Liturgical language is a cross-section of two personal interests of mine: Religions and Language.
So, dear denizens of the interfaith.org forums: What are your favorite liturgical languages? What makes them special to you? If it is a classic or foreign language, have you studied it, and what were your experiences?
Me, I like Pali, a classical Prakrit language of India, which was used to record the Theravada Buddhist canon and commentaries. I enjoy the sense of depth of time across which the texts speak. And I am dabbling at it in my spare time, and it taught me a lot about ancient India, modern India, and things like prosody and meter, which I never really understood when studying Latin at school.
And that translation is an art.
So, dear denizens of the interfaith.org forums: What are your favorite liturgical languages? What makes them special to you? If it is a classic or foreign language, have you studied it, and what were your experiences?
Me, I like Pali, a classical Prakrit language of India, which was used to record the Theravada Buddhist canon and commentaries. I enjoy the sense of depth of time across which the texts speak. And I am dabbling at it in my spare time, and it taught me a lot about ancient India, modern India, and things like prosody and meter, which I never really understood when studying Latin at school.
And that translation is an art.
