today.
- Sanskrit , a learned but still living tongue, the tongue of the Veda s and other sacred texts of Hinduism as well as the original language of Mahayana Buddhism .
- Old Church Slavonic , which was the liturgical language of the Slavic Eastern Orthodoxy , and the Romanian Orthodox Church
- Church Slavonic is the current liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church .
- Old Tibetan , known as ''Chhokey'' in Bhutan , the sacred language of Tibetan Buddhism
- Sumerian , cultivated long after its extinction in Assyria and Babylon .
- Yoruba , the language of the Yoruba people, brought to the New World by Africa n Slaves , and preserved in Santería , Candomblé , and other transplanted African religions.
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