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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Super Shiny!

Well, Q has a new shiny thing to show off, and this one's a whopper (at least if you're a linguist): http://www.prayer.su/. It's a database of the Lord's Prayer in what looks like a couple hundred different languages. Some interesting samples for those not that interested in linguistics:
Classical Arabic (font required); also Arabic in Roman alphabet
Classical Armenian (font required)
Greek (font required); also Greek in Roman alphabet
Latin
Classical Chinese (font required)
Georgian (font required)
German
Hindi (font required)
Japanese (font required); also Japanese in Roman alphabet
Korean (font required)
Telugu (someone at our company speaks this; font required)
Klingon (different site)
Quenya in Roman alphabet
Sindarin in Roman alphabet
ce1000 AD Old English (not sure about font)
1384 AD Middle English
1559 AD Early Modern English

I don't really see a version of the prayer in Modern English that sounds exactly like how we actually talk. The 1963 version seems the best of the ones on that site. I'd probably write it like this:
Our Father in heaven
May Your name be honored
May Your kingdom be established
May Your will be done
On Earth as in heaven
Give us what we need for now
And forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us
Do not test our faith, but protect us from evil
For the kingdom, and the power, and the glory are Yours (this line was actually not present in the original version of the prayer; it was added later on)

I'm working on getting a Trique version from my grandpa, and I should be able to write a Tengwar (elven alphabet) version of the Quenya and Sindarin language versions on the site. Does anyone know Finnish? :P

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Stop linking me things I don't care about.