Sacred Languages of Scripture and Worship from Jerusalem to China

Biblical Hebrew is recorded as the language of the great majority of the Hebrew Bible, whose consonantal text was later given vowel markings by the Masoretes. The page says it is still chanted in synagogues for Torah and Tanakh reading.

This entry covers post-biblical Hebrew, including Mishnaic Hebrew, the language of the Mishnah, and the modern revived language. The page notes medieval Jewish liturgical poetry, philosophy and Kabbalistic writing were composed in it.

Ancient Greek here means the Classical era language of Homeric epic, Plato and Aristotle, and of the oracular and mystery cult literature tied to Delphi and Eleusis. The page says its vocabulary later shaped Christian theological language.

Koine Greek is recorded as the common dialect spread after Alexander the Great, in which the New Testament was composed and the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was produced.

Byzantine Greek is the later form of Koine used in the Eastern Roman Empire. The page records it as the language of most patristic theology and Eastern Orthodox hymnography, with its liturgical texts still used in Orthodox worship.

The page describes this Church Slavonic as the liturgical language of the Russian church, never spoken, written in Cyrillic and used for services and scripture read aloud. It continues Old Church Slavonic with Russian features.

Bohairic is recorded as the Lower Egyptian dialect of Coptic and the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church, written in Greek letters with extra signs borrowed from Demotic.

Latin is recorded as the liturgical and scholarly language of the Roman Catholic Church, the language of the Vulgate and the Tridentine Mass, and still the Holy See official language for canon law.

Classical Arabic is described as the fixed register of the Quran, which Muslims hold to be significant in its original wording. The page also records it as the language of classical hadith collections and early Islamic law.

Old Avestan is recorded as the archaic language of the Gathas, hymns attributed in the Zoroastrian tradition to Zoroaster himself. The page notes its closeness to Vedic Sanskrit and continuing scholarly debate over interpreting the Gathas.

Prakrit is the collective name for Middle Indo-Aryan vernaculars. The page records that the Jain canon is preserved in Ardhamagadhi and other Prakrits, that Ashoka edicts are in Prakrit, and that Pali belongs to the same layer.

Ardhamagadhi Prakrit is recorded as the language in which the Agamas, the core canonical scriptures of Jainism, were composed, preserved particularly in the Svetambara tradition and chiefly written in Devanagari manuscripts.

Pali is recorded as the canonical language of Theravada Buddhism, in which the Tipitaka is preserved. The page says it has no script of its own and that Pali chanting continues in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

Classical Chinese is recorded as the literary written language of the Analects, the Dao De Jing, the I Ching and Chinese Buddhist commentary, serving as a shared scholarly language across China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.