Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Lajos Szőke: Aspects of liturgical languages in Europe

subjects of the sentences are left indefinite and in this way it is not known who acted (felvétetik - Luke 17:35). Protestant Slovak Bible-editions mark the archaic features with other linguistic means: a. with the vocative forms of proper nouns (Luke 22:48) b. with frequent use of verbal adverbs (Luke 22:39, 22:44, Praha, 1969). In the Russian Protestant Bible this marker is the great number of perfective adverbs (Luke 22:39, 22:40, Moscow, 1968). The editions of the United Bible Society (Good News, Die Gute Nachricht) with their everyday, spoken language represent excellent, easily readable translations but none the less they run into difficulties when councils (British, American, or German) decide about the linguistic standard of liturgical languages. The Orthodox Slavs' liturgical language is the product of continuous modifications of Old Church Slavic in the 18th century. As a more radical reform could have repeated the situation brought about in the 17th century, these modifications did not move the language really closer to the modern idiom. The Old Believers, dissatisfied with any official change at all, use the 16th-century variant of the Old Church-Slavic. In any case, the members of the Russian Orthodox Church are dependent on modern translations (available only since the end of the 19th century) if they want to understand the Bible or the liturgy. Conclusion At present major liturgical languages in Europe can be divided into three groups: I. Ancient languages: a. Hebrew - used by Jews b. Greek - used by Greeks and Greek Catholics (on occasion) c. Latin - used by Roman Catholics (on occasion) d. Arabic - used by Muslims II. Modified ancient languages: 149