Friday, February 24, 2006

The Lord's Prayer

For those with a linguistic turn of mind, take a look at the Lord's Prayer in 1325 languages. To link in with my literary tour, here it is in Cornish:

Pader an Arleth
Agon Taze nye, eze en Neve,
Benegas bo tha Hanow.
Tha Gwlaskath gwrenz doaz;
Tha Voth bo gwreze,
En Noer pecarra en Neve.
Ro tha nye an journama gon bara pub death,
Ha gave tha nye gon pehasow
Pecarra tel era nye gava angye
Neb eze peha war agon bidn.
Ha na raze gon lewa en antall,
Buz gweeth nye thurt droeg.
Rag an Gwlaskath Che a beaw,
Han Nearth, han Worrians,
Rag nevra venitha.
Andelna ra bo, Amen.
In case you were wondering, the last of the old Cornish speakers died in 1891, but since then enthusiasts have worked hard to revive the language. As they put it: "Cornish never died, it just wasn't very well." Want to take a crack at reading it out loud? Here is a pronunciation guide. Good luck!

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