Lord's Prayer Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Use as a language comparison tool== [[File:Lithuanian language in European language map 1741.jpg|thumb|Detail of the ''Europa Polyglotta'' published with ''[[Synopsis Universae Philologiae]]'' in 1741; the map gives the first phrase of the Lord's Prayer in 33 different [[languages of Europe]]]] In the course of [[Christianization]], one of the first texts to be translated between many languages has historically been the Lord's Prayer, long before the full Bible would be [[Bible translations|translated into the respective languages]]. Since the 16th century, collections of translations of the prayer have often been used for a [[parallel text|quick comparison of languages]]. The first such collection, with 22 versions, was ''Mithridates, de differentiis linguarum'' by [[Conrad Gessner]] (1555; the title refers to [[Mithridates VI of Pontus]] who according to [[Pliny the Elder]] was an [[Hyperpolyglot|exceptional polyglot]]). Gessner's idea of collecting translations of the prayer was taken up by authors of the 17th century, including [[Hieronymus Megiserus]] (1603) and Georg Pistorius (1621). Thomas Lüdeken in 1680 published an enlarged collection of 83 versions of the prayer,<ref name="Lüdeken">''[https://books.google.com/books?id=8NlYAAAAcAAJ Orationis dominicae versiones praeter authenticam fere centum...]'', [[Thomas Lüdeken]], Officina Rungiana, 1680.</ref> of which three were in fictional [[philosophical language]]s. Lüdeken quotes a ''Barnimus Hagius'' as his source for the exotic scripts used, while their true (anonymous) author was Andreas Müller. In 1700, Lüdeken's collection was re-edited by B. Mottus as ''Oratio dominica plus centum linguis versionibus aut characteribus reddita et expressa''. This edition was comparatively inferior, but a second, revised edition was published in 1715 by John Chamberlain. This 1715 edition was used by Gottfried Hensel in his ''[[Synopsis Universae Philologiae]]'' (1741) to compile "geographico-polyglot maps" where the beginning of the prayer was shown in the geographical area where the respective languages were spoken. [[Johann Ulrich Kraus]] also published a collection with more than 100 entries.<ref>Augustin Backer, Alois Backer, ''Bibliothèque des écrivains de la compagnie de Jésus ou notices bibliographiques'', vol. 5, 1839, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hElDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA304 304f.]</ref> These collections continued to be improved and expanded well into the 19th century; [[Johann Christoph Adelung]] and [[Johann Severin Vater]] in 1806–1817 published the prayer in "well-nigh five hundred languages and dialects".<ref>''Mithridates oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde mit dem Vater Unser als Sprachprobe in bey nahe fünf hundert Sprachen und Mundarten'', 1806–1817, Berlin, Vossische Buchlandlung, 4 volumes. Facsimile edition, Hildesheim-Nueva York, [[Georg Olms Verlag]], 1970.</ref> Samples of scripture, including the Lord's Prayer, were published in 52 oriental languages, most of them not previously found in such collections, translated by the brethren of the [[Serampore]] Mission and printed at the mission press there in 1818.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page