Pentecost

Not a saints-related post, but a geeky language-related one. Today while listening to the second chapter of Acts, I wondered what had happened to all the languages that are mentioned in the passage. So here are the results of my research (almost all from Wikipedia, I'm afraid):

The Parthians were from NW Iran, and their language co-existed with, and was superseded by, a precursor of modern Persian. The word for "bread" seems to have been much the same as "naan" (as it also seems to be in modern Persian).

Median appears to have been an even older language from the same area - I'm not sure if this means it had been around for longer by the time it was noticed, or if the language of the Medes referred to is a language, other than Median, spoken in Media. Both of these languages, like Persian, are Indo-European.

Elamite, on the other hand, is not only not Indo-European but possibly has no other language relations; it may however have been related to the Dravidian languages spoken in southern India. Again it's possible Acts refers to another language spoken in the same area as it seems to have been extinct long before Acts; it was at one time a Persian Empire official language.

In Mesopotamia several languages, including Elamite, but also Akkadian and Sumerian (both extinct within a couple of hundred years of the date of Acts) were spoken. Also however Amaric was spoken which, essentially, is still spoken, though in several dialects, which differ widely depending in part on the religion of the speaker.

It seems a bit odd to say that Judeans were surprised to hear the disciples speaking their language, since they were Jewish, but being from Galilee, they likely also spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew like the Judeans. Interestingly modern Hebrew is a really fascinating case of a resurrected language; one of the pioneers, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, spoke to his son entirely in a language that wasn't his first language and wasn't spoken by anyone in the community - and it worked.

In Cappadocia, they spoke a dialect of Greek; it was almost extinct, but has undergone a small revival in recent years; this may have come too late to save it. In Pontus, they probably spoke another dialect of Greek; there are still a fairly large number of speakers today in Greece.

I believe that Biblical Asia really refers to Asia Minor, now known as Anatolia. Languages spoken there were mainly Indo-European languages and included Hittite, extinct long before Acts, and Lydian, which died out around 100BC; by New Testament times, it is possible Armenian was spoken here, but there is a lot of debate about whether a language like Modern Armenian existed yet.

Phrygian seems to have been related to Greek; like James V of Scotland, an Egyptian Pharoah tried raising children without being spoken to, and they were supposed to have come out with Phrygian as their first word (James V thought his experimental children spoke Hebrew). Pamphylian was another dialect of Greek; Cyrene in Libya was a Greek colony so Greek would also have been spoken.

In Egypt in Biblical times people probably spoke Coptic, which survived as an everyday language into the 17thC AD and is still a liturgical language in the Coptic church.

In Rome, as we know, Latin was spoken, which died out as a spoken language in the Middle Ages. Italian is closest to Latin in vocabulary but apparently Sardinian sounds most like Latin would have: so in Sardinian the word for "hundred" is pronounced with a /k/ instead of any of the soft C sounds that are found in other Romance languages (as in cent in French, cento in Italian and cien in Spanish).

In Crete again a dialect of Greek was spoken.

Assuming that the "Arabs" in the New Testament were in fact from Arabia, but other languages than Arabic were spoken there at this time. They were all Semitic languages too, like Arabic and Hebrew, but Arabic is not descended from them.

What has been interesting researching this is how many language became extinct around New Testament times (and there are others from the region that were false alarms, in that they were spoken in the right place but are thought to have become extinct just before this time). I wonder if this is something to do with occupation - when children are forced to learn in a language other than their home language, or when people need to use an occupation language day-to-day, their home language can become extinct. The Romans have a lot to answer for.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Reformation Martyr, 1556

Today is of course, also, Good Friday, yesterday Maundy Thursday. With my husband, also an ex-low-church Anglo-Catholic convert, I was discussing the fact that we had never really seen the "point" of Maundy Thursday. Of course, in churches that do not emphasise the Eucharist, the very first Eucharist would not particularly be commemorated.

Cranmer, as well as some fairly devious, some would say, loophole-finding on behalf of our old friend Henry VIII, is particularly known for his work on the Book of Common Prayer. In this one can find two different approaches to the Eucharist - the approach that says this is the Body and Blood, and the approach that suggests we "do this in remembrance". At our church it seems to be the whim of the server on that particular day which form of words we get. I like that - it can challenge me or comfort me depending on my thinking on any particular day, as God wishes.

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, c. 394

There are at least two or three Gregorys and this one is a man after my own heart - scholarly, but bad at administration. He was very interested in Greek philosophy and used its ideas but ultimately argued that Christian philosophy was superior. One of his arguments was that since God is infinite he must be unknowable (I probably have got that wrong or oversimplified).

Like our Vicar's sermon today, in which he likened the resurrection to his computer. He has no idea how it works, but it does, and he gets the benefit.

David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601

Dewi Sant is celebrated today in a festival of Welshness - leeks, daffodils, Welsh cakes, bara brith, stovepipe hats, choral singing, and rugby. We spotted Prince Charles wearing a baby leek in his buttonhole.

Stories about David include a miraculous healing at his baptism - similar to Simeon, a miraculous pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the phrase "Remember the little things", which he is said to have used in his last sermon. A forerunner of Schumacher and of the "Think Global - Act Local" movement. He founded a monastery on the west coast of Wales in what is now St. David's, the smallest city in Britain, and the cathedral followed. It is strange to build an important cathedral in a tiny, fairly inaccessible place, but for some reason this seems to me to be a very Christ-like thing to do - glorifying God even if not very many people will see the work.

Anna Julia Hayward Cooper, Educator, 1964

Most of the saints in the lectionary seem to be somewhat mythical, priests, male, dead at least 1000 years, and mainly white (though there are exceptions on the latter point). Anna Julia Hayward Cooper was none of these. At a time when in many places women could not graduate from university, she headed one. Her mother was a slave and her father possibly her mother's owner. She insisted that African American students could do just as well as their white counterparts in school and university, and she was the fourth black woman ever to gain a PhD.

I recently attended the PhD examination and graduation ceremony of a friend and colleague in the Netherlands. Like Cooper, my colleague is a pioneer. She was the first ever PhD from her country to graduate from her university. She had to face many difficulties - mainly financial - during her studies, but was bolstered by the belief in herself that her parents had given her. Cooper is one of those people that hopefully can instill that kind of self-belief in women and minorities. If such pioneers can complete their education despite opposition and hardships, then it is an obligation in some senses on the rest of us not to let them down.

"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity."

George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633

George Herbert was younger than I am now, when he died of consumption. He nevertheless managed to fill his life with kind deeds and lovely, lovely poetry. I can't really say much that he couldn't say in his own words:

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

Martin Luther, 1546

Being an Anglican is a bit odd. On the one hand we are Protestant - well, we certainly aren't Roman Catholic. On the other hand, unlike the vast majority of Protestant churches, our founding was not really a direct result of Martin Luther and you don't really hear much about him in Anglican circles.

However I imagine there are a lot of things we aren't acknowledging. For example, he was the first person to translate the Old Testament into a vernacular language direct from Hebrew (rather than via Greek as Wycliffe did). Interestingly, perhaps Henry VIII should have taken him on as a spiritual adviser since Luther decided polygamy was acceptable.

He does also seem to have been someone who had a finger in every pie and something to say on everything. A Renaissance man, though normally we associate that term with someone a bit less serious.