Religious Languages

There are languages that are religious, that are steeped and founded in faith. The three most notable are English, Hebrew, and Arabic. What do you mean by religious? Are they full of religious words? Actually its more than that, they are founded in the religion, meaning that to use them and understand them properly you must believe that religion or else the connection in grammar, syntax, morphology, linguistics, and more will be lost. Let us begin with English. How is it religious? English comes from Angle, Engle or Anglo Saxon, anglo come from angelos which means angel. The English Language since its inception is steeped in Christianity. This is why God and Good are one letter apart, Devil and evil are one letter apart, and why you can find a chain of words that connect to each other like fallen and faith, the fallen need faith, both begin with a f, the same way that God is full of grace, again two gs and you can find that many of the words have religious overtones and undertones. Gay begins with same letter as God, gay meant glad another g word. The same is for evil words, notice how many bad words begin with d for devil? Damned, desolate, destroyed, deceived, dashed, darkness, drifting, demand, demolish, demean, deprive, discriminate, demoralize, and many more have the same first letter as devil. Granted there are words like deliver and delight that mean good things, but notice that you deliver there is live which is a variation of life, Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," (John 14:6) and "I am the resurrection Life.." (John 11:25), and notice light is in delight, this is because Jesus is the Light (John 8:12). The English Language is full of Emmanuel and Church linguistics that should not surprise us. The Catholic Church helped shape many languages like English, and so filled it with faith oriented words like virtue which is virttis in Latin. The American English especially was filled with spiritual and religious nuances, because the Pilgrims (Separatists) and Puritans were devout Christians and they wanted to let every word allude to Word of God because they hoped to create society and nation under the Christian God, a "city on a hill shining before nations." The only way to fully understand, delve into, and practice English is to be a believing Christian who knows the Bible. If you do. you will find contained in literature another story, message, and hidden meanings in famous works from the Middle Ages to the turn of century, because authors choose specifically Christian religious terms and words on purpose, but those who do not know the Bible and Christ will fail to see the hidden manna and message (example Herman Melville's Moby Dick is full of Christian allegory, metaphor, and more).

Hebrew is another religious language used by the Jewish People. While today it has secularized side used by all people in the Country of Israel, it is a language that is saturated with terms ascribed to the Jewish Religion. God's name alone, Jehovah or Yehovah, Adonai, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, and more are Hebraic and actually words that have only been used in a sovereign and sacred manner. Hebrew is an ancient language, though it not as ancient as its ancestor Aramaic. Hebrew has a religious purpose, it is how a Jew in synagogue prays, it contains the names of God (who is our God, we Christians believe in Same God, they just don't believe Jesus is Son of God as we believe He is), and more. Hebrew is a language that has heritage, it is a term for ethnic group like Abraham's descendants, and it is the language used specifically in Tanakh (Old Testament Jewish Bible), and in services at Synagogue. It is not merely a secular language of the Jewish State, it is steeped and derives its full identity from Judaism and belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The words Shalom and Kavod alone describe major spiritual experiances. Shalom means peace, and it can mean worldy peace, but it really alludes to "peace (shalom) I give, not as the world gives." (John 14:27). Kavod means the rule of the Earth, but not imperial as in men being kings or rulers in the lowest sense. It actually means more, that Adam and Eve had dominion even spiritually over the Earth, but Satan stole it, who is a spiritual not fleshy being, and rules to this day over the earth with his darkness. Hebrew words mean so much more than the obvious, something albeit Jesus was trying to convey to Nicodemius, "You must be born again..,"and Nicodemius said, "how can I be born again? Do I enter into my mother's womb again?" (John 3:1=21). Jesus then tries to help this Jewish Pharisee understand the spiritual meaning of the word Born Again (rebirth, reborn in the Spirit of God as prophesied in the Old Testament and Tanakh).

Arabic was a religious language from its inception. Muhhamed had the language of Arabic created by his scribe to contain his message (The Q'uran) and that was its primarly purpose. It was to be a Latin if you will, for religious service in the Mosque and in talking about Allah (the Muslim god). The problem is most people believe Arabic is merely a language of the Arabs, just as Turkish is the language of the Turks. This is true and false at once. The Arabic of Q'uran is religious, its origin, inception, and purpose is to invoke the revelation of Muhammed. Thus when people speak Arabic today they actually are speaking both a religious and poltical language. It is not the equivlant of French or Italy that can be used for any purpose and by all peoples. A misnomer is the belief that Christians can use the name Allah because it means in Arabic God, just like in English you can say instead of Jesus or Jehovah, God in general terms. While grammatically this is true, it is also not true in the full sense. Allah or Allahu is the name of the Muslim God, it may not be a specific name like Jehovah Jiri, which has specific meaning "Lord God my Provider". When a Muslin does Salah or prays five times a day, they pray to Allah and say, "Allahu Akbar! God is Great!" and "Allah is not a Father, Allah is not a Son, and Allah is not a Spirit," from their minarets in Arabic. Make no mistake, Allah while a general name in Arabic for god, means the Muslim God, is not like using God in English which can be used in place of any god's name from Christianity to Hinduism. Allah means specifically the Muslim God because Muslims do not believe in invoking a specific name of their god lest they taint god's name and be judged. Therefore, Muslims call their god Allah because they can't use any other name, and so it is not to be used as general name for any god and is to be specifically used by adherents to Islam.

To fully understand all three languages requires knowing the theology, scripture, and beleifs of all three monotheistic faiths. Otherwise you get only the secularized versions people understand today, which isn't understanding at all. Make no mistake, to truly speak English is to be a Christian, to truly speak Hebrew is to be Jew, and to truly speak Arabic is to be Muslim. They are languages steeped in religion, there is no separation and they effect the spirit of person who uses them. As Christians we should speak English because it is steeped in our faith, we can learn Hebrew too because our faith is connected to Old Testament, and Jehovah is one with Jesus Christ (see John 15), but Arabic must be handled with care. It can be learned to speak to Muslims, understand their beliefs, and evangelize them; but make no mistake it Arabic has a spiritual power that can harm a believer. This is why when learning Arabic you need as Christian to pray and "guard your heart with all due diligence," (Proverbs 4:23) because to learn Arabic is to learn Islam, the same way to learn Hebrew is to learn Judaism, and to learn English is to learn Christianity.

Other religious languages are Hindi which is spoken in India, but is tied to the religion of Hinduism and Nordic languages which pay homage to Norse gods, and Greek which now a mix of several religions ranging from pantheon of gods like Zeus that their pagan ancestors worshipped, Platonism and Reason, and Christianity because Greek was the language the New Testament was written in and spread through by the likes of St. Paul. One could argue Greek is the true language of Christianity, the only problem is that Greek was not founded on Christian faith, English was. There are many more examples, but I have chosen the top three languages that are explicitly or specifically religious in their make up, foundation, origin, purpose, and nature.