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The Routledge Handbook of Language and Religion 1st
Edition Stephen Pihlaja Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Stephen Pihlaja, Helen Ringrow
ISBN(s): 9781003819417, 1032293535
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 44.32 MB
Year: 2023
Language: english
 THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
LANGUAGE AND RELIGION

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Religion is the first ever comprehensive collection of
research on religion and language, with over 35 authors from 15 countries, presenting a range of
linguistic and discourse analytic research on religion and belief in different discourse contexts.
The contributions show the importance of studying language and religion and for bringing
together work in this area across sub-​disciplines, languages, cultures, and geographical bound-
aries. The Handbook focuses on three major topics: Religious and Sacred Language, Institutional
Discourse, and Religious Identity and Community. Scholars from a variety of difference discip-
linary backgrounds investigate these topics using a range of linguistic perspectives including
Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, and Conversation
Analysis. The data analysed in these chapters come from a variety of religious backgrounds and
national contexts. Linguistic data from all the major world religions are included, with sacred
texts, conversational data, and institutional texts included for analysis.
The Handbook is intended to be useful for readers from different subdisciplines within lin-
guistics, but also to researchers working in other disciplines including philosophy, theology, and
sociology. Each chapter gives both a template for research approaches and suggestions for future
research and will inspire readers at every stage of their career.

Stephen Pihlaja lives and teaches in Birmingham (UK). He is the author of several books on talk
about religion, including Talk about Faith: how debate and conversation shape belief (2021). He
is interested in how people talk about and understand their own beliefs in diverse contexts.

Helen Ringrow researches gender and religion, particularly in online contexts. She is author of
The Language of Cosmetics Advertising (2016) and co-editor of Contemporary Media Stylistics
(2020).
 ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOKS IN LINGUISTICS

Routledge Handbooks in Linguistics provide overviews of a whole subject area or sub-​discipline

in linguistics, and survey the state of the discipline including emerging and cutting-​edge areas.
Edited by leading scholars, these volumes include contributions from key academics from around
the world and are essential reading for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students.

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF LANGUAGE AND PERSUASION

Edited by Jeanne Fahnestock and Randy Allen Harris

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SEMIOSIS AND THE BRAIN

Edited by Adolfo M. García and Agustín Ibáñez

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF LINGUISTIC PRESCRIPTIVISM

Edited by Joan C. Beal, Morana Lukač and Robin Straaijer

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS

Edited by Sandrine Zufferey and Pascal Gygax

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIOPHONETICS

Edited by Christopher Strelluf

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF PRONOUNS

Edited by Laura L. Paterson

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF LANGUAGE AND RELIGION

Edited by Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow

Further titles in this series can be found online at www.routle​dge.com/​ser​ies/​RHIL

 THE ROUTLEDGE
HANDBOOK OF LANGUAGE
AND RELIGION

Edited by Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow

 Designed cover image: zpix, Getty
First published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​29353-​0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​29364-​6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​30127-​1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/​9781003301271
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
 CONTENTS

List of Figures viii

List of Tables ix
List of Contributors x
Foreword xii
Paul Chilton

1 Language and Religion 1

Stephen Pihlaja
Helen Ringrow

PART I
Religious & Sacred Language 11

2 The Learning of Sacred Languages 13

Bene Bassetti

3 Sacred Languages 25
Brian P. Bennett

4 Digital Media and the Sacred 39

Nevfel Boz
Zehra Erşahin

5 Metaphors and Gestures in Prayers in Islam 53

Manar El-​Wahsh

6 Religious Minority Representations in Arabic Language 64

Mohamed Hassan
v
 Contents

7 Pragmatic Functions of Religious Expressions 78

Marwan Jarrah
Sharif Alghazo

8 Symbols and Icons in Buddhist Worship 96

Charles M. Mueller

9 Analysing Metaphor in Religious Discourse in Literature 109

Clara Neary

10 Language, Religion, and the Digital World 122

Stephen Pihlaja

11 Variation of Language in Religious Texts 134

Svitlana Shurma
Wei-​lun Lu

PART II
Institutional Discourse 149

12 Religion, Literature, and the Secondary Classroom 151

Furzeen Ahmed

13 Religious Greeting Messages as a Genre of Institutional Communication 166

Melanie Barbato

14 Representation of Religion in News Media Discourse 180

Gavin Brookes
Isobelle Clarke
Tony McEnery

15 Pandemic Sermon Rhetoric and Evangelism 194

Clint D. Bryan

16 Language Policies and Religious Practice 208

Anthony J. Liddicoat

17 Politeness in Religious Discourse 221

Marzena Makuchowska

18 Religion in the Discourse of Abortion 236

Helen Ringrow
Simon Statham

vi
 Contents

19 Religious Oratory and Language Online 250

Fiona Rossette-​Crake

20 Catholicism and Social Media 266

Andre Joseph Theng

PART III
Religious Identity & Community 281

21 Religion, Identity, and Second Language 283

Amal Alhamazany

22 Selling English in an Islamic Society 297

Samar Alkhalil

23 Narratives and Religious Identity 310

Iman Abdulrahman Almulla

24 Jewish Languages and American Jewishness 330

Anastasia Badder
Sharon Avni

25 Multilanguaging in Interreligious Encounters 342

Linda Sauer Bredvik

26 Ritual Language, Ritual Community 359

Manel Herat

27 Religious Identity in Discourse 372

Kate Power

28 Conversion Narratives 390

Kumaran Rajandran

29 Cognitive Metaphor and Religion 405

Peter Richardson

30 Religious Ritual and Language in the Local Community 420

Andrey Rosowsky

Index 433

vii
 FIGURES

4.1 Network analysis of Khutbahs 46

4.2 Network analysis of tweets 47
12.1 Text World Theory diagram 156
12.2 A Text World Theory diagram for Far’s question ‘Why would you want to
question everything?’ 158
12.3 Illustration of Far’s metaphor ‘Macbeth gets pulled into the storm’ as
Source-​Goal schema 161
29.1 Adyashanti’s Enlightenment Event model 411
29.2 Davis’s Conversion Event model 414

viii
 TABLES

2.1 The three themes and their three categories 18

4.1 Example of the text cleaning from khutbahs 45
4.2 Top 10 topics ranked by betweeness centrality 46
7.1 Religious expressions in the corpus 83
7.2 Functions of la: ʔila:ha ʔilla ʔalla:h 84
11.1 Titles from different translations 138
11.2 Contents of verse 1 from different translations 139
11.3 Contents of verse 2 from different translations 140
11.4 Contents of verse 3 from different translations 142
27.1 Direct self-​categorization (religious belonging) 378
27.2 Indirect religious self-​categorization (belonging, via attributes and/​or behaviours) 381
27.3 Direct self-​categorization (religious non-​belonging) 381
28.1 Selected conversion narratives 394

ix
 CONTRIBUTORS

Paul Chilton (Foreword) United Kingdom – University of Warwick

Furzeen Ahmed United Kingdom – Aston University

Sharif Alghazo United Arab Emirates – University of Sharjah and Jordan – The University
of Jordan

Amal Alhamazany Saudi Arabia – University of Ha’il

Samar Alkhalil Saudi Arabia – University of Ha’il

Iman Abdulrahman Almulla Saudi Arabia – Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University

Sharon Avni United States – City University of New York

Anastasia Badder United Kingdom – University of Cambridge

Melanie Barbato Germany – University of Münster and United Kingdom – Oxford Centre for
Hindu Studies

Bene Bassetti Italy – Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Brian P. Bennett United States – Niagara University

Nevfel Boz Turkey – Social Science University of Ankara

Linda Sauer Bredvik United Kingdom – Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding
of Religion

Gavin Brookes United Kingdom – Lancaster University

x
 List of Contributors

Clint D. Bryan United States – Northwest University

Isobelle Clarke United Kingdom – Lancaster University

Manar El-Wahsh Egypt – October University for Modern Sciences and Arts

Zehra Erşahin Turkey – Social Sciences University of Ankara and United Kingdom –
De Montfort University

Mohamed Hassan United States – Ahmerst College

Manel Herat United Kingdom – Liverpool Hope University

Marwan Jarrah Jordan – The University of Jordan

Anthony J. Liddicoat United Kingdom – University of Warwick

Wei-lun Lu Czech Republic – Masaryk University

Marzena Makuchowska Poland – Opole University

Tony McEnery United Kingdom – Lancaster University

Charles M. Mueller Japan – Fuji Women’s University

Clara Neary United Kingdom – Queen’s University Belfast

Stephen Pihlaja United Kingdom – Aston University

Kate Power Australia – University of Queensland

Kumaran Rajandran Malaysia – Universiti Sains Malaysia

Peter Richardson Japan – Hokkaido Bunkyo University

Helen Ringrow United Kingdom – University of Portsmouth

Andrey Rosowsky United Kingdom – University of Sheffield

Fiona Rossette-Crake France – Université Paris Nanterre

Svitlana Shurma Czech Republic – Tomas Bata University

Simon Statham United Kingdom – Queen’s University Belfast

Andre Joseph Theng United Kingdom – The University of Edinburgh

xi
 FOREWORD
Paul Chilton

The first signs of religion-​like activity go back some 300,000 years. But religion in anything like
its recognisable form probably emerged with the evolution of language in humans, going back
150 to 500 thousand years ago. For religious activity to emerge in a socially collective form, lan-
guage must have already been developing. In written form, religious feelings appeared around
5,000 years ago. There is, therefore, a very tight link between language and religion—​the subject
of this enlightening new volume.
Religion is far from being irrelevant in the modern world, even though scepticism, agnosticism,
and atheism are alive and kicking. For millions of individuals around the globe religion is a cen-
tral element of everyday life, a key feature of social, political, and cultural bonding, and the very
pivot of identity, not to mention religion’s role as a source of personal solace and stability. That is
not the whole story, however. There exist, and always have existed, extremely troubling aspects of
religion, whether you are a believer or not. One need only think of the Christian Crusades of medi-
aeval Europe, the wars of religion following the Reformation, continuing in the death and destruc-
tion caused by the Thirty Years’ War, and three centuries later in the violent Catholic–​Protestant
political conflict in Northern Ireland. Most obvious today is violent Islamic jihadism, and violent
religious conflict in India. These negative aspects of religion also involve the use (or misuse) of
religious language and concepts. They certainly deserve the attention of linguists and critical dis-
course analysts.
The term ‘religion’ is a relatively recent one in its modern senses. Its most likely etymology lies
in the Latin verb religare, involving the idea of ‘binding’, physically or metaphorically. In Roman
times the word religio meant something general, like moral and social ‘obligation’ (this word,
too, contains the idea of binding and being morally bound), as well as ‘reverence’ and ‘respect’.
It was not at that time used to refer to organised religious systems. Its various meanings have
developed since, in step with social and cultural change. A major development in the meaning of
the term ‘religion’ occurred during and after the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe. From
the Enlightenment on, it gradually became socially and culturally feasible to talk about religion,
religions, and religious belief in an objective fashion, from outside of a religious framework. In
other words, thinkers and writers began to work with a metalanguage. The new scholarly volume
that Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow have so creatively assembled demonstrates exactly such
an approach to making sense of the phenomenon of religion, advancing our understanding by

xii
 Foreword

introducing new methods of investigating the intrinsic role of language. Their volume offers novel
ways of talking about, analysing, and understanding the relationship between religious feelings
and religious language. Importantly, it also shows how new insights into these connections can
be applied in a multi-​cultural and multi-​faith world, where secularity is also spreading. The
overarching question is: what does the word ‘religion’ imply for us today?
To answer this, and similar questions about religion, the first thing that is needed is factual
and impartial description. The collection of large amounts of data is now possible thanks to new
digital technology. Compiling corpora, and refining methods of analysis, should be a multi-​faith
endeavour, both in terms of the diversity of faith traditions examined and in terms of the cul-
tural and linguistic backgrounds of the researchers involved—​a combination that the Pihlaja and
Ringrow collection admirably exemplifies. The contributors provide a wide range of examples of
religious texts, languages, and types of religious activity across a variety of settings. It is in newly
emergent settings, produced by our increasingly globalised world, that new challenges for inter-​
faith communication arise. This is particularly true for education, where different religious beliefs,
customs, and languages coexist. Another problematic area is the teaching of English as a second
language in societies that are often dominated by a particular religious system. Teaching of a
national language necessarily involves introducing vocabularies that can carry underlying cultural
assumptions and values that are not consistent with learners’ own cultures and values. In these
ways, the close relationship between language and religion has produced the contemporary need
for new ways of thinking and talking about religion in the teaching and training establishments.
There is an idealistic perspective in this kind of practical work since it holds the promise of over-
coming the sorry histories of antagonism and violent confrontation that have been generated by
religions.
Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow bring together not only scholars who address the crucial
practical problems associated with religions in a diverse and interconnected world, they also bring
into view the ways in which the linguistic sciences can begin to address fundamental questions
about how, and perhaps why, religious feeling and thinking presents itself in the human mind.
Consider just one of the areas that have troubled philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, and
others: do different religions have universal characteristics? A new focus on what may be the
intrinsic connection between the religious mind and language has the potential to shed new light
on religious mentation, religious practices, and religious institutions. There are at least two ways
in which research into language and religion can move toward that goal. One is the application of
research in cognitive linguistics, including but not overemphasizing the well-​known theories
of metaphor, and not forgetting that grammatical choices are also a cognitive process. If we think
of cognitive linguistics as providing explanatory models for future testing, we enter the domain of
neurolinguistics, which will over time provide closer evidence of the way in which language and
religion interact in human brains. A second approach, already well advanced in linguistics and lit-
erary studies, is the study of genres and their distinguishing linguistic features. Many researchers
in the various disciplines that examine religion and religions have noted the prevalence of par-
ticular genres that recur across numerous religious traditions. Well-​known examples are rituals
and rites, chanting and gestures, prayer and meditation, sermons and exhortations, sacred texts,
exegesis, and hermeneutics—​the list of genres that could be universal is long. What linguists can
offer is far more detailed description of religious genres in different languages than has hitherto
been available. In the process, new insights will emerge and more precise understandings of what
kinds of languaging are universal to religion and what kinds mark differences among them. These
are long-​term goals for the field of language and religion research—​theolinguistics might be one
label for it or others may emerge—​and they will doubtless change as the field develops.

xiii
newgenprepdf

Foreword

My own interest in the language of religion started when I was a doctoral student writing about
a seventeenth-​century French religious poet. As I had parallel interests in linguistics, I became
intrigued by the peculiarities of religious language and the multi-​faceted ways in which it engages
thoughts and emotions. It was obvious also that religious language, though purportedly concerned
with the eternal, was always rooted in the context of its historical present. Above all, it was clear
that understanding religion’s hold over human minds and societies was a task that would need many
scholars from various academic disciplines, religious inheritances, and linguistic backgrounds. It
was only much later that, with my co-​editor Monika Kopytowska, we got around to bringing
together several scholars who converged on the question of religious language. It seemed too
much to hope at that time that this research path might develop further. This exciting new volume
edited by Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow proves me wrong.

xiv
 1
LANGUAGE AND RELIGION
Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow

Background
Religious belief and practice are deeply rooted in how we use language. These uses of language
differ dramatically in different contexts, from the call to prayer from a mosque at dawn, to the
chants of a monk in a monastery, to the recitation of a belief statement with a group of other
believers. These kinds of religious contexts and the language that surrounds them are common in
many cultures and belief systems. At the same time, language about religion and belief comes up
in other contexts as well, when a friend says to another inshallah (if God wills it) when talking
about their plans for the evening, or a person refers to a blessing in their life. These are ways of
talking that implicitly orient towards a religious way of thinking about the world, often in ways
that go completely unnoticed by the people interacting. And then there is the presence of religious
language in otherwise secular institutions, when politicians subtly, or perhaps not so subtly, make
use of sacred texts and recognisable religious language to imply the morality of their position, or
sacred texts are used to reinforce otherwise secular governments. Telling where religious language
begins and ends is rarely straightforward.
Religious identities are also important parts of how people see themselves and see the world,
and consequently how they talk about themselves in this world. Like any other part of identity,
consistencies can be seen across different groups, with specific registers relating to particular
religions. Sacred languages can be an important part of how people connect with what they believe
to be the divine and communities of believers can have shared ways of talking about the world
around them. Belief itself and the path to joining a religion is often marked with the recitation
of particular words, or ascension to particular beliefs using one’s own language to describe an
internal state of change. In the same way, language can be an important part of leaving a religious
group, and marking a personal change, either to a different faith or to no faith.
Even in this small collection of examples, the breadth of possibility to investigate the relation-
ship between Language and Religion becomes obvious. Religious belief and practice have had a
deep and lasting effect on how humans communicate and organise our social world. How language
has been and is being used to shape how people think and talk about spiritual experience, and
organise beliefs around those experiences, is essential for understanding how social interaction
works in many cultures. How it should be studied and, indeed, what it is exactly that is being

DOI: 10.4324/9781003301271-1 1
 Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow

studied can be difficult to pin down. Language and Religion has long been of interest in different
branches of philosophy, sociology, and theology, but has not always had the attention it rightly
deserves within Language and Linguistics research.
Religion and religious language have had a consistent, if often somewhat backgrounded, presence
in different strands of linguistic (and language-​related) study. Most notably, ‘Theolinguistics’ has a
long history (Crystal, 2018; van Noppen, 1981, 2006), as well as religion and spirituality in cogni-
tion (Downes, 2011; Richardson, Mueller, & Pihlaja, 2021), sociolinguistics (Omoniyi & Fishman,
2006), metaphor (Soskice, 1985, 2007), translation (Long, 2005; Rawling & Wilson, 2018; Wolf,
2015), social and new media (Bryan & Albakry, 2016), and media/​news representations of people
of faith (Baker, Gabrielatos, & McEnery, 2013; Bruce, 2017). The interest in a diverse range
of approaches to language and religion has been growing in recent years, with OUP publishing
Language, Religion, and the Human Mind (2018, edited by Paul Chilton and Monika Kopytowska)
and de Gryuter’s Discourse Research and Religion (Johnston & von Stuckrad, 2021), in addition
to several journal special issues (Darquennes & Vandenbussche, 2011; Mukherjee, 2013; Pihlaja,
2017). Within linguistics and language-​based research, there is a great diversity in terms of the
tools, theoretical frameworks and methodologies used to examine the connections between lan-
guage and religion. Lytra, Volk & Gregory’s (2016) edited collection on Navigating Languages,
Literacies and Identities: Religion in Young Lives is one great example of the myriad approaches
used within this field.
Numerous journal articles and chapters on the topic have also appeared, including many from
contributors to this book. Metaphor is a key theme of much of this research, especially in terms of
how faith and religious concepts are conceptualised in different contexts (e.g. Richardson, 2012,
2017; Neary 2017). Increasing recent attention has been paid to the language of religion in digital
spaces (e.g. Souza, 2017; Bryan & Albakry, 2016) in addition to more traditional contexts such as
religious conventions (e.g. Warner-​Garcia, 2016) and mainstream media outlets (e.g. Power, 2017;
Bruce, 2017). In online and offline spaces (and the blurred places in between), the focus is often on
how religious faith is discussed, contested, and (re)presented from within and without faith groups.
Stephen’s own monographs have also looked specifically at conflict in inter-​religious dialogue
and among people of faith, often in social media contexts (Pihlaja, 2014, 2018, 2021a, 2021b).
Helen’s research has examined how women from specific faith groups represent themselves and
their beliefs in online communities (Ringrow, 2020a, 2020b).
Other work focusing on religious identity has considered how people of certain faiths com-
municate their beliefs, often through spoken language and conversation analysis (see for example
Joseph, 2004 on the how national and ethnic identity intersect with religion) or how ‘out-
sider’ groups portray certain religions in contexts such as mainstream media (see for example
Richardson’s 2004 work on the (mis)representation of Islam in British news media). Outside of
linguistics research, language is also a topic of discussion within theology and religious studies
(see for example Hall, 1997 on religious discourse in North America; Malley, 2004 on Evangelical
Christianity; and McGuire, 2008 on lived religious practices), but the focus is not often on empir-
ical studies of language in religious experience or doctrine.
Although religion and religious identity are key elements of debates around nationality and
nationalism, community, gender, sexuality, violence, and terrorism, linguistic research has not
often adequately focused on religious discourse. Sociolinguistic research exploring language vari-
ation has often focused primarily on other identity markers over religion, such as gender, race,
age, and so forth, but therefore there exists only limited body of work both exploring religion as a
discrete identity marker of language variation and exploring how religion intersects with the other
identity markers mentioned above. Building on the foundation of earlier work in theolinguistics

2
 Language and Religion

and related work (not always explicitly under the ‘theolinguistic’ label), researchers have engaged
with a broad range of approaches that focus on the lived experience of religion in community life.
There is little question that Language and Religion remains an important area of interdiscip-
linary research, with growing interest in the empirical study of language across different branches
of linguistics, as well as theology, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. A comprehensive
collection of research in the field, however, has until now been difficult to find, with researchers
needing to draw on occasional books or articles that may have overlaps in terms of the topic
covered, or the methodology used. The result has been an emerging, rich field of research that has
not yet been able to be collected in a single volume, encouraging dialogue and curiosity across the
different places this work has appeared.

Aims and Overview

Given the increased focus on the relationship between religion and language in various subfields
of linguistics, our aim for The Routledge Handbook of Language and Religion is to establish a
shared space for interaction among the various researchers working in the field. Specifically, this
handbook:

1) further elaborates and defines Language and Religion as a distinct field of research within the
study of language and linguistics;
2) provides a range of different approaches to the field from sociolinguistic, anthropological,
ethnographic, and cognitive perspectives;
3) defines research priorities and suggests paths forward for students and scholars; and
4) makes explicit shared goals and interests across researchers looking at different religious
traditions and employing different methods.

The common thread of interest in religion, broadly understood, is present in much of the research
to date, but because the approaches have varied significantly—​a sociolinguist’s understanding
and methods for investigating the relationship between language and religion differs substan-
tially from a cognitive linguist’s approach—​a common way of talking about the field has not yet
emerged. Even categorising the relationship between this work becomes problematic, as terms like
theolinguistics may not encompass the broad range of research looking broadly at the relationship
between religion and language. Likewise, the work goes beyond religious language as talk about
religious belief or faith is explicitly religious. The point where talk is religious can be difficult to
delineate.
At the same time, researchers have made useful connections across linguistic approaches,
different understanding of religious practice and belief, and spiritual and religious experience,
even if direct comparison and contrast might be difficult at times. This handbook is then an attempt
to provide a broad and comprehensive overview of the subject of Language and Religion as it has
developed across the subfields of linguistic investigations. These different approaches are collected
in three key thematic areas: Religious & Sacred Language, Institutional Discourse, and Religious
Identity & Community. The handbook is an introduction to an emerging field, with contributors
from a wide range of different national and disciplinary contexts, including cognitive linguistics,
linguistic ethnography, rhetoric, metaphor studies, and multimodality. For the purposes of this
handbook, religion is viewed in its broadest conception as an organised set of beliefs and practices
about the divine or supernatural. The goal is to allow for different understandings of language and
religion and different approaches to be presented together, so that researchers can benefit from

3
 Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow

work done in adjacent fields and begin to make connections with methods and approaches they
might not normally use.
This handbook does not focus primarily on theological or theoretical understandings of lan-
guage but rather aims to explore how language and discourse about religious belief and prac-
tice affect the interaction in the day-​to-​day lives of religious believers and non-​believers alike.
Throughout the handbook, examples are taken from real-​world discourses, where religious and
sacred language are used in religious practice, or where religious and sacred language appears in
otherwise non-​religious contexts. Data includes papal statements, sacred texts, and language from
religious rituals, but also includes conversational interaction where religious language emerges
without any explicit discussion of religious faith, as in the use of so-​called Allah phrases in Arabic
conversation, or implicit references to religious metaphor in literature. The analysis in this hand-
book makes clear that language about religious belief and practice, far from being limited to reli-
gious contexts and religious people, permeates everyday life in many different contexts.
Taking this inclusive view of religious language and discourse, the handbook provides
researchers in linguistics, sociology, theology, psychology, and religious studies with a comprehen-
sive introduction to all the main issues in the empirical study of religious language and discourse.
Our objective in compiling the handbook was to create an accessible resource for researchers at
many levels of knowledge and experience in language analysis and beyond, from undergraduate
students to senior academics, and we have encouraged contributors to write in a way that doesn’t
require specialist knowledge to understand and engage with an approach. Each chapter has the
same core three sections: Introduction and Background, where the main issues and literature
related to the chapter topic is introduced; Case Study, where the authors present an approach to and
analysis of some specific language data; and Implications and Future Directions, where the authors
discuss the key takeaway points from their case studies and suggest new avenues for research.
Each chapter also includes four or five articles or books for suggested Further Reading to better
understand the topic and approach taken in the chapter.
At the same time as we have ensured this consistency in structure, we recognise that differences
in subfields, national backgrounds, and preferences means that not every chapter will be internally
consistent, but differences in, for example, spelling conventions will be observed in the different
chapters. The contributors for this handbook come from a variety of different backgrounds, from
different countries, studying different religious contexts, with different, or no, religious beliefs and
practices. In compiling the handbook and working with authors, we have worked to ensure that
the presentation and analysis is agnostic in relation to religious belief but is respectful to all the
different beliefs and practices that are presented. Contradictory positions, differing understandings,
and outright disagreements between contributors should be as present in this handbook as seren-
dipitous connections, shared understandings, and agreements. We recognise and celebrate this
diversity, and believe we grow the most when we engage with and seek to understand people who
differ from us, whether that difference is religious or academic, in theology or theory, or in reli-
gious practice or methodology.
The following sections outline the three main thematic groupings for chapters in the handbook
and provide brief descriptions of all the research in the book.

Part I: Religious & Sacred Language

This section will provide an extended introduction to the concept of Religious Language and the
different approaches to the study of language, religion, and the notion of ‘the sacred’ from a variety

4
 Language and Religion

of perspectives. This section will consider the different ways that language has been treated within
different disciplines, including theology, philosophy, and the sociology of religion. The section
will also introduce the concept of ‘sacred language’ and how language from sacred texts comes to
be viewed as divine (or from the divine), how those languages are protected and preserved, and
the challenges of maintaining those languages within a myriad of societal and national contexts.
Throughout this section, both religious and sacred language—​and their translations—​will be
discussed critically in relation to how this language may be used to create and exercise power.
‘Religious language’ may be explicitly religious or more subtle, as some of the chapters argue.
Particular themes addressed in this section also include the use(s) of language(s) within a range of
religious traditions, spirituality outside of institutional religious contexts, and religious and moral
issues within interaction in non-​religious contexts. It will also discuss the increased presence of
digital technologies and mediated communication in interaction around religion and in religious
contexts.
This section opens with Bene Bassetti’s The Learning of Sacred Languages, exploring the
themes of the importance of language sounds, the importance of accurate pronunciation, and the
emotionality of the language sounds within a case study reporting on learners of Quranic Arabic
and Sanskrit.
Brian P. Bennett’s exploration of Sacred Languages brings together discussions of culture,
politics, art, technology, history, and faith from a comparative religious perspective, through con-
sideration of the case of Church Slavonic in contemporary Russia.
Nevfel Boz and Zehra Erşahin carry on this theme of discussing sacred languages in
different spatial and historical contexts in their chapter on Digital Media and the Sacred,
where they employ Semantic Network Analysis to unpack the way in which institutional reli-
gious organisations in Turkey may be under pressure to conform to more secular discourses on
social media.
Manar El-​Wahsh considers how prayers can embody certain kinds of religious meanings in
Metaphors and Gestures in Prayers in Islam, with particular reference to mental spaces and phys-
ical gestures in Muslim prayer rituals.
Mohamed Hassan’s chapter explores Religious Minority Representations in Arabic Language,
with a specific focus on how two Egyptian novels address the complex relationship between
national and religious, and individual and collective, identities.
Marwan Jarrah and Sharif Alghazo consider Pragmatic Functions of Religious Expressions
with a focus on the pragmatic messaging of these expressions in conversation, using the example
of Jordanian Arabic to discuss the interplay between religion, culture, context, and prosody.
Charles M. Mueller explores the use of metaphor and metonymy in Symbols and Icons in
Buddhist Worship, applying a cognitive linguistics framework to Buddhist iconography to con-
sider how the viewer may bring their embedded experiences, cultural knowledge, and religious
expectations to this multimodal context.
Also looking at the role of metaphor is Clara Neary in her chapter on Analysing Metaphor
in Religious Discourse in Literature, exploring the (often implicit) religious language under-
pinning many literary texts through a specific analysis of figurative language in Hilary Mantel’s
novel Fludd.
Stephen Pihlaja examines Language, Religion, and the Digital World, with examples drawn
from Christian and atheist YouTube videos to argue how tracing religious belief over time can be a
useful way of showing how and why these beliefs might change with specific relation to the effects
of the broader sociopolitical context.

5
 Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow

Last, Svitlana Shurma and Wei-​lun Lu’s chapter on Variation of Language in Religious Texts
considers the role of grammar in terms of translating Biblical scriptures into different languages,
exploring language-​specific styles of parallel religious messaging.

Part II: Institutional Discourse

This section focuses on the discourse of established institutions (both religious and secular) that
develop and maintain explicit power structures and truth claims using language. This includes the
language of interaction between religious institutions and the State, and the religious institutions
within the State, and how contemporary governments and different societies and institutions have
understood the relationship between the two. The discussion will include how religious institutions
operate as governing bodies using language, both in the limited context of religious commu-
nities and in larger national contexts where religious and secular law are not separate entities.
The section will explore the use how religious language is used within political, social national
contexts (including the role religious language plays in political ideology), with a specific focus
on contexts where religion is a part of both tacit and explicit political persuasion. We deliber-
ately define ‘institutions’ in extremely broad terms in this section, as can be seen in the different
chapter foci.
The chapters in this section include the following:
Furzeen Ahmed’s chapter on Religion, Literature, and the Secondary Classroom sheds light on
how students bring their religious beliefs and views into their educational reading practices, with
a specific Text World Theory analysis exploring how a British Pakistani Muslim student engaged
with issues of defiance and challenging God in a classroom discussion of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Melanie Barbato continues this section with a focus on institutional religious greetings as pol-
itical communication in her chapter on Religious Greeting Messages as a Genre of Institutional
Communication, specifically examining the standardised patterns of religious greetings from the
Vatican and the White House.
Gavin Brookes, Isobelle Clarke, and Tony McEnery also focus on institutional communication
by investigating Representation of Religion in News Media Discourse through the application of
corpus linguistic and critical discourse analysis tools to British newspaper data, drawing attention
to how particular religious identities (specifically Islam and Muslims) might be legitimated or
delegitimated.
Clint D. Bryan’s chapter on Pandemic Sermon Rhetoric and Evangelism considers the rhetoric
of Christian evangelical sermons during the COVID-​19 pandemic, highlighting the blending of
in-​group and out-​group language that pastors employed to reach live and virtual, and synchronous
and asynchronous, audiences.
Anthony J. Liddicoat’s chapter on Language Policies and Religious Practice addresses how
different conceptualisations of the role of language influence how religions approach liturgy and
proselytisation, discussing examples from Islam (Arabic) and traditional Catholicism (Latin).
Also exploring Catholic religious contexts is Marzena Makuchowska’s chapter on Politeness in
Religious Discourse, which unpacks the intersections between politeness and religious language
through an exemplary analysis of papal speeches in particular relation to face-​threatening acts.
Helen Ringrow and Simon Statham’s chapter, Religion in the Discourse of Abortion, considers
how the connections between religious institutions, political parties, and national governments
shape the language of abortion rights, offering a particular focus on abortion in Ireland, where
a constitutional prohibition on abortion was enacted in 1983 (the Eighth Amendment of the
Constitution of Ireland) and repealed by a referendum in 2018.

6
 Language and Religion

Fiona Rossette-​Crake’s chapter on Religious Oratory and Language Online situates sermons
within oratory specifically and within religious discourse more widely, using participant frameworks
to consider how contemporary social media oratory takes on a ‘quasi-​religious’ register as part of
its technologically mediated performance.
In the final chapter of this section, Andre Joseph Theng also considers contemporary online
spaces with Catholicism and Social Media, drawing attention to issues of authority and hierarchy
in globalised media representations of Catholicism through analysis of official and lay social
media accounts associated with the Catholic Church.

Part III: Religious Identity & Community

This section will engage with the role of language in creating and sustaining religious identity and
community, in both national and diasporic contexts. The research encompasses work primarily
looking at conversation and interaction, with perspectives taken from linguistic anthropology and
linguistic ethnography, sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, and cognitive linguistics, among
others. The chapters discuss the role of individual identity in religious communities and, in par-
ticular, the tensions inherent in heterodoxy, where individual identity is in conflict with traditional
practices and beliefs. The chapters also investigate how particular diasporic communities under-
stand themselves in relation to the larger social world, including the role of religious language
and shared national languages in creating and sustaining certain identities. This includes ana-
lysis of how different languages and beliefs interact within diverse contexts, where believers from
different national and ethnic contexts connect with shared belief and build communities of faith.
The chapters discuss the different ways that languages become associated with particular reli-
gious identities, be they Arabic and Islam or Yiddish and Judaism. The relationship between ritual
language and community is also a focus in several chapters looking at how the learning of ritual
language builds and sustains communities, particularly in diaspora contexts.
The chapters in this section include the following:
Amal Alhamazany begins with a chapter on Religion, Identity, and Second Language which
discusses how attitudes towards learning a second languages (primarily English) in the Saudi
Arabian context are affected by perceptions of other languages and the relationship between one’s
language and one’s religious identity.
Samar Alkhalil’s work in the chapter Selling English in an Islamic Society builds on these ideas
by discussing how English education is presented in the Saudi Arabian context and how Saudis
understand learning English as it relates to their national and religious identity and how it can be
accepted and resisted in different ways.
Iman Abdulrahman Almulla continues talking about the Saudi Arabian context in her chapter
on Narratives and Religious Identity which looks at how religious identity emerges in and through
conversations, exploring how individuals report on spiritual experience and divine intervention.
Anastasia Badder and Sharon Avni continue the discussion of religious identity and specific
languages in their chapter on Jewish Languages and American Jewishness which describes the
relationship between Jewish identity and language, with a focus on how different languages and
language varieties are used in the American context for different functions and to index different
identities.
Linda Sauer Bredvik then discusses Multilanguaging in Interreligious Encounters, looking
specifically at conversations centered around religion between people who frequently don’t share
either a first language or the same religion. Creative use of multilingual resources serves to make
meaning in spaces where differing linguistic and religious identities are the norm.

7
 Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow

Manel Herat continues to look at the role of language in community in a chapter on Ritual
Language, Ritual Community which shows how Buddhist ritual language in religious practice
and in particular rituals around death, plays an important dual role in both reinforcing theological
positions and in creating shared, affective experience.
Kate Power’s chapter on Religious Identity in Discourse looks at how religious identity is
understood in how people talk about their own religious identity, looking specifically at how
people in rural Canada talk about their religious identity in relation to a majority Christian context.
Kumaran Rajandran continues looking at how people talk about their religious identity, and
specifically changes in religious identity, in a chapter on Conversion Narratives, discussing how
people talk about conversion to Hinduism and the resources they use to explain and justify changes
in their religious identity.
Peter Richardson then takes a cognitive linguistic approach to conversion and religious experi-
ence narratives in his chapter on Cognitive Metaphor and Religion showing how people talk about
these experiences using metaphors and explaining this metaphorical language using a variety of
different cognitive approaches.
Andrey Rosowsky then discusses Religious Ritual and Language in the Local Community,
drawing together several of the topical strands in the section, looking at how heritage languages
in diasporic communities have shifted while liturgical language remains stable, showing how
different languages and language varieties play a role in understanding and presenting religious
identities in different ways, at different times.

Conclusion
Across this volume, the capacity for humans to find meaning in their lived experiences is striking.
The chapters in this handbook show that religion is, at its best, about the human urge to under-
stand our experiences, work with others to celebrate that meaning, and develop community with
those around them. At the same time, the work in this handbook also shows how religious belief
and practice, and religious institutions, can be tools for systematic and individual oppression and
work to alienate and drive people apart. Language is central to both these sides of religion,
and understanding both how community is fostered and thrives, and how division is seeded and
fermented, is a central implication of all the research in this book. Analysis of language makes
explicit the processes that lead to these different outcomes, and by identifying those processes and
understanding how they work, practitioners can begin to encourage language that fosters commu-
nity, and discourage and challenge language that underpins oppression.
Working through the different chapters, readers will be struck by the diversity of approaches
to and understandings of Language and Religion. The field is growing and broadening beyond a
niche interest in different linguistic subfields to an established, interdisciplinary subfield in its own
right, with scholars bringing unique strengths and perspectives from the world of linguistics and
language studies. In the various approaches to investigating the relationships between language,
and religious belief and practice, the value of looking at the same phenomenon through different
lenses and from different perspectives becomes readily apparent. A cognitive approach to the use
of metaphor in religious language, for example, is not opposed to discourse analytic approach—​
the two complement one another. The handbook shows how interdisciplinary dialogue can be
beneficial in helping researchers better understand how their contributions are unique and how
they fit into a broader context beyond their own discipline’s interests.
This handbook marks a significant milestone in the development of Language and Religion,
but it is only the beginning. Across the chapters, we are struck by the potential for future work.

8
 Language and Religion

For scholars at every stage of their careers, the contributors offer new fields to explore and endless
potential for collaborative and contrastive study. There is no right or wrong way to understand
these relationships, and interaction between scholars taking different approaches or looking at
different kinds of discourse and different religious traditions can produce more accurate and more
complete pictures of religious belief and practice and how language shapes and is shaped by reli-
gion. We encourage readers to use the handbook to pique their curiosity and find connections
where they might not normally look, and, at the same time, appreciate how religious belief and
practice bring meaning in different ways to different people and recognise the hope that can be
gained in the shared values humans find when they go looking for them.

References
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of Islam in the British press. Cambridge University Press.
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perspectives of minority religions. Discourse, Context & Media , 24, 53–​75.
Bryan, C., & Albakry, M. (2016). “To be real honest, I’m just like you”: analyzing the discourse of personal-
ization in online sermons. Text & Talk, 36: 683.
Chilton, P. & Kopytowska, M. (Eds.). (2018). Language, Religion, and the Human Mind. Oxford
University Press.
Crystal, D. (2018). Whatever happened to theolinguistics. In P. Chilton & M. Kopytowska (Eds.), Religious
language, metaphor and the mind, 3–​18. Oxford University Press.
Darquennes, J., & Vandenbussche, W. (2011). Language and religion as a sociolinguistic field of study: some
introductory notes. Sociolinguistica, 25, 1–​11.
Downes, W. (2011). Language and religion: a journey into the human mind. Cambridge University Press.
Hall, D.D. (1997). Lived religion in America: Toward a history of practice. Princeton University Press.
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10
 PART I

Religious & Sacred Language

 2
THE LEARNING OF SACRED
LANGUAGES
Bene Bassetti

Introduction and Background

Sacred languages are a category of languages that includes well-​known examples, such as Quranic
Arabic and Sanskrit, as well as less widely known ones, such as Pali and Ge’ez. According to Bennett
(2018), a sacred language is characterised by a number (not necessarily all) of characteristics (here
adapted for an audience of language researchers). It is typically:

• mythologised—​associated with superhuman entities or events;

• specialised—​used for specific religious or spiritual practices rather than interpersonal
communication;
• learned—​acquired through individual study and often instruction, not spontaneously like a
native language; and/​or
• considered sacred by a community.

For instance, Quranic Arabic was used by the Divine when communicating with the Prophet; is
used for set prayers and for scripture reading; is usually learned in childhood from family, teachers
and/​or schools; and is sacred to all Muslims across time and space. I adapted Bennett’s criteria,
both to reflect the tenets and terminology of second language research (for instance, replacing
‘mother tongue/​not mother tongue’ with ‘acquired/​learned’), and to include non-​religious spiritu-
ality (adding ‘spiritual’ to ‘religious’, replacing ‘divine’ with ‘superhuman’). However, a definition
may be difficult and controversial, and different disciplines may need different ways to delimit
the boundaries of this category of languages. For the purposes of second language (L2) research
(research on second language acquisition/​learning and sequential bi-​/​multilingualism), the most
appropriate approach to the description and definition of sacred language is the emic one, namely
a learner-​or user-​centred one. This is because the focus of L2 research is the language learner or
user (see also Bennett’s slightly different point that ‘sacredness is in the eye of the believer’, p. 9).
A sacred language then is one the learner or user believes to have a special religious or spiritual
value and learns and uses exclusively for religious or spiritual purposes. For instance, the yoga
practitioners described below believe that Sanskrit has special effects on humans and the universe

DOI: 10.4324/9781003301271-3 13
 Bene Bassetti

and learn it in order to utter mantras and/​or to understand ancient texts that have spiritual or philo-
sophical meaning to them.
Sacred language learning is very diverse, with different types of learners learning in a variety
of settings and at different times in life. Many learn at least the rudiments during childhood, but
there are also late converts, who are first exposed to the language in adulthood; adult re-​learners,
who were first exposed in childhood but seek deeper knowledge later in adulthood; (trainee) faith-​
leaders; and silver learners, who engage with sacred texts or traditions later in life, often after
retirement. Learning can start within the family, with or without the support of individual or group
teachers, and there are a variety of religious and non-​religious settings, both devoted to the lan-
guage and offering the language within wider education, for both children and adults: supple-
mentary schools, community schools, classes offered within the school system, courses offered
at places of worship, further and higher education courses, summer schools, and many others.
Independent study is also widespread, through written materials (bilingual texts, translations,
textbooks) and new technologies (online interactive texts, synchronous or recorded courses, apps).
Importantly, the objectives and scope of learning also vary, from the basic ability to utter short
prayers without comprehension to complex exegesis of ancient texts.
Despite much diversity, sacred languages also share commonalities, so that they can be
considered a category of languages (Bennett, 2018). Crucially for L2 research, a sacred language
is always an additional language—​one that follows chronologically after the acquisition of the
native language(s)—which makes it a suitable object of language learning research. It is also
always learned, meaning that it requires study and often instruction and is not acquired spontan-
eously like a native language, which makes it also a suitable object of language teaching research.
It is learned to use it for religious or spiritual purposes, whether to perform rituals or to read
ancient texts, so that its learning differs from the learning of non-​sacred languages. This makes it
an interesting object of research to expand knowledge about L2 learning and use.
Following applied linguists’ recent interest in religion (discussed elsewhere in this volume),
calls for research on religion and language learning and teaching appeared a decade ago (Dörnyei
et al., 2013), and in 2018 Huamei Han called for the establishment within applied linguistics
of ‘the subfield of religion and language teaching and learning’ (p. 436; see also responses by
other scholars in the same issue). However, the proposed research agendas did not mention sacred
languages specifically or any of their characteristics, and indeed only touched on issues of lan-
guage learning, focusing instead on wider societal issues.
At present, empirical research on sacred language learning is scattered across disciplines,
journals, and edited volumes. Sometimes it is found in publications about broader topics; for
example, the learning of Quranic Arabic may be discussed in articles about Modern Arabic, and
articles on sacred languages (for instance, Gregory et al., 2013a) can appear in special issues on
language and religion. Yet, there has been at least one journal special issue devoted to Quranic
Arabic literacy (Daugaard & Dewilde, 2019), and I am editing a special issue on sacred language
learning that features articles on Quranic Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, and Sanskrit (Bassetti, 2024).
Some researchers have an interest in a specific language in a specific environment, as is the case
with the extensive work of Rosowsky (2013, 2021a) on Quranic Arabic literacy in UK Muslim
communities, and of Avni (2011, 2018) on Hebrew language and literacy in US Jewish commu-
nities. Other researchers extend previous research interests to investigate sacred languages. The
BeLiFS (Becoming Literate in Faith Settings) group (Gregory et al., 2013a, 2013b; Lytra, 2020)
benefitted from the principal investigator Gregory’s previous extensive work on children’s multi-
lingual literacies in London; the world-​leading researcher of language learning motivation Dörnyei
co-​authored an article on motivation in language learning among Bible translators (Lepp-​Kaethler

14
 The Learning of Sacred Languages

& Dörnyei, 2013), within his wider interest in issues of Christian faith. My research on sacred
languages builds upon two decades of researching linguistic relativism (the idea that the languages
we know impact the way we think) in second language learners and users, hence my interest in the
impact of sacred language learning on views of language and language learning (Bassetti, 2024).
Much research on sacred language learning is grounded in sociolinguistics. Indeed, ‘language
and religion’ emerged as a research area within sociolinguistics 20 years ago (and sociolinguists
were already reflecting on religion half a century ago), and the sociolinguistic approach is in line
with current trends in second language research, where the ‘social turn’ of the mid-​1990s brought
to the fore social aspects of language learning. Because of its sociolinguistic orientation, research
has mostly investigated issues of identity, language socialisation (learning to use language in
socially appropriate ways), and other social aspects of learning. While research has investigated
children’s learning, or specific practices such as Quran memorisation and recitation, other types of
learning and use have received little or no attention. Also because of the sociolinguistic approach
taken, methods are qualitative, including ethnographic methods such as observation, as well as
different types of interviews such as narrative interviews or focus groups, that aim at exploring
language learners’ perceptions, experiences, and beliefs. Research grounded in second language
acquisition is as of yet underdeveloped.
Much has been written about the frequent absence of comprehension in sacred language learning
and use. Sacred language users may decode, memorise, recite, chant, listen, and so on, without
comprehending the language they perceive or produce, and indeed without feeling the need to
comprehend it. Learners’ primary, or even sole, goal can be accurate pronunciation of short oral
texts, or the ability to decode a written text, or to recite a text from memory. Reception and pro-
duction of speech without meaning appear incomprehensible to many, an issue well discussed in
Chapter 6 of Bennett (2018). This is what Rosowsky (2021a), who began exploring this issue over
a decade ago, calls ‘ultra-​lingual’, namely a use of language that goes beyond semantic meaning.
He argues for stronger respect for this use of language. It is indeed a matter of perspective, as what
may appear as meaningless repetition to an outsider is a deeply meaningful experience to the lan-
guage users themselves, as using the sacred language can be an act of religious piety, an important
component of religious identity, a means to commune with the Divine or a community, or have
many other layers of meaning.
However, far from always being secondary, the role of comprehension varies widely, ran-
ging from the complete absence of comprehension of someone who recites a whole text without
recognising the meaning of a single word, to the complex meaning-making of someone who
translates or interprets a complex ancient text. This is not limited to faith leaders, as for instance
learners of Biblical languages generally aim at an in-​depth understanding of the text, or the ability
to translate or to compare different translations. Some even learn their sacred language to read
and interpret their scriptures by themselves, to verify and challenge the traditional interpretations
of their community or their religious authorities. Attitudes towards the lack of comprehension
also vary across individuals and time. While some English-​literate Western children accept the
absence of comprehension in their sacred language reading classes, others query or reject this
approach (see articles by Badder and Avni and by Rosowsky in Bassetti, 2024). Among adults,
the inability to understand a sacred language can result in negative attitudes towards one’s faith,
negative emotion, and even affect mental health. At least for some sacred languages, in Western
environments, there may be a trend towards an increasing need to understand.
Various aspects of identity are important in language learning, but religious identity is para-
mount in sacred language learning. It indicates a compound of beliefs, practices, and sense of
belonging, and it is central to many individuals and communities. The sacred language acts as a

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 Bene Bassetti

marker of collective religious identity, being the common language of the religious community,
and its learning and use are central to religious and linguistic personal and collective identities.
Using Quranic Arabic for prayer at the same time as all other Muslim worshippers gives a sense
of being part of a worldwide community. Hebrew is a strong marker of Jewishness. This religious-​
linguistic identity has not been studied in mainstream L2 research.
The learning of sacred languages could be seen through a deficiency lens—​communication
is missing, production is missing—​or more productively seen as a different form of language
learning that can broaden L2 research. Some evident differences are discussed in this chapter—​
identity, emotion (see below)—​but many others could have been mentioned, for instance attitudes
towards the language and motivation to learn it. Sacred languages involve different language
practices, such as cantillation, chanting, or calligraphy appreciation. The learning and teaching
of sacred languages and literacy often reflects non-​Western traditions, some of which are argu-
ably better suited to learners’ aims, which learners and teachers can adopt or syncretically inte-
grate with mainstream education approaches. Many other interesting aspects will emerge as more
research is conducted.
This brief overview can help answer two questions about the role of sacred languages in L2
research. First, is sacred language learning a legitimate part of research on language learning?
Surely L2 research should include any form of language learning. The frequently remarked absence
of comprehension and of communicative aims is only an objection if one assumes that language
learning is about interpersonal communication, which is a circular assumption as it reflects the
selection of languages currently being investigated. Crucially, learning is taking place, as there is
a measurable difference between someone who has learned a sacred language and someone who
has not. Second, can sacred language research contribute to mainstream L2 research? It appears
that various aspects of sacred language learning differ from learners of non-​sacred languages or
are even entirely unattested among them. The next section explores this issue by means of an
exploratory study, while some potential contributions of sacred languages to L2 research are then
presented in the final section.

Phonology in the Learning of Quranic Arabic and Sanskrit

This section is an exploration of the learning of phonology (sounds) and spoken form across sacred
languages. It discusses similarities and differences between two sacred languages—​Quranic
Arabic and Sanskrit—​and compares findings from these sacred languages with the consensus in
mainstream research on second language (L2) phonology. I argue that the field of L2 phonology
research should include sacred languages, because studying the learning of sacred language phon-
ology can extend and diversify the body of empirical evidence and contribute to theorising in L2
pronunciation research. The motivation for this is that:

1) phonology learning across different sacred languages is similar enough to warrant treating
sacred languages as a category of languages within L2 research;
2) phonology learning across sacred languages varies enough that investigating different ones can
contribute to the diversity of languages investigated within L2 research (something that is a
major concern in an English-​dominated discipline); and
3) crucially, phonology learning in sacred languages differs from phonology learning in non-​
sacred languages, including second, foreign, heritage/​community, and classical languages.
As such, this line of research can provide new perspectives to mainstream L2 phonology
research.

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 The Learning of Sacred Languages

Phonology was selected because it is an aspect of language learning where the realities
investigated by mainstream L2 research differ widely from the realities of sacred language learners
and users. The selected languages were Quranic Arabic (henceforth ‘QA’) and Sanskrit as a Sacred
Language (henceforth ‘Sanskrit’; not to be confused with spoken Sanskrit). These two languages
are suitable in illustrating similarities and differences across sacred languages, because phonology
and the spoken form of language are at the very core of the learning and use of both languages.
There are however differences (discussed below) in learners’ and users’ perceptions of the sounds
of the two languages, their aims in learning the pronunciation of the two languages, and the nature
of the emotional resonance of the spoken forms of the two languages.
To identify similarities and differences in phonology learning in QA and Sanskrit, I re-​analysed
16 interviews of Europe-​based adult learners collected for previous studies: 12 semi-​structured
interviews of UK-​based QA learners (Bassetti & Dewaele, 2018) and four narrative interviews
of Italian learners of Sanskrit (Bassetti & Reinboldt, 2023; detailed information is found in the
relevant articles). To identify learners’ views of the phonology of their language, I first assembled
all extracts that had been assigned codes related to language sound or pronunciation in previous
thematic analyses using the software MaxQDA. Utilising this, I then re-​read and annotated clean
copies of all interviews to identify similarities and differences in talking about language sounds,
before re-​coding the 16 interviews again using MaxQDA and extracting themes. I used extracts
from these interviews (marked with italics and quotes) to illustrate my analysis. To relate the
themes to scholarship on sacred languages, QA and Sanskrit, I selected a general scholarly intro-
duction to sacred languages (Bennett’s (2018) Sacred Languages of the World), as well as three
monographs for each language about its form, its sounds, and its aesthetic or emotional dimensions
(Sanskrit: Beck, 1993; Pollock, 2006; Wilke & Moebus, 2011; QA: Gade, 2004; Kermani, 2015;
Versteegh, 2014).
This chapter discusses three themes around sacred language pronunciation, selected from
those that emerged from the analysis, each with three categories: Commonalities between the
two languages, differences between the two languages, and differences between the two sacred
languages versus mainstream L2 phonology research. To relate the findings to L2 research and
L2 pronunciation research, I selected three recent overviews, one of L2 research (Ellis, 2021) and
two of L2 phonology learning (Pennington, 2021; Derwing & Munro, 2022) using these criteria: a
short English-​language review; by one or more leading scholars; research-​led but not aimed at
specialists; published within the last three years. Unless a different source is specified, discussions
of L2 phonology research are based on these sources.
The three themes are summarised in Table 2.1.
The first theme is the importance of language sounds. The sound of the language is fundamental
to both learners of Quranic Arabic (QA) and Sanskrit (Sanskrit). The reasons for this centrality of
pronunciation differ between the two languages, but this centrality is a major difference between
learners of such sacred languages and of other languages.
In the views of both QA and Sanskrit learners within this study, the sounds of their sacred
language are of paramount importance in and of themselves. Listening to and producing the
language sounds is a fundamental and profound experience, regardless of comprehension.
Listening to QA or producing the language (uttering prayers, decoding aloud the Quran)
without understanding the meaning of the text is normal practice for millions of Muslims.
A Sanskrit learner explains that ‘the sounds of Sanskrit have power in themselves, … even
though you do not know the meaning’.
The crucial importance of sound has different reasons for QA and Sanskrit learners, who at least
partly reflect the views of language within their respective traditions. In Islamic traditions, QA is

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 Bene Bassetti

Table 2.1 The three themes and their three categories

Theme Similarities Differences L2 research

Importance of The sounds of the QA: The language of the Divine L2 phonology is
language sounds language are Sanskrit: The perfect and secondary
fundamental powerful language
Importance Pronunciation must be QA: religious reasons The goal is
of accurate perfect Sanskrit: effects on body and intelligibility
pronunciation mind
Emotionality of Language sounds have QA: religious emotion Lack of interest in
language sounds aesthetic-​emotional Sanskrit: positive emotion positive and sacred
resonance emotion

a unique language because it has divine origins. The Divine used this language to communicate
with humans when transmitting the revelation to the Prophet Muhammad and then through the
Quran. This has then been transmitted over the centuries, first orally and later also in writing. As
the language the Divine chose to use, spoken and written QA partakes of the heavenly nature of
the Divine. Indeed, the inimitable perfection of the Quran, which testifies to its divine origin as the
verbatim reproduction of God’s word, extends not only to its meaning but crucially to its phono-
logical form (Kermani, 2015). Talking about reading aloud the Quran, a learner explained: ‘we
really believe that that’s the word of God and created like Him.’
In Sanskritic traditions, Sanskrit is unique because it is perfect, eternal, and has a supernatural
power (Filliozat, 2000). Its vibrations resonate with the cosmos and manifest the ultimate nature of
reality. It is believed to have a power that affects the human body and mind, as well as the super-
human realm beyond it. Unlike QA, Sanskrit was not revealed by a Divinity, but was perceived
by wise ancient men, and was transmitted as the language of the Veda (an archaic collection of
hymns). Like the Quran, the Veda were transmitted first orally and then in writing. Unlike QA
however the sacrality of Sanskrit pertains to its phonological form only, not the written form
(Beck, 1995). This sound impacts Sanskrit learners and users: Something that among other effects
‘gives you much joy… a really, really strong emotion of liberation’. Learners’ views also appar-
ently reflect the traditions associated with their respective language. As previously noted (Bassetti
& Reinboldt, 2023), learning a sacred language also involves internalising at least part of a novel,
often radically different, view of language and language learning.
The centrality of phonology (language sounds) over and above semantics (meaning) is without
doubt the most striking difference between sacred language learning and mainstream L2 research.
This is often remarked and discussed in the literature on sacred language learning, because current
views of language learning and use are centred around meaning and its transmission. The exclu-
sion of sacred languages from mainstream L2 research is probably largely due to the frequent
absence of meaning in their learning and use. Looking at L2 research, L2 phonology is a peripheral
aspect of language learning. The main aim of language learning in the L2 phonology literature is
interpersonal oral communication (transmission of meaning). The phonological form of the lan-
guage is seen as a tool, needed for exchanging messages in oral interaction.
The second theme is the importance of accurate pronunciation. For learners and users of both
QA and Sanskrit, pronunciation learning aims at perfection. As discussed below, the reasons are
different—​beliefs in the divine nature of QA and in the perfection and supernatural power of
Sanskrit—​and tolerance of imperfection differs in line with these views. The focus on perfect

18
 The Learning of Sacred Languages

production contrasts strikingly with the tenets of L2 research, where the aim of L2 phonology
learning is intelligibility within an interpersonal communication context.
Both QA and Sanskrit learners aim at perfect pronunciation. Learners resolutely agreed that
pronunciation is central, with many QA interviewees spontaneously declaring that pronunciation
is ‘very important’ or ‘extremely important’. Indeed, learning pronunciation ‘for us, really, it’s the
most important of all the things’ (with few exceptions: ‘it’s not my priority of my life actually’). For
Sanskrit learners too knowing the accurate pronunciation of sounds is ‘essential’.
Acquiring pronunciation is often a main aim in sacred language learning, or even the main
aim. For some it is the only aim, although this seems limited to beginners, while more advanced
learners can develop an interest in meaning. Accentedness (L1-​influenced production) was not
acceptable for interviewees, whether the QA production during communal prayers of Pakistani
Muslim communities or ‘the American version’ of Sanskrit mantras (repeated sacred utterances
such as om), because ‘that sound is only in that way’.
As was the case with the importance of sound (first theme), here too learners have internalised
the views of the Islamic or Sanskritic traditions. These views are described in the literature. In both
traditions, perfect production has been crucial for the survival of the sacred language. Transmission
was oral, and error-​less intergenerational transmission of a perfect and immutable body of spoken
language was a main concern for many centuries, to avoid corrupting divine revelations or prim-
ordial insights. The crucial need for accuracy in transmitting the Quran and the Vedas led the
Sanskritic culture to develop the most advanced science of phonetics in the ancient world, and
the Islamic culture to create a sophisticated body of decoding and pronunciation rules for Quran
recitation (tajwīd).
Learners of QA and Sanskrit aim at perfect pronunciation for different reasons, related to the
different reasons for the importance of language sounds. QA learners seek perfect pronunciation
for religious reasons, because the speech they perceive and produce is of divine origin. To these
Muslim interviewees, QA is both the language the Divine used to communicate with humans, and
the language humans use to communicate with the Divine, by means of set prayers and reading
aloud and recitation of the Quran. Hence, accurate pronunciation shows respect to God: ‘obviously
we have a lot of respect’ and ‘we don’t mess around with the Quran’. Learning correct pronun-
ciation is also an act of piety, and it is worthy of religious merits. While learners acknowledge
the limits of the quality of their current pronunciation (‘obviously we are not able to pronounce
it perfectly and we pronounce it as we pronounce it’), they agree that everybody should continue
improving in an attempt to achieve perfection: ‘That’s everyone’s own struggle, and someone
might take a week to learn it, and other people might take years, but that’s their own responsibility
to do so’. The religious implications of accurate pronunciation are evident ‘because I wanna try to
be the best Muslim possible and please God’.
The Sanskrit learners in this study did not report a religious motivation (they were mostly
yoga teachers and generally defined themselves as ‘spiritual’, but this may differ in other types of
Sanskrit language learners). Yet, the speech they perceive and produce also has a sacred nature, as
Sanskrit sounds and mantra impact the human body and mind and the universe. To these learners,
the sounds of this language have a sonic power, but only if uttered perfectly. A mantra is only
effective if pronounced perfectly, as its vibration ‘is specific and fundamental’, and inaccurately
produced sounds lose their efficacy: ‘in Sanskrit pronunciation is the base of everything, the
correct pronunciation of a mantra guarantees for its efficacy’.
This difference between the religious and non-​religious views of the sounds of language
explains different levels of tolerance for imperfection. For QA learners, fluency and accuracy are
not an issue ‘as long as you put in effort and your intentions are pure and you want to please God’.

19
 Bene Bassetti

For Sanskrit learners accentedness is not acceptable: ‘it is not the case that there is a country that
pronounces it in this or that way’. The intention is irrelevant, as inaccuracy nullifies the sonic
power of Sanskrit.
Whereas perfect pronunciation is central to sacred language learners, current L2 pronunci-
ation research disregards accuracy. The aim is interpersonal communication and pronunciation
is a tool to that aim, hence the goal is ‘intelligibility’ (being understandable to the listener,
for instance not confusing ship and sheep). Intelligibility is a concern to QA learners too, but
they are not worried about being misunderstood by their interlocutor. Intelligibility takes on a
different meaning when the interlocutor is the Divine: ‘you’ll be saying the wrong prayer and
asking for something else’; ‘for example if we want to say God forgive me and … we pronounce
God forgot about me, that would be bad’. Crucially, intelligibility is not the aim, it is only a
starting point.
When L2 scholars considered accurate L2 pronunciation as desirable (before the spread of the
communicative approach in the 1980s shifted the emphasis on the transmission of meaning), the
aim was nativelikeness (namely, similarity to native speaker norms). Nowadays L2 researchers
consider nativelike production as unachievable for most, and pronunciation improvement can stop
once errorless communication is achieved. This approach does not serve well learners whose L2 is
a sacred language. The target of sacred language learners is not a native speaker. Their needs may
perhaps fall within the category of so-​called ‘pronunciation for special purposes’, but even then,
would differ from the needs of other learners within this category (for instance, some categories of
professionals), whose target is the phonology of a community of speakers (of a prestigious variety,
or a global community of language users).
The third theme was the emotional resonance of the sounds of the sacred language. This was
a widespread issue in both datasets, albeit the nature of the emotion was different in the two
languages. L2 research on the other hand has a narrow focus on learning-​related emotion, largely
ignored positive emotion, and completely ignored sacred emotion.
Listening to and uttering the sacred language has profound aesthetic-​emotional impact on
learners. For them, the sound of the language ‘is beautiful’ and ‘really pleasing to hear’ and they
have deep emotions: ‘I love [its] sound’, ‘I love it so much’. This is a profound experience, and
Sanskrit learners ‘feel [mantras] in a really, really, really intense way’, and from the beginning felt
‘an emotional, irrational aspect’ when ‘that first contact with [the sound of this language] was
really strong’. This differs from the aesthetic pleasure deriving from artistic performance such as
poetry, partly because it is unrelated to meaning, but mostly because it is linked to religious or
spiritual experiences (see Kermani, 2015). Not only listening but also uttering or murmuring has
emotional resonance ‘when I … have problems at work, inside me I hum a mantra’.
The emotion induced by the sounds of QA is religious, as the language manifests the voice of
the Divine. Listening to recitations (without understanding) has positive emotional resonance: ‘it’s
very peaceful. … it gives you a very nice feeling’, whether in the Mosque or listening to recordings
at home. The literature confirms that the learners’ views are the views of the Islamic and Sanskritic
traditions: the unequalled, inimitable beauty that Muslim believers perceive in the language of the
Quran is testament to the religious nature of this experience. However, apart from the pleasure
deriving from the beauty of the spoken language, QA learners mostly reported negative emotions
about their production. Many reported language anxiety (negative emotion associated with L2
speaking): Reading aloud the Quran ‘is always nerve wracking’, uttering prayers causes ‘fear
of … saying something wrong’. They also feel guilt and regret for not having learned better. These
emotional reactions are further evidence of the importance of sound.

20
 The Learning of Sacred Languages

The emotion induced by Sanskrit is not religious, at least in these spiritual-​but-​not-​religious

Sanskrit learners, but it is caused by a language whose vibrations resonate with and impact
humans and the cosmos. Sounds are not only beautiful, but also beneficial to body and mind
(‘it is a medicine’, it ‘does good’ to its listener) and emotional: ‘So there is beauty, there is the
benefit, the joy, it gives you a sense of joy, ananda means joy’. This learner’s use of the Sanskrit
word ananda reflects her adoption of Sanskritic views that associate Sanskrit sounds with aes-
thetic pleasure, benefits, and positive emotion. Even when learners were less inclined to the
spiritual side and had a more intellectual disposition, approaching ‘the study of the sound’ as a
scientific enterprise, still the discovery of sound resulted in ‘fall[ing] in love with this language’,
another strong positive emotion.
While the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of language have always been central in QA and
Sanskrit traditions, L2 research has generally disregarded these aspects. Research on emotion in
L2 learning and use only began as late as the 2000s, and it is limited in scope, as it investigates
few emotions that can impact language learning and use, usually language anxiety. QA learners
indeed reported symptoms of language anxiety, but they were not worried about fellow believers’
judgment, and the religious fear of addressing the Divine cannot be likened to the anxiety caused
by speaking in front of a classroom.
Even after the very recent shift of interest towards positive emotion, research seems limited
to those emotions that can impact language learning and use, such as enjoyment (of language
classes). Indeed, none of the L2 phonology sources listed above mentioned emotional aspects at
all, so that to discuss the issue here I had to add another L2 research source (Dewaele et al., 2019).
The range of emotions related to sacred language sounds deserves more interest, particularly reli-
gious and spiritual emotion, which have not been investigated at all within L2 research.

Implications and Future Directions

The small-​scale exploratory comparison of the learning of sacred language phonologies reported
above was meant as an example of how researching sacred languages can contribute to L2 research.
As Table 2.1 shows, this comparison revealed commonalities and differences. Participants raised
other issues, but I selected the themes above as particularly fruitful for an exploratory and more
general comparison of learning of sacred and non-​sacred languages, and interested readers can find
discussions of other issues in my other publications.
This exercise in analysis has limitations and issues with transferability (degree to which
the analysis can be extended to other contexts), and of course pronunciation is not central to
all sacred languages, and yoga teachers are not typical Sanskrit learners. Yet, two points can be
made. Language learners’ views of language sounds and of their learning were similar enough
across the two languages (Quranic Arabic and Sanskrit) to allow for a discussion of phonology
learning within sacred languages as a category of languages, and yet different enough to allow for
distinctions within this category. The differences between the perceptions and experiences of these
learners on the one hand and the consensus in L2 phonology research on the other testify to the
important contribution research on sacred languages can make to L2 research. This becomes even
more apparent if one compares the findings reported above with a recent authoritative state-​of-​the-​
art article, whose list of current concerns in L2 pronunciation consists of intelligibility, communi-
cation, meaning, and social factors (Pennington, 2021). The different views and needs of sacred
language learners can help widen this narrow focus. In general, the inclusion of sacred languages
can make a meaningful contribution to the body of evidence and theorising in L2 research.

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 Bene Bassetti

This work has shown through a comparison of two languages that research on sacred languages
can contribute to L2 research. The case study provides some indications for future directions.
The first step should be to collect empirical evidence (see Han, 2018), from a variety of sacred
languages, in different types of learners, in different contexts. Once a sufficiently wide body of
evidence has been established, it will allow comparisons both among different sacred languages
and with non-​sacred languages.
There is a need to integrate the current focus on social aspects of learning and use with a more
specific focus on learning. The leading second language acquisition scholar Ellis wrote that after
the social turn of the mid-​1990s all attention shifted to social aspects of learning, and “learning
took a back seat” (2021, p. 9). He argued that L2 research should focus on learning development,
its processes and outcomes, not just the social environment that surrounds it. The same applies to
sacred languages. There is a strong need to put learning at the core of research on sacred language
learning.
It will be fruitful to focus on those aspects of sacred languages that differ the most from main-
stream languages. Emotion is certainly one, because emotion associated with sacred languages
is qualitatively different from what is normally studied in L2 research, and in particular sacred
emotion has not been investigated, but it could address current interest in positive emotion in L2
learning. Research on identity should continue, particularly religious-​linguistic identity, and there
is an evident need for research on motivation, as it differs dramatically from the current concerns
of L2 motivation research. Pedagogy-​oriented research investigating different approaches to
teaching could be useful to practitioners as well as language teaching research.
To conclude, sacred language research could help L2 research achieve some of its current
ambitions, in particular diversifying its knowledge base, and decolonisation. First, L2 research
needs to increase the diversity of L2s it investigates, to validate and extend current theorising that
is based on evidence from English and a handful of other mostly European languages. Sacred
languages are not only different languages, they can also contribute different views of language
learning and teaching. Second, applied linguistics is accused of having long prioritised some
languages over others, and should better reflect the priorities and views of other language commu-
nities. The very absence of research on sacred languages has been at least partly attributed to the
dominant secular approach of Western researchers. Investigating sacred languages could bring to
the fore a large and largely understudied population of language learners. Taking their knowledge
and needs into serious account could be a step forward in the decolonialisation agenda.

Further Reading
Bennett, B.P. (2018). Sacred languages of the world: An introduction. Wiley.
For a full introduction to sacred languages as well as Bennett’s contribution in this volume.
Ellis, R. (2015). Understanding second language acquisition, 2nd edition. Routledge.
Much of Ellis’s work on Second Language Acquisition will be interesting and useful for the reader, but this
is a good starting point.
Avni, S. (2018). What can the study of Hebrew learning contribute to applied linguistics? Modern Language
Journal, 102(2), 446–​448. https://​doi.org/​http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1111/​modl.12487
Avni’s writings (also in this volume) are good key texts for the learning of Biblical Hebrew, and this brief art-
icle presents her views of the contribution of research on Biblical Hebrew to applied linguistics.
Rosowsky, A. (2019). Sacred language acquisition in superdiverse contexts. Linguistics and Education, 53,
Article 100751. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.lin​ged.2019.100​751
Rosowsky’s work on the learning of Quranic Arabic as well as his chapter in this volume are good starting
points on L2 and literacy learning and superdiverse contexts.

22
 The Learning of Sacred Languages

Bassetti, B. (Ed.). (2024). The learning of sacred languages. International Journal of Bilingualism [Special
issue].
My own article on the learning of sacred languages and the other articles in special issue will also be useful.

References
Avni, S. (2011). Toward an understanding of Hebrew language education: Ideologies, emotions, and identity.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 208: 53–​70.
Avni, S. (2018). What can the study of Hebrew learning contribute to applied linguistics? Modern Language
Journal, 102(2), 446–​448.
Bassetti, B. (Ed.). (2024). The learning of sacred languages. [Special issue]. International Journal of
Bilingualism.
Bassetti, B. & Dewaele, J.-​M. (2018). A first exploration of the use of a sacred language for prayer in Muslim
believers. ‘Borders and Boundaries: “Religion on the Periphery”, Joint Conference between the British
Association for the Study of Religions and the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions, Belfast,
UK. September.
Bassetti, B. & Reinboldt, R. (2023). Learning Sanskrit as a sacred language in the West: A narrative study.
International Journal of Bilingualism. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/136700692311982
Beck, G.L. (1993). Sonic theology: Hinduism and sacred sound. Motilal Banarsidass.
Bennett, B.P. (2018). Sacred languages of the world: An introduction. Wiley.
Daugaard, L.M. & Dewilde, J. (Eds.). (2019). Faith literacy practices among Muslim children, youth and fam-
ilies in Scandinavia [special issue]. Apples: Journal of Applied Language Studies, 13(4).
Derwing, T.M., & Munro, M.J. (2022). Pronunciation learning and teaching. In T.M. Derwing, M.J. Munro,
R.I., & Thomson (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and speaking, 147–​159.
Routledge.
Dewaele, J.-​M., Chen, X., Padilla, A.M., & Lake, J. (2019). The flowering of positive psychology in foreign
language teaching and acquisition research. Frontiers in psychology, 10.
Dörnyei, Z., Wong, M.S., & Kristjánsson, C. (2013). Faith and SLA: An emerging area of inquiry. In M.S.
Wong, C. Kristjánsson, & Z. Dörnyei (Eds.), Christian faith and English language teaching and learning,
291–​296. Routledge.
Ellis, R. (2021). A short history of SLA: Where have we come from and where are we going? Language
Teaching, 54(2), 190–​205.
Filliozat, P.-​S. (2000). The Sanskrit language: An overview. Indica.
Gade, A.M. (2004). Perfection makes practice: Learning, emotion, and the recited Quran in Indonesia.
University of Hawaii Press.
Gregory, E., Choudhury, H., Ilankuberan, A., Kwapong, A., & Woodham, M. (2013a). Practice, performance
and perfection: Learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London. International Journal of the
Sociology of Language, 220 27–​48.
Gregory, E., Lytra, V., Choudhury, H., Ilankuberan, A., Kwapong, A., & Woodham, M. (2013b). Syncretism
as a creative act of mind: The narratives of children from four faith communities in London. Journal of
Early Childhood Literacy, 13(3), 322–​347.
Han, H. (2018). Studying religion and language teaching and learning: Building a subfield. The Modern
Language Journal, 102(2), 432–​445.
Kermani, N. (2015). God is beautiful: The aesthetic experience of the Quran. Polity.
Lepp-​Kaethler, E., & Dörnyei, Z. (2013). The role of sacred texts in enhancing motivation and living the
vision in second language acquisition. In M. Shepard Wong, C. Kristjánsson, & Z. Dörnyei, (Eds.),
Christian faith and English language teaching and learning, 171–​188. Routledge.
Lytra, V., & Ilankuberan, A. (2020). Syncretising ways of doing, seeing and becoming in children’s faith-​
inspired text-​making and conversations around texts at home. Language and Intercultural Communication,
20(5), 433–​449.
Pennington, M. C. (2021). Teaching pronunciation: The state of the art 2021. RELC Journal, 52(1), 3–​21.
Pollock, S. (2006). The language of the Gods in the world of men: Sanskrit, culture, and power in premodern
India. University of California Press.
Rosowsky, A. (2013). Faith, phonics and identity: Teaching in faith complementary schools. Blackwell.

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Rosowsky, A. (2021). The performance of multilingual and ‘ultralingual’ devotional practices by young
British Muslims. Multilingual Matters.
Versteegh, K. (2014). The Arabic language. Edinburgh University Press.
Wilke, A. & Moebus, O. (2011). Sound and communication: An aesthetic cultural history of Sanskrit
Hinduism. De Gruyter.

Acknowledgments
The research reported in the chapter was made possible in part by a grant from the Spencer
Foundation (Award ref. 202100296). The views expressed are those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.

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 3
SACRED LANGUAGES
Brian P. Bennett

Introduction and Background

In this chapter religion is stipulated to be a cultural program that postulates the existence of super-
human realities and provides ways for people to communicate or align with said realities for short-​
or long-​term benefit (cf. Smith, 2019). Some religious programs, including Islam, Hinduism,
Judaism, and certain branches of Christianity and Buddhism, have maintained an ancient, non-​
vernacular language for their core texts and practices. Examples include Pali, Avestan, Coptic,
Ecclesiastical Latin, Sanskrit, and Classical Arabic. These are often called sacred languages.
This chapter discusses the phenomenon from a viewpoint in comparative religion. The topic is
immense; many important themes—​like the manifold ways these ancient languages figure in the
construction of contemporary religious identities (cf. Ringrow, 2022)—​are skirted.
Language is central to both parts of the religious enterprise: namely, the postulation of, and
the communication or alignment with, imagined superhuman realities. As Paden says, “Religious
systems are topographies of language and practice in which humans construe the world as a place
of engagement with superhuman beings and become actors in that culturally generated system”
(2016, p. 70). Before trying to determine how sacred languages fit into this human activity, a few
remarks about the term sacred are in order.
From a vantage point in the comparative study of religion, sacred is a cultural designation not a
metaphysical one (Williams, 2008, p.125). To refer to such-​and-​such a language as sacred is really
no different than saying the Qur’an is a sacred text for Muslims or the Ganges a sacred river for
Hindus. Sacrality in this sense is something that can be observed in religious behavior and dis-
course. As Rudolph says about religion in general, we

begin with encountering the specific appearances and expressions of the various religions
as these can be seen and comprehended. … all visible, cultic actions and places where
these occur, with the persons who celebrate them. … the specific forms of community we
encounter, their functionaries, their sacred writings, laws, and songs. All of this is empirical
evidence in the strictest sense of the word.
(1985, p. 49)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003301271-4 25
 Brian P. Bennett

From the perspective of an outside observer, then, sacredness is not inherent but imputed; it is
a matter of sacralization (cf. Salverda, 2018), of beliefs and behaviors encompassing the language
and elaborated over time. Languages like Pali and Classical Syriac could therefore also be called
sacralized, sanctified, or consecrated, the “ed” suffix indicating the sedimentation of past sacral-
izing efforts (ritual, catechetical, etc.) by human agents.
Sacralization is a process. The sacredness of a language is not a fait accompli but something
that can be increased, diminished, contested, altered, or reversed. The point can be clearly seen
in the case of sacred architecture. Many churches in the Soviet Union were demolished, allowed
to fall into disrepair, or repurposed as clubs, warehouses, or even museums of atheism. Except
for the remaining elderly congregants, these buildings stopped being viewed by the populace as
sacred places. Yet in the post-​Soviet period, Russian society has changed, Orthodoxy has returned
to a position of societal prominence, and many dilapidated structures have been renovated and
rededicated—​in short, resacralized.
Sacralization is a hierarchical process. It places one building or one language above others
on a scale of religious values. Williams (2008, p. 127) refers to this as “sacred linguistic imperi-
alism.” The sacred language is valued above ordinary vernaculars, which may be tolerated or even
encouraged for certain endeavors (e.g., missionary work) but not for the faith’s most important
texts and practices. There may also be an inner hierarchy, with different languages considered of
“greater holiness and lesser holiness,” as with Hebrew and Yiddish in some Orthodox Jewish com-
munities (Fishman, 2006, p. 255).
Sacralization is a transitive process. Continuing with the architectural analogy, human acts of
sacralization (siting, design, decoration, signage) differentiate mosques, temples, and wats from
restaurants, apartments, and shopping malls. This ascribed sacrality can then act back on believers.
Holding a funeral or a coronation in a church, as opposed to football stadium, solemnizes the
occurrence. Paden puts it this way: “From the point of view of an analysis of cultural behavior,
sacredness is therefore both a way of actively constructing or focalizing the world and a way that
objects face back to the insiders of that world” (1999, p. 96). A language like Classical Arabic or
Ecclesiastical Latin has been sacralized in countless ways over the centuries; for believers this
sacredness is sedimented or deposited, as it were, in the very sound and appearance of the lan-
guage. There is a kind of sacred ‘charge’ that can then be drawn upon to sanctify a person, place,
or event.
Why is one language, and not another, deemed sacred? Being a lingua sacra depends on an
interweaving over time of ideological, practical, and institutional factors. First, on the level of
ideology, sacred languages are mythicized. Ecclesiastical Latin and Classical Arabic are extolled
by devotees for their beauty, grandeur, and precision compared to everyday spoken languages.
They are also lauded for their capacity to connect believers over time and space. However, similar
ideologems may be expressed about vernacular languages (cf. Fishman, 1996). The most salient
factor for sacralized varieties is, rather, that they are related to postulated superhuman forces
and the concomitant means of communicating or aligning with those forces. Religious discourse
assigns a sacralized language an important role in the community’s salvation history and a place in
its spiritual topography, with “other worlds, future worlds, higher worlds, parallel spirit universes,
heavens and hells …” (Paden, 2016, p. 71). The Saint Thomas Christians of South India have
conserved Syriac, a form of Aramaic, because it is believed to be the language of Jesus as well as
a special way of establishing proximity to God in prayer (Naumescu, 2018, p. 104). For Theravada
Buddhists, Pali is commonly understood as the liberating word of the Buddha which resounds
across all planes of existence. According to one devotee, “The Sanskrit language is said to put

26
 Sacred Languages

forth into human sounds, the language of the Gods, the great creative cosmic vibration” (Frawley,
1990, p. 75).
Second, in terms of practice, sacred languages are not used for interpersonal communication in
the home or workplace but are “reserved for ritual or recitational purposes and usually associated
with a text that is considered seminal and sacred by the adherents of that faith” (Rosowsky, 2022,
p. 164). These purposes may be heuristically divided into scripture, cultus, and thaumaturgy
(although not every sacred language is equally represented in these three areas).
● Scripture: The canonical texts of a religion may be preserved in a sacred language, as is the case
with the Qur’an in Classical Arabic and the Tipitaka (“Three Baskets”) in Pali. The languages
are deemed holy “because of having been the vehicles of materia sancta” (Fishman, 2006,
p. 253). In these cases, the language and the corpus of divine revelation are seen as a kind of
monocoque entity—​not two things, but one. The religious communities in question have built
elaborate systems to safeguard, study, memorize, and recite their scriptures. This emphasis leads
to several related practices. For example, sermons in Islam and Dhamma talks in Buddhism are
often laced with, or expound upon, canonical words in Classical Arabic or Pali.
● Cultus: Sacred languages usually play a major role in cultus, in prayer, ritual, and cantillation,
typically done in a designated place of worship such as a mosque, wat, or temple—​the “nat-
ural habitats” of sacred languages. The sanctified variety will typically be treated by adherents
as the preeminent—​perhaps the only—​verbal means for relating to the imagined superhuman
realm. A restricted literacy is involved here: participants are not expected to be “fluent” in the
ancient tongue, but to read, chant, or simply listen to a limited amount of predetermined con-
tent in the consecrated language, usually with some assistance from a local language like Thai,
Polish, or Bengali.
● Thaumaturgy: Sacred languages may also be drawn upon for thaumaturgical (occult) practices
(cf. Sharot, 2001). Snippets of sacred verses may figure in tattoos or amulets worn on the body
or placed in a car, business, or residence to bring good luck and ward off dangers. Though some-
times condemned by religious leaders as superstitious or siloed by academics as “folk” belief,
such practices and paraphernalia may in fact be the main ways that most devotees engage their
sacred language. With reference to Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia, McDaniel notes
that the Pali Canon is actually the esoteric phenomenon, whereas the use of bits and pieces of
Pali for apotropaic purposes is commonplace (2011, p. 229).
Third, sacred languages are institutional varieties, not mother tongues. Languages such as
Coptic and Avestan are typically not learned at home, but bookish varieties maintained and trans-
mitted by seminaries, madrasas, faith-​based supplementary schools, and similar institutions.
Furthermore, sacred languages are often associated with clergies, the intellectuals and ritualists
of the faith: monks, priests, imams, rabbis, and pandits. Pali for example is primarily preserved
and promulgated by the Sangha, the Buddhist monastic order. Ecclesiastical Latin is not taught
en famille but sustained by the Vatican as well as religious organizations like the Fraternitas
Sacerdotalis Sancti Petri (Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter) dedicated to its continuance.
It is helpful to distinguish two subtypes of sacred language which entail contrastive ideological,
practical, and institutional profiles. Borrowing terms from Egyptology, these may be called the
demotic (dēmos, the common people) and the hieratic (hieratikos, priestly). On one side, a lan-
guage like Classical Arabic, which is understood as the untranslatable medium of divine revelation
and a centerpiece of Muslim identity, is acquired to varying degrees by Muslims around the world.
According to Haeri, “regardless of native language, a believing Muslim must know some Classical

27
 Brian P. Bennett

Arabic in order to read the holy text, to perform the daily prayers and to carry out other religious
rituals and obligations” (2003, p. 2). Consequently, given the size of the Ummah or Muslim com-
munity, it is one of the most widely known languages in the world (Rosowsky, 2008, p. 208)—​
demotic indeed. Pali and Ecclesiastical Latin present a different picture. Though Pali is also a
language of scripture, it is primarily studied by monks and nuns, not laypeople. Theravada monks
function as priests, insofar as they chant the Buddha’s salubrious words and dispense blessings to
“householders” during funerals and other occasions. Obviously, some Catholic laypeople study
Latin, but it is not necessary for them to do so in the way it is for priests who continue to celebrate
the Latin Mass.
Religions, of course, are neither stable nor monolithic. They may be affected by schisms,
reforms, revivals, missionary endeavors, fundamentalist movements, cultural transpositions,
technological innovations, political alliances, and much else. A religion of sufficient age and size
will therefore be many different things to many different people—​to paraphrase Walt Whitman,
it will contain multitudes. Sacred languages usually shape and are shaped by these divisions and
developments. For example, a study of Indonesian mosques shows a correlation between Arabic
lettering and sectarian identity: traditionalist (Nahdlatul Ulama) mosques are characterized by “the
massive use of Arabic inscriptions” while modernist (Muhammadiyah) ones have simpler, less
decorated interiors (Yusuf & Putrie 2022). In American Catholicism, positive or negative views of
Latin align with conservative and progressive factions of the Church and their associated politics
(Johnson & Priestley, 2022).
When it comes to sacred languages, the question of intelligibility is a recurring and multifaceted
issue. Many religionists, including members of the clergy, seem to have a poor understanding of
the very language they claim is central to the faith. But there is more going on here than meets the
eye. For one thing, it should not be assumed that a religious text or ritual is somehow inherently
intelligible to believers just because it is couched in a vernacular language. Moreover, there are
certain factors that may aid comprehension of a lingua sacra. In the cultic domain, for example, the
sacred language “is often paralleled in the symbolic systems of those other media—​the visual and
tactile properties of the physical objects, the kinesthetic sensibilities of gesture and movement—​
which then serve to reinforce, enhance, or even complete the verbal meaning” (Wheelock, 1987,
p. 443). Finally, Rosowsky’s important discussion of “ultralingual” meaning demonstrates affin-
ities between sacred language performance and secular phenomena such as opera, where the matter
of comprehension is likewise neither simple nor straightforward (Rosowsky, 2021, pp. 48–​61). In
this connection Liddicoat speaks of two general orientations or ethoi in religious thought and
practice: sacrality and comprehensibility. The sacral view emphasizes the “mysterious, numinous
and transcendent” nature of engagement with the divine, whereas the comprehensibility pos-
ition postulates a more immanent form of superhuman power amenable to direct communication
(Liddicoat, 2012, p. 122). The tension between sacrality and comprehensibility is a recurring one
in religious communities that have maintained a sacred language, and can be tracked across the
levels of ideology, practice, and organization.
In terms of ideology, those who endorse a sacrality orientation often engage in linguistic apolo-
getics, justifying the value of the sacred language over against vernacular options. The mythic,
symbolic, and aesthetic associations of the language may be said to outweigh the semantic, just
as the warm glow of a candle is more conducive to prayer and meditation than the bright light
of a fluorescent lamp. Traditionalist Catholics, for example, may acknowledge that Latin is not
entirely understandable to them, but still appreciate the language for its purported dignity and
universality. In the realm of cultus, the dueling priorities of sacrality and comprehensibility are

28
 Sacred Languages

often navigated by means of bilingual prayerbooks, vernacular paraphrases, and in some cases,
computer screens or projectors in the sanctuary, providing real-​time translation during the cere-
mony. Although translation may be allowed in these limited measures, it may be frowned upon
or forbidden if allowed to get too close to the tradition’s canonical texts and rites, which may be
deemed untranslatable (cf. Wilson, 2022). Finally, the raison d’être of faith-​based schools and
educational programs is precisely to preserve the sacrality of the ancient language while making
it increasingly comprehensible.
The sacrality-​versus-​comprehensibility issue is manifested most dramatically in language
ideology debates (cf. Blommaert, 1999). Long-​simmering disaffection may erupt in public dis-
putation, with different factions in the community putting forth competing values—​intelligibility,
spirituality, history, purity, accessibility, beauty—​in support of, or opposition to, the sacred lan-
guage. Such polemics usually take place against a backdrop of wider social, cultural, and political
change. The most famous example of such a debate occurred at the Catholic Church’s Second
Vatican Council in the 1960s, which challenged the linguistic imperialism of Latin (de facto if
not de jure) and promoted vernacularization of the Mass. This represented a colossal move from
a sacrality to a comprehensibility ethos—​one that has engendered a small but persistent reac-
tionary movement within the Church that seeks to reclaim Latin and the sacrality it supposedly
represents. Though less publicized, disputes have also taken place with regard to Hebrew, Sanskrit,
and Avestan (Bennett, 2018, pp. 169–​179).
Having outlined some of the ideological, practical, and institutional factors that contribute to
sacralization, it is necessary to differentiate sacred languages from other varieties with which they
are sometimes confused or conflated. A lingua sacra is not simply an elevated style or religious
jargon. Sacred languages are named varieties (“Pali,” “Church Slavonic”) perceived, used, and
taught by faith communities as self-​standing languages. Just because an English prayer includes
archaic features like thee and thou does not make it a sacred language. It simply represents a higher
stylistic register. Scientology has developed a distinctive lexicon: Thetan, Org, Rundown, Tech,
Exteriorization, E-​Meter, Floating, etc. But this is a kind of jargon, not a complete language (at
least not yet). As Fischer says, “Scientology-​Speak is within English…” (2019, p. 79).
The category of sacred language should be distinguished from the much broader category of
religious language, which includes phenomena like prayer and preaching but also some forms of
discourse found in such unexpected domains as advertising, sports, and healthcare (Hobbs, 2021,
p. 2). Sacred language should also be differentiated from the narrower category of ritual or litur-
gical language. While sacred languages are typically used in cultus, they are not alone in that cap-
acity. Since the reforms of Vatican II, for example, vernacular languages from Vietnamese to Igbo
have been authorized for use in the Catholic Mass—​hence they are now ritual languages. Hebrew
and English prayers may both be heard in a Reform Jewish service. That makes them both ritual
languages, but only Hebrew is called the Holy Tongue.
Last, although sacred languages may not have native speakers, that does not mean they should be
considered dead, even if some adherents accept that designation. Unlike (say) Etruscan or Sumerian,
languages like Sanskrit and Ge’ez are still cherished, learned, and utilized for canonical texts, cere-
monies, and even limited conversation (at least among some clerics). The Vatican publishes new
texts in Latin every year and offers regular radio broadcasts in the ancient language: “Hebdomada
Papae: Notitiae Vaticanae Latine redditae” (The Pope’s week in review: Vatican news bulletin in
Latin). Sacred languages should therefore be considered fixed, conserved, or curated. They continue
to represent prestigious semiotic resources used in a variety of ways by religious believers and to
intersect with other aspects of contemporary culture and society.

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 Brian P. Bennett

Case Study: Church Slavonic in Contemporary Russia

Church Slavonic is a sacralized variety maintained primarily among Orthodox Slavic communi-
ties (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Serbians), as well as some
Croatian and Czech Catholics (Keipert, 2014, p. 1212). The focus here is on Orthodoxy in Russia.
The Church Slavonic tradition is over a thousand years old. The language was originally codified
in the ninth century as part of the mission to the Slavs associated with Saints Cyril and Methodius.
Originally based on a South Slavic dialect, the language was first used to translate Byzantine
Greek scriptural, liturgical, and other devotional texts for the newly converted Slavs of Moravia.
The tradition then spread to Bulgaria and thence to Rus, the polity that modern-​day Ukraine,
Belarus, and Russia trace their origins to.
The designation Church Slavonic (or Church Slavic) covers several regional and chronological
variants: Old Church Slavonic, the oldest known stratum, associated with the foundational texts
of the Cyrillomethodian mission; Church Slavonic, a bookish language comparable in some ways
to Latin in the medieval and early modern eras; and New Church Slavonic, a lingua sacra clearly
demarcated from the vernacular and now restricted to the liturgy and associated devotional litera-
ture (Mareš, 1979, pp. 12–​13). Marginalized during the atheistic Soviet era, Church Slavonic has
been revitalized in post-​Communist Russian Orthodoxy (Bennett, 2011).
In Russian Orthodox publications, Church Slavonic is often called a sacred or sacral
(sviashchennyi, sakral’nyi) language. It is mythicized, being assigned a place in Russian salva-
tion history and spiritual topography. Traditional discourse proclaims the language to have been
created under divine inspiration and further hallowed by a millennium of prayer by both Russian
saints and pious folk (narod) alike. It is said to unite Russians with their ancestors as well as with
other Orthodox Slavs. A common trope is that it is impossible to be rude or vulgar in Church
Slavonic. For devotees, the language is pure, rich, solemn, dignified, and numinous—​set apart
from, and above, colloquial Russian. One catechetical text refers to the

difference between daily, conversational speech and the language of prayer: it helps our
consciousness step forward to the open door of heavenly reality. … Church Slavonic is not
a barrier, but a nexus, not only between past and present, but also time and eternity, earth
and Heaven.
(Makarii, 2017, p. 154)

An interesting motif in traditionalist discourse is the repeated reference to Church Slavonic as

a “verbal icon” (slovesnaia ikona). Obviously connected to the iconography for which Russian
Orthodoxy is famed, the idea appears to be that the Slavonic language somehow embodies or
manifests the truths it conveys, just as visual icons of Christ, Mary, and the saints, are considered
to be not artistic portraits but heavenly portals (cf. Leonard, 2020).
Church Slavonic fits the profile of a hieratic sacred language. It is associated above all with
cultus, and its “natural habitat” is an Orthodox church, often called a temple (khram). In the Russian
Orthodox system, all “sacred servers” (sviashchennosluzhiteli)—​i.e., priests and deacons—​are
required to know Church Slavonic to perform liturgies. Altar servers, readers, Sunday school
teachers, choir directors, and icon painters may know the language to a certain degree. Laypeople
are encouraged to study the language, and some do so in parish groups or on their own through con-
ventional textbooks or online courses, but many simply pick up bits and pieces through repeated
liturgical attendance. About 20 percent of regular churchgoers in the Moscow area say they have
a good grasp of Slavonic (Leonard, 2021). Though most Russians self-​identify as Orthodox, a

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Other documents randomly have
different content
and the gentleman and lady were expected in turn to make some
speech appropriate to the gifts presented. In this the principal
address was shown; for whilst some could but mumble out a few
clumsy phrases or compliments, others convulsed the assembly with
laughter at a smart repartee or jest. Truth to tell, the greater portion
of them were all tolerably well up to their business; for habitude had
rendered them tolerably au fait at uttering a jest on the spur of the
moment; and, as a pretty wide license was allowed, when a laugh
could not be raised by wit it was done by entendre.
Lauzun had a small trinket-key given to him, and Estelle
recommended him to keep it against he got into the Bastille, which
would be sure to occur, in the common course of things, before
three weeks. Marotte Dupré had a heart of sweetmeat, and her
partner an imitation-piece of money of the same material, about
which appropriate distributions Dubois made great mirth, having a
ready tact for impromptus. When the signal for the cessation of the
dance was made (which the leader of it generally took care to do
when he found himself with an agreeable partner), Chavagnac was
next to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers. He led her forward, and the
rest of the company looked on with more than usual interest to see
what the incognita would gain. By an error of Louise, who was
throughout the ceremony so flurried that she scarcely knew what
she was doing, she presented the first gift to Chavagnac—a small
flacon of scent, than which nothing could be more absurd, rough
soldier, almost marauder, as he was. But to Marie, and to her alone,
her own present had a terrible meaning. It was a small headsman’s
axe, in sugar and silver foil!
She sickened as she gazed at the terrible omen,—so perfectly
unimportant to the rest of the company,—and turned away from the
circle, heedless of some unmeaning words that Chavagnac
addressed to her. In a few minutes the ring broke up, and then she
approached Louise Gauthier and said hurriedly through her mask—
‘You cannot tell to what lengths of debauchery this reckless party
may proceed. If you value your happiness, follow me directly,
without a word or sign to anybody.’
 Louise fancied she recognised the voice; but the circumstance of
one like the Marchioness being in such a company appeared utterly
improbable. She was also too anxious to escape from the hôtel; and
as Marie seized her arm, she implicitly followed her to the door.
‘Stop, mes belles!’ cried Lauzun; ‘we cannot part yet: you may not
be spared so early.’
‘I am faint with the heat,’ replied the Marchioness, ‘and only wish
to go into the cool air for a minute; it will revive me.’
They passed out upon the top of the staircase, and then as soon
as the curtain had fallen back over the doorway, Marie told Louise to
keep close to her, as she descended rapidly into the court-yard. They
passed out at the porte-cochère unnoticed; and, finding a carriage at
the corner of the Rue St. Jacques, the Marchioness made Louise
enter, and, following herself, gave the word to the coachman to drive
to her house in the Rue St. Paul.
 CHAPTER XXV.
MARIE HAS LOUISE IN HER POWER—THE LAST CAROUSAL

Not a word was exchanged between Marie and Louise Gauthier

during their journey from the Hôtel de Cluny to the Rue St. Paul.
Once only was the silence broken, when the Marchioness desired the
driver, with some impatience, to urge his horses onward with
something more of speed than the leisure progression which then,
as now, was the chief attribute of the voitures de remise of the good
city of Paris. During this period she never removed the mask from
her face, and Louise was not particularly anxious to know the station
of her new acquaintance. It was sufficient cause for congratulating
herself to find that she was away from the trysting-place of Lauzun’s
debauched companions, and once more breathing the pure air of the
streets, instead of the tainted atmosphere of the hôtel.
The Pont de la Tournelle was at that period the highest up the
river, with respect to the stream, for crossing to the other side; now,
the bridges of Austerlitz, Constantine, and Bercy span the Seine
beyond this, which still exists. The carriage lumbered across the Ile
St. Louis, and, traversing the other arm of the river by the Pont
Marie, passed along the quay, until it stopped at the Hôtel d’Aubray
in the Rue St. Paul.
As they stopped at the porte-cochère, the Marchioness looked out,
and perceived to her dismay that it was open, and that the windows
which opened into the court were lighted up, whilst forms could be
seen passing and repassing, showing that there was a large
company assembled within.
The vehicle had scarcely arrived at the foot of the staircase when
Marie’s own maid, Françoise Roussel, appeared at the entrance. The
light of the carriage-lamp fell upon her face, which was ghastly pale,
and, to all appearance, distorted with pain. She was breathing in
agony, and could not speak for some seconds after she had opened
the door.
 ‘Heaven be praised that you are returned, madame!’ at length she
said. ‘Your brothers have come back from Offemont this evening,
with a party of gentlemen living near the chateau. Monsieur François
inquired after you; but I told him you had retired.’
‘Something ails you, Françoise,’ observed the Marchioness. ‘Are
you ill?’
‘I have been in agony, madame, the whole afternoon, as if I had
swallowed some pins that were red-hot.’
‘You have taken something that has done you harm,’ continued
Marie, as she descended from the carriage. ‘What have you eaten
to-day?’
‘Nothing, madame,’ replied her domestic, ‘but the confiture you
gave me for breakfast; and that could not have hurt me.’
‘Oh no,’ answered Marie, as if she thought the subject too
insignificant for further notice. But, after a moment or two, she
added, ‘Besides, I partook of that myself, you know.’
As she spoke, she turned a gaze of the most intense scrutiny upon
Françoise’s face; but no trace of any emotion would have been
visible upon her own features had she been unmasked. Then bidding
Louise, who was reassured by the apparent respectability of the
house, to follow her, they went upstairs, preceded by the panting
girl, who could scarcely hold the light lamp she carried before them.
As she reached her chamber—the one in which her interview with
Sainte-Croix took place, after the scene at Theria’s apartments, that
in its sequel led to so much of crime and misery—she took a small
cabinet down from the top of a bureau, and opening it, discovered a
row of little bottles. From one of these she let fall a few drops of
some colourless fluid into a glass of water, and told Françoise to
drink it, when she would, without doubt, experience immediate
relief. The girl took the draught and swallowed it—in the course of a
minute or two declaring herself to be comparatively free from pain,
as she poured forth expressions of gratitude to her mistress for this
prompt remedy. She was then told that she might retire to bed,
without any fear of a recurrence of her malady; and she accordingly
withdrew.
 No sooner had the door closed upon her than Marie took the mask
from her face, and advancing towards Louise, who was standing
close to the mantelpiece, where she had kept during the short
conversation between Françoise and her mistress, seized her arm,
and, looking full at her, exclaimed—
‘Do you recollect me? We met before at Versailles.’
‘You are the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,’ replied the Languedocian,
after a momentary start of surprise, in a tone the calmness of which
astonished Marie. And she endeavoured to withdraw her arm.
‘Stop,’ replied the Marchioness; ‘we do not part yet.’ And she
dragged her companion after her towards the door, turning the
heavy lock and withdrawing the key. ‘There!’ she continued, ‘see
how useless it is for you to attempt to leave me—how completely
you are in my power. Now, listen to me, and attend as you would to
the exhortations of a priest upon your dying bed.’
She threw the arm of Louise from her grasp, and regarded her for
a few seconds with a look of the deadliest hate. The beauty of her
features had disappeared in the contortions produced by the
passions that were working within her; the terrible impassibility of
her countenance gave way, and she gazed at Louise with an
expression that was almost fiendish.
‘I have you, then, at last,’ she continued, in a low, deep voice,
which, in spite of all her efforts, betrayed her emotion by its
quivering. ‘The only amulet that could charm away Sainte-Croix’s
affections is in my grasp. I can destroy it—with as little care as I
would the paltry charm of a mountebank; and when it is once
disposed of I can reign—alone—and queen of all his love. Do you
understand me?’
‘How have I interfered with you?’ returned the Languedocian. ‘I
never knew you until we met at Versailles, when I first learned by
whom Gaudin’s love—or rather the feeling which I took for love—had
been estranged from me. I did not wish to cross your path again.
Heaven knows it was not my own doing that I met you this evening.’
She spoke these words in a tone that the Marchioness had hardly
looked for. But Louise, gentle and retiring as was her nature, felt in
whose presence she now stood, and her spirit rose with the
circumstances, until her eye kindled and her cheek flushed with the
emotion of the interview. She was no longer the pale and trembling
girl; she felt that Marie had crushed her, by weaning away Gaudin’s
affections, and she replied accordingly.
Marie was astonished at the manner in which she spoke. She went
on—
‘You appear to forget in whose presence you now are, or you
would not so address me.’
‘It is from feeling too keenly whom I thus address that I do so,’
replied Louise. ‘What would you have me say?’
‘I would have you recollect the wide difference that exists between
our positions,’ answered Marie. ‘I am the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘We ought to know no difference of rank,’ returned Louise; ‘a
hapless attachment has placed us all on the same level. Whatever
Gaudin’s station is, or may have been, his love raised me to his own
position—one which the Marchioness of Brinvilliers did not think
beneath her. I thought she would have been above so petty a cause
for quarrel.’
‘And from these set speeches,’ rejoined Marie, ‘which, doubtless,
have been conned over until you got them by heart, to make an
effect when they might be called for, you have lowered yourself.
Sainte-Croix has long since forgotten you. Have you no spirit, thus to
pursue a bygone lover who has discarded you?’
‘Alas, madame! I have loved,’ said Louise, with a tone so tearful,
so hopeless, but so firm, that the Marchioness paused, baffled in her
plan of attack, but not knowing what new ground to take up. Louise
continued, after a short silence—‘And if love with a great lady be
what it is to me, a poor country girl, you would not ask me why,
despite Gaudin’s neglect, I still hang upon the memory, not of him,
but of the love he first taught me to feel.’
As she spoke she sunk her face in her hands, and her tears flowed
fast and freely.
The Marchioness paced impatiently up and down the room. At
length, stopping before the seat on which Louise had fallen, she said
abruptly—
‘Will you root out this passion?’
 ‘I cannot,’ replied the Languedocian through her tears.
‘Then life and it must end together,’ said the Marchioness half
interrogatively.
‘It may be so,’ said Louise. But immediately, as if suddenly
awakened to a new import in the words, shaking her long hair from
her face, she exclaimed—
‘You would not kill me!’
A strange slow smile crept over Marie’s face, which had by this
time recovered its usual stony impassiveness, as she said—
‘We are rivals!’
But as Louise’s eyes were fixed on her with a look of wonderment,
at that moment a sudden burst of laughter from the room on the
opposite side of the landing, in which François and Henri d’Aubray,
with their companions, were carousing, arrested the attention of the
Marchioness. She walked to the door, unclosed it, and listened. A
voice was heard proposing the toast, ‘Success to your debut as a
creditor, and a long incarceration to Sainte-Croix!’ Then followed the
clink of glasses, and the vivas of the guests as they honoured the
pledge.
The Marchioness turned pale, and clenched the handle of the door
she held until the blood forsook her fingers; she appeared to forget
the presence of Louise, and reclosing the door, when the noise had
subsided, she walked to the bureau, and opening the box which we
have before described, began, half-mechanically, to arrange the
small phials with which it was filled. All was now silence in the
chamber, broken only by the measured ticking of the pendule on the
chimney-piece. It might have lasted some five minutes, when
Françoise Roussel entering the room cautiously by the porte-
derobée, whispered to her mistress, who flushed at the tidings and
hastily closed the box. Then, opening the door which led to a small
room contiguous to the apartment, she said to Louise—
‘In here: not a word—not a motion as you value life.’ Louise
obeyed mechanically, and as the door closed upon her, Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix entered.
Marie threw herself into his arms; all her jealousy for the moment
vanished on finding herself once more at his side.
 ‘You are free then?’ she asked, after this passionate greeting.
‘For the time, Marie,’ replied Gaudin. ‘I have appeased Desgrais
with part of the money I raised on your carcanet. I did not find the
exempt so relentless as my new creditor, your brother François.’
‘François!’ exclaimed the Marchioness. ‘He is here—in the next
room!’
‘I knew it,’ said Sainte-Croix, ‘or I should not have employed four
thousand francs to grease the palm of the exempt. I came to speak
with him—to tell him to his teeth that he had disgraced the name of
gentleman by that attempt to crush me.’
As he spoke he stepped towards the door communicating with the
landing-place, as if to carry his threat into execution. Marie laid her
hand upon his arm.
‘Do not go in, Gaudin,’ she said; ‘there will be bloodshed. He is
surrounded by his friends and neighbours. You will be murdered!’
‘I care not,’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix, ‘I shall not fall alone,’ and he
pressed on towards the door.
‘There is another way,’ said Marie, as she pointed to the casket
which still stood on her table. ‘This.’
Sainte-Croix gazed at her with a gloomy and meaning smile. ‘This
time,’ he said, ‘the suggestion is yours. Be it so: there will be no
blood spilled, at all events; and we may rid ourselves of one who,
whilst he lives, must ever be a serpent in our path. Is Henri with
him?’
‘He is,’ answered Marie.
‘There is enough for two,’ muttered Sainte-Croix, who had taken a
phial from its compartment, and was holding it up to the light of the
candle.
‘Must Henri die too?’ said the Marchioness. ‘He is so young—so
gay—has been so kind to me. We were almost playmates.’
And a trace of emotion passed over her brow.
‘Both or neither,’ replied Sainte-Croix; ‘decide at once. I shall await
your determination.’
And he seated himself at the table, coolly humming the burden of
a chanson à boire.
 There was a fearful struggle in Marie’s mind. But the fiend
triumphed, and no agitation was perceptible in her voice when, after
a moment’s reflection, she replied, ‘Both.’
‘Now for an agent in the work. You cannot trust any of your own
domestics. I foresaw something like this, and have brought my
instrument,’ said Gaudin. He rose, and drawing aside the curtain
beckoned from the window. The signal was answered by a cough
from below, and followed by the appearance of Lachaussée, who
had evidently expected the summons. He clumsily greeted the
Marchioness, and dropping his hat awaited Gaudin’s orders.
‘Let Françoise find a livery of your brothers’ people, and give it to
this honest fellow, Marie,’ said Sainte-Croix.
Marie went to give the order, and Gaudin developed his plan
briefly, but clearly, to Lachaussée. It was, to mix with the attendants
at the carouse, furnished with the phial, which Sainte-Croix took
from the box and gave him; then, watching his opportunity, he was
to mix a few drops of its contents with the wine of the brothers.
Assuming the dress which Françoise soon brought, Lachaussée left
the apartment, leaving Sainte-Croix and the Marchioness to await
the result.
The room in which François and Henri d’Aubray with their country
friends were assembled was large and handsome. Lights sparkled
upon the table, and played brilliantly among the flasks, cups, and
salvers which covered it, in all the rich profusion of one of those
luxurious suppers, which, although not carried to perfection until the
subsequent reign, were already admirably organised, and most
popular among the gay youth of the Parisian noblesse.
François d’Aubray was seated at the head of a long table; his stern
and somewhat sullen features contrasting strongly with the boyish
and regular face of his younger brother Henri, who sat on his right.
The company consisted almost entirely of provincial aristocracy—
those whose estates joined that of D’Aubray at Offemont, in
Compiègne. There was more of splendour than taste in their
costumes; the wit was coarser, too, and the laughter louder than
Parisian good-breeding would have sanctioned.
 ‘And so you have run down your game at last,’ said the Marquis of
Villeaume, one of the guests, to François.
‘Yes—thanks to Desgrais,’ was the reply. ‘Sainte-Croix is at this
moment in the hands of the lieutenant-civil, and, if I know aught of
his affairs, he will not soon reappear to trouble the peace of our
family.’
‘Mon dieu! François, you are too severe,’ gaily interrupted Henri.
‘Gaudin de Sainte-Croix is a bon garçon, after all; and I am half
inclined to quarrel with you for tracking him down as if he were a
paltry bourgeois.’
‘Henri,’ said François, turning sharply towards him; ‘no more of
this. Our sisters honour must not be lightly dealt with. Sainte-Croix is
a villain, and deserves a villain’s doom.’
‘A truce to family grievances!’ roared a red-faced Baron, heavily
booted and spurred; one of those Nimrods who were quite as
ridiculous, and much more numerous in the France of Louis
Quatorze, than their imitators of the ‘Jockey Club’ of the present day.
‘Debtor-hunting is a bourgeois sport compared to stag-hunting, after
all; the only amusement for young gentlemen.’
‘Where is Antoine Brinvilliers?’ asked another guest of François.
‘He ought to be very grateful to you, for your care of Madame la
Marquise’s reputation.’
‘Once for all, messieurs,’ said François, who turned crimson at the
implied taunt: ‘no more words of our sister, or our family concerns,
or harm may come of it.’
‘A toast!’ cried Henri, rising. ‘Aux Amours!’
‘In Burgundy!’ roared a chorus of voices. ‘And les hanapes.’
The large cups so called—heirlooms in the family of D’Aubray,
were brought forward by the attendants. Lachaussée had entered
the room whilst the conversation we have narrated was in progress;
and, taking his place at the buffet, had silently and sedulously
officiated amongst the other attendants, without exciting notice.
Almost every guest had his servants there, and such was the
confusion of liveries that the presence of a strange valet, wearing
the Brinvilliers’ colours, was not likely to call forth remark. He it was
who, taking a bottle of Burgundy, now stationed himself behind the
chair of François, who, mechanically lifting his cup, did not observe
that the hand which filled it held a phial, and that some drops of the
contents mingled with the wine.
The number of hanapes was four, and they were passed from
hand to hand. François, after drinking, handed his to Henri, who
honoured his own toast like a hardy drinker. As he passed it to De
Villeaume, Lachaussée, pretending to reach over him for something,
contrived to knock the goblet from his hand and spill its contents. A
storm of abuse for his awkwardness was the result, under which he
managed to leave the room with as little notice as he had caused by
entering it.
Chafed by the wine they had drunk, the mirth of the party waxed
wilder and louder. Songs were sung; games at tennis and ombre
arranged; bets settled; parties de chasses organised. The revelry
was at its highest pitch, when a series of loud and sudden shrieks
was heard from the staircase. It was a woman’s voice that uttered
them, and a rush was directly made by the guests in the direction of
the sound.
They found Louise Gauthier struggling in the hands of some of the
valets on the landing-place. The room into which she had been
hurried by the Marchioness had another exit, which was unlocked.
This she had soon discovered on regaining her presence of mind,
and in attempting to leave the hôtel by it, she had been seen and
rudely seized by the servants, who were amused by her terror. To
D’Aubray’s guests, flushed as they were with wine, the sight of a
woman was a new incentive, and poor Louise would have fared
worse at the hands of the masters than of the servants had it not
been for the interposition of François d’Aubray, who, pressing
through the crowd that surrounded the frightened and fainting girl,
bade all stand back in a tone that enforced obedience.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, ‘and what business brings you here?’
‘I am a poor girl; brought here for what reason I know not, by
Madame la Marquise, not an hour since,’ replied Louise, reassured by
the calmness of his manner, which contrasted strangely with the
wildness and recklessness of all around.
 ‘Mort de ma vie! by Madame la Marquise!’ cried Henri. ‘She is
here, then?’
‘We entered together,’ said Louise.
‘Ha!’ exclaimed François, with a savage ferocity, that made him
fearful to look upon, ‘she is playing fast and loose with us. On your
life, girl, is this the truth?’
‘It is the truth,’ replied Louise.
‘And where is the Marchioness?’ he asked thickly, and in a voice
almost inarticulate from passion.
‘In her apartment, when I left her,’ said the Languedocian.
‘Alone?’ asked François.
‘Some one entered the room as I quitted it,’ was the answer.
Francois d’Aubray hardly awaited her reply. Springing like a tiger
across the landing-place to the door of Marie’s boudoir he cried—
‘Stand by me, gentlemen, for the honour of Compiègne! De
Villeaume! down into the court-yard, and see that no one leaves the
hôtel by that way. You, messieurs, guard the issues here. Henri!
come you with me.’
And he attempted to pass into his sister’s apartment.
‘Open!’ he roared, rather than shouted,—‘open! harlot! adultress!
—open!’
There was no reply. He shook the door, but it was locked within,
and resisted his frantic efforts to break it open.
‘By the ante-chamber!’ said Henri, pointing to the open door by
which Louise had arrived. François comprehended the direction,
although rage had almost mastered his senses. Rapidly the brothers
entered, and, passing through the apartment of Louise’s captivity,
found the entrance communicating with Marie’s boudoir unfastened.
Flinging it open, they rushed into the room.
Marie de Brinvilliers was standing by the fireplace; pale, but calm.
By the secret door, which he held open, listening to the steps and
voices in the court, stood Sainte-Croix, his sword drawn, his teeth
set—a desperate man at bay.
François d’Aubray strode across the room, and with his open hand
struck his sister on the face, hissing through his clenched teeth,
‘Fiend!’
 Marie uttered no cry, made no motion, though Gaudin, with a
terrible oath, sprang forward, and would have run François through
the body had not a sign from the Marchioness restrained him.
‘You—you—Sainte-Croix!’ cried Henri, crossing swords immediately
with the other, as his brother, stopping short in his progress towards
him, reeled, and stumbled against the chimney-piece.
‘Look to your brother,’ said Sainte-Croix, as he put by the furious
thrusts of Henri—‘and to yourself,’ he muttered, as with a sudden
expert wrench he disarmed him.
Marie crossed to Sainte-Croix. ‘It works!’ she whispered.
‘Henri!’ gasped François, as the froth gathered round his leaden
lips, and the cold sweat rose in thick beads upon his forehead, ‘what
is this?—Give me some water.’
He made a spring at a glass vase that stood on a bracket near him
filled with water; but, as if blinded at the instant, missed his mark,
and fell heavily on the floor. His brother raised his arm, and on
letting it go sank passively by his side.
‘He is dead!’ exclaimed Henri, as a pallor, far beyond that which
horror would have produced, overspread his own features.
‘It is apoplexy!’ said one of the bystanders. ‘In his passion he has
ruptured a vessel of the brain.’
The guests crowded round the body. Sainte-Croix and Marie
looked at one another as they awaited the pangs of the other victim.
 CHAPTER XXVI.
SAINTE-CROIX DISCOVERS THE GREAT SECRET SOONER THAN HE
EXPECTED

A few weeks passed, and the terrible events of the last chapter were
almost forgotten by the volatile people of Paris, and even by the
provincials who had been present at the double tragedy—for Henri
d’Aubray had followed his brother, although, from his robust health
and strong constitution, he had battled more vigorously against the
effects of the poison, his sufferings being prolonged in consequence.
It is unnecessary to follow the horrid details of the effect of the Aqua
Tofana, or to describe the last agonies, when ‘il se plaignait d’avoir
un foyer brûlant dans la poitrine, et la flamme intérieure qui le
devorait semblait sortir par les yeux, seule partie de son corps qui
demeurât vivante encore, quand le reste n’était déjà plus qu’un
cadavre.’ It will suffice to say that no suspicion, as yet, rested upon
the murderers. The bodies were examined, in the presence of the
first surgeons of Paris, as well as the usual medical attendants of the
D’Aubray family; and although everywhere in the system traces of
violent organic lesion were apparent, yet none could say whether
these things had been produced by other than mere accidental
morbid causes. Tests would, as in the present day, have soon
detected the presence of the poisons—the more readily as they were
mostly mineral that were used—but the secret of these reagents
remained almost in the sole possession of those who made them;
and the subtlety of some of their toxicological preparations proves
that the disciples of Spara were chemists of no mean order.18 People
wondered for a little while at the coincidence of the several deaths
occurring in one family, and in a manner so similar, and then thought
no more of the matter. The cemetery received the bodies of the
victims; and the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, now her own mistress,
and the sole possessor of a magnificent income, shared it openly
with Sainte-Croix; and the hôtel in the Rue St. Paul vied with the
most celebrated of Paris in the gorgeous luxury of its festivities. But
the day of reckoning and heavy retribution was fast approaching.
We have before alluded to the Palais des Thermes—the remains of
which ancient edifice may still be seen from the footway of the Rue
de la Harpe, between the Rue du Foin and the Rue des Mathurins—
as being the most important ruins marking the occupation of Paris
by the Romans. The researches of various individuals from time to
time have shown that this palace was once of enormous size,
extending as far as the small stream of the Seine which flows
beneath the Hôtel Dieu; and, indeed, in the cellars of many of the
houses, between the present site of the large salle and the river,
pillars and vaulted ways, precisely similar to those in the Rue de la
Harpe, have been frequently discovered; added to which, before the
demolition of the Petit-Châtelet, a small fortress at the bottom of the
Rue St. Jacques, the remains of some ancient walls were visible
running towards the Palais from the banks of the Seine.
There were souterrains stretching out in many other directions;
the whole of the buildings adjoining were undermined by them, the
entrance to the largest having been discovered, by accident, in the
court-yard of the Convent des Mathurins, within a few months of the
date of our romance. And these must not be confounded with the
rough catacombs to which we have been already introduced, hewn
in the gypsum as chance directed, but were regularly arched ways
from ten to sixteen feet below the surface of the ground,
communicating with one another by doors and supported by walls
four feet thick.
The ruins of the Palais des Thermes and the adjoining vaults,
although not open to the street as they are at present, had long
been the resort of that class of wanderers about Paris now classified
as Bohemiens, until an edict drove them to the catacombs of the
Biévre and the Cours des Miracles to establish their colonies. The
shelter of the Palais, ‘favorisent les fréquentes défaites d’une pudeur
chancelante,’ was ordered to be abolished, and the entire place was,
in a measure, enclosed and let, at some humble rate, as a
storehouse or cellar for the tradesmen in the Rue de la Harpe.
 The winter’s evening was closing in, cold and dismal, as Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix was traversing the streets between the Place Maubert
and the Rue de la Harpe, a short time after the events we have
described. The front of the Palais des Thermes was at this period
concealed from the street by an old dwelling-house, but the porte-
cochére was always open, and he passed across the court,
unchallenged, to the entrance of the large hall that still exists. Here
he rang a rusty bell, which had the effect of bringing a man to the
wicket, who wore the dress of a mechanic. He appeared to know
Sainte-Croix, as he admitted him directly, without anything more
than a humble recognition; and then giving him a small end of
lighted candle in a split lath, similar to those used in cellars, he left
him to go on at his own will.
Gaudin crossed the large salle, the sides of which were covered by
wine-casks piled one on the other, and entered a small archway at
the extremity, which was at the top of a dozen steps. Descending,
he went along a vaulted passage, and at last reached a species of
cellar, which was fitted up as a laboratory. By the light of the fire
alone, which was burning in the furnace, he discovered Exili.
‘You have brought my money,’ said the physician, half
interrogatively, as he turned his ghastly features towards Sainte-
Croix. ‘Five thousand crowns is light payment for the services I have
rendered you. It should have been here before.’
‘I regret that I have not yet got it,’ answered Gaudin. ‘The greater
part of the possessions which have fallen to Madame de Brinvilliers
cannot yet be made available. I went this morning to the Jew who
before aided me, on the Quai des Orfèvres, to get some money, but
he was from home.’
It is true that Sainte-Croix had been in that direction during the
day, but it was with a far different object. To elude the payment of
Exili’s bond he had determined upon destroying him, running the risk
of whatever might happen subsequently through the physician’s
knowledge of the murders. And he had therefore ordered a body of
the Garde Royal to attend at the Palais des Thermes that evening,
when they would receive sufficient proof of the trade Exili was
driving in his capacity of alchemist.
 ‘It must be paid, however,’ said Exili, ‘and by daybreak to-morrow
morning. Look you, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, I am not to be put off
like your grovelling creditors have been, with your dull, ordinary
debts. To-morrow I start for England, and I will have the money with
me.’
‘I tell you I cannot procure it by that time,’ said Gaudin. ‘A day can
be of no consequence to you.’
‘No more than it may be a matter of life or death—a simple affair,
I grant you, with either of us, but still worth caring for. Ha! what is
this?’
He had purposely brushed his hand against Sainte-Croix’s cloak,
and in the pocket of it he felt some weighty substance. The chink
assured him it was gold.
‘You cannot have that,’ said Gaudin confusedly; ‘it is going with me
to the gaming-table this evening. Chavagnac has promised me my
revenge at De Lauzun’s.’
‘You have rich jewels, too, about you,’ continued Exili, peering at
him with a fearful expression. ‘The carcanet, I see, has been
redeemed, and becomes you well. That diamond clasp is a fortune in
itself.’
The gaze of the physician grew every moment more peculiar, as
he gazed at Gaudin’s rich attire.
‘Beware!’ cried Sainte-Croix; ‘if you touch one, I will hew you
down as I would a dog. Not one of them is mine. They belong to the
Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘Nay,’ replied Exili, changing his tone, ‘I did but admire them.
Come, then, a truce to this. Will you promise me the sum named in
the bond to-morrow?’
‘To-morrow you shall have it,’ said Sainte-Croix.
‘I am satisfied,’ said the physician. ‘I was annoyed at the moment,
but it has passed.’
And he turned round to the furnace to superintend the progress of
some preparation that was evaporating over the fire.
‘What have you there?’ asked Gaudin, who appeared anxious to
prolong the interview, and carry on the time as he best might.
 ‘A venom more deadly than any we have yet known—that will kill
like lightning and leave no trace of its presence to the most subtle
tests. I have been weeks preparing it, and it approaches perfection.’
‘You will give me the secret?’ asked Gaudin.
‘As soon as it is finished, and the time is coming on apace. You
have arrived opportunely to assist me.’
He took a mask with glass eyes from a shelf, and tied it round his
face.
‘Its very sublimation, now commencing, is deadly,’ continued Exili;
‘but there is a medicated veil in the nostrils of this mask to
decompose its particles. If you would see the preparation completed
you must wear one as well.’
Another visor was at his side. Under pretence of rearranging the
string he broke it from the mask, and then fixed it back with some
resinous compound that he used to cover the stoppers of his bottles,
and render them air-tight. All this was so rapidly done that Sainte-
Croix took no notice of it.
‘Now, let me fix this on,’ said Exili, ‘and you need not dread the
vapour. Besides, you can assist me. I have left some drugs with the
porter which I must fetch,’ he continued, as he cautiously fixed the
visor to Sainte-Croix’s face.
‘I will mind the furnace whilst you go,’ said Gaudin, as he heard an
adjacent bell sound the hour at which he had appointed the guard to
arrive. ‘There is no danger in this mask, you say?’
‘None,’ said Exili. ‘You must watch the compound narrowly as soon
as you see particles of its sublimation deposited in that glass bell
which overhangs it. Then, when it turns colour, remove it from the
furnace.’
Anxious to become acquainted with the new poison, and in the
hope that, as soon as he acquired the secret of its manufacture, the
guard would arrive, Gaudin promised compliance gladly. Exili, on
some trifling excuse, left the apartment; but, as soon as his footfall
was beyond Sainte-Croix’s hearing, he returned, treading as
stealthily as a tiger, and took up his place at the door to watch his
prey. Gaudin was still at the furnace, fanning the embers with the
cover of a book, as he watched the deadly compound in the
evaporating dish. At last, the small particles began to deposit
themselves on the bell glass above, as Exili had foretold, and Gaudin
bent his head close to the preparation to watch for the change of
colour. But in so doing, the heat of the furnace melted the resin with
which the string had been fastened. It gave way, and the mask fell
on the floor, whilst the vapour of the poison rose full in his face,
almost before, in his eager attention, he was aware of the accident.
One terrible scream—a cry which once heard could never be
forgotten—not that of agony, or terror, or surprise, but a shrill and
violent indrawing of the breath, resembling rather the screech of
some huge, hoarse bird of prey, irritated to madness, than the sound
of a human voice, was all that broke from Gaudin’s lips. Every
muscle of his face was at the instant contorted into the most
frightful form; he remained for a second, and no more, wavering at
the side of the furnace, and then fell heavily on the floor. He was
dead!
Exili had expected this. His eagerness would hardly restrain him
from rushing upon Sainte-Croix as he fell; and scarcely was
 The Death of Sainte-Croix

he on the ground when the physician, dashing the rest of the poison
from the furnace, darted on him like a beast of prey, and
immediately drew forth the bag of money from his cloak and
transferred it to his own pouch. He next tore away every ornament
of any value that adorned Gaudin’s costly dress; finally taking the
small gold heart which hung round his neck, enclosing the morsel of
pink crystal which had attracted Exili’s attention the first night of his
sojourn in the Bastille. As he opened it to look at the beryl, he
observed a thin slip of vellum folded under it within the case, on
which were traced some faint characters. By the light which Sainte-
Croix had brought with him, and which was burning faintly in the
subterraneous atmosphere, he read the following words with
difficulty:—

‘Beatrice Spara to her child, on the eve of her execution.

Rome, A.D. 1642. An amulet against an evil eye and poisons.’

A stifled exclamation of horror, yet intense to the most painful

degree of mental anguish, escaped him as the meaning came upon
him. For a few seconds his eyes were riveted on the crystal, as if
they would start from his head; his lips were parted, and his breath
suspended. Then another and another gasping cry followed; again
he read the lines, as though he would have altered their import; but
the simple words remained the same, and fearful was their
revelation—until, covering his face with his hands, he fell on his
knees beside the body. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix—the unknown
adventurer—the soldier of fortune, whom nobody had ever dared to
question respecting his parentage, was his own son!—the fruit of his
intimacy with the Sicilian woman, from whom at Palermo he had
learned the secrets of his hellish trade, in the first instance to
remove those who were inimical to the liaison. The child was not
above two years old when he himself had been compelled to fly from
Italy, and he had imagined that, after the execution of Beatrice, the
infant had perished unknown and uncared for in the streets of
Rome.
For some minutes he remained completely stupefied, but was
aroused at last by a violent knocking at the door of the vault; and
immediately afterwards the man who owned the house in the Rue
de la Harpe rushed in, and announced the presence of the guard,
who, not finding Sainte-Croix to meet them as they expected, had
made the cooper conduct them to Exili’s laboratory. He had scarcely
uttered the words when their bristling halberds, mingling with
torches, appeared behind him.
‘Back!’ screamed Exili as he saw the guard, ‘keep off! or I can slay
you with myself, so that not one shall live to tell the tale.’
The officer in command told the men to enter; but one or two
remembered the fate of those in the boat-mill whom the vapour had
killed, and they hung back.
‘Your lives are in my hands,’ continued the physician, ‘and if you
move one step they are forfeited. I am not yet captured.’
He darted through a doorway at the end of the room as he spoke,
and disappeared. The guard directly pressed onward; but as Exili
passed out at the arch, a mass of timber descended like a portcullis
and opposed their further progress. A loud and fiendish laugh
sounded in the souterrain, which grew fainter and fainter until they
heard it no more.
 CHAPTER XXVII.
MATTERS BECOME VERY SERIOUS FOR ALL PARTIES—THE DISCOVERY
AND THE FLIGHT

‘Ah!’ said Maître Picard, with a long expression of comfortable

fatigue, and the same shudder of extreme enjoyment which he
would have indulged in had he just crept into a bed artificially
warmed, ‘Ah! it is a great thing to enjoy yourself, having done your
duty as a man and a Garde Bourgeois!’
And he sank into an easy chair in which he would have been
hidden but for his rotundity, and propping up his little legs with
another seat, lighted a mighty pipe, the bowl whereof was fashioned
like a dragon’s head, which vomited forth smoke from its nostrils in a
manner terrible to behold.
It was a cold night. There were large logs of wood blazing and
crackling up the chimney from the iron dogs, and amongst the
glowing embers that surrounded them various culinary utensils were
embedded, some of which sent forth fragrant odours of strong
drinks or savoury extracts, whilst on a spit, formed of an old rapier,
was impaled a pheasant, which the Gascon, Jean Blacquart, was
industriously turning round as he sat upon the floor with his back
against the chimney-projection, humming a student’s song, to which
he made the bird revolve, in proper measure.
Everything looked very comfortable. The cloth was laid for supper,
and bright pewter vessels and horn mugs with silver rims caught the
light from the fire, which likewise threw its warm glow upon the
ceiling and made the shadows dance and flicker on the walls. It was
not so pleasant without. The frost was hard; the snow fell heavily;
and the cold wind came roaring up the narrow streets, chasing all
the cut-purses and evil company before it, much faster than all the
guards of the night could have done even at the points of their
halberds.
 ‘I think you might change your love-song for a sprightly dance,
Jean,’ said Maître Picard. ‘Your tender pauses, during which the spit
stops, do but scorch the breast of the bird, whilst the back profits
not.’
‘It is an emblem of love, in general,’ replied the Gascon; ‘seeing
that our breast is doubly warmed thereby, whilst our back comes off
but badly, especially if our sweetheart is expensive, and requires of
one the price of three doublets to make one robe.’
‘I was in love once,’ said Maître Picard, ‘but it is a long time ago. It
wastes the substance of a portly man. Had I not eaten twice my
ordinary allowance I should have fallen under the attack. The
presents, too, which I offered to my lady were of great value, and
none were ever returned.’
‘I never give presents,’ observed the Gascon, ‘for I have found in
many hundred cases that my affection is considered above all price,
and received as such.’
‘But suppose a rival of more pretensions comes to oppose you?’
said Maître Picard.
‘I never had a rival,’ said Blacquart grandly; ‘and I never shall.
Admitting one was to presume and cross my path, he would find no
ordinary antagonist. With this stalwart arm and a trusty blade I
would mince him before he knew where he was.’ And in his
enthusiasm he caught hold of the handle of the rapier, which formed
the spit, and brandished it about, perfectly forgetting the presence
of the pheasant, and firmly convinced that his chivalric energies
were really in action. He took no heed of the remonstrance of Maître
Picard, until a sudden and violent knocking at the street door so
frightened him in the midst of his imaginary bravery that he let the
rapier fall, and bird, spit, and all tumbled on the floor.
‘Cap de dis! it made me jump,’ observed the Gascon. ‘What can it
be, at this time of night?’
‘You can find out if you go and see,’ replied Maître Picard from
behind his pipe.
‘Suppose it should be some wickedly-disposed students come
again to vex us?’ suggested Blacquart, ‘and they were to bind me
hand and foot. What would become of you without my protection?—
Ugh!’
The last exclamation was provoked by a repetition of the knocking
more violent than ever.
‘Go and open the door!’ roared Maître Picard, until he looked quite
apoplectic. ‘No one is out to-night for their own amusement, depend
upon it.’
With a great disinclination to stir away from the fireplace, the
Gascon advanced towards the door. But, before he opened it, he
inquired with much assumption of courage—
‘Who’s there?’
‘It is I, Philippe Glazer,’ said a well-known voice. ‘Are you dead or
deaf, not to let me in? Open the door; quick!—quick!’
Reassured by the announcement, Blacquart soon unbarred the
door, and Glazer hastened into the apartment. He was scarcely
dressed, having evidently hurried from home in great precipitancy.
‘Maître Picard!’ he exclaimed, ‘you must come over with me
directly to the Place Maubert. A terrible event has come about. M.
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix——’
‘Well, what of him?’ asked the bourgeois, aroused from his half-
lethargy of comfort and tobacco by Glazer’s haggard and anxious
appearance.
‘He is dead!’ replied Philippe. ‘He lodged with us, or rather had a
room to carry on his chemical experiments, and we have just heard
that his body has been found lifeless in the vaults of the Palais des
Thermes.’
‘Murdered?’ asked both the Gascon and Maître Picard at once.
‘I know not,’ answered Glazer; ‘a hundred stories are already
about, but we are too bewildered to attend to any. However, he has
left nearly all his possessions in our keeping, and we must
immediately seal them up until the pleasure of the authorities be
known.’
‘It is the office of the Commissary of Police of the quartier,’ said
Maître Picard.
‘I know it,’ answered Glazer impatiently. ‘But M. Artus is ill in bed,
and he has deputed you to witness the process, as a man of good
report in his jurisdiction. His clerk, Pierre Frater, has started to our
house. I pray you come, without more loss of time.’
It was a sad trial for Maître Picard to leave his intended banquet,
especially to the mercies of the Gascon, whose appetite, in common
with that pertaining to all weakened intellects, was enormous. But
the urgency of the case, and Philippe Glazer’s empressement, left
him no chance of getting off the duty; and hastily gathering together
his cloak, arms, and other marks of his authority, he turned out, not
without much grumbling, to accompany Glazer to his father’s house
in the Place Maubert, which was not above ten minutes’ walk from
the Rue des Mathurins.
Late as it was, the news of Sainte-Croix’s death had travelled over
that part of Paris contiguous to the scene of the event, and when
Philippe and the bourgeois arrived the court was filled with people
who had collected, in spite of the inclemency of the weather, to gain
some authentic intelligence connected with the catastrophe. The fact
that Exili was, in some way or another, connected with the accident,
had already given rise to the most marvellous stories, the principal
one being that the devil had been seen perched on the northern
tower of Notre Dame with the wretched physician in his grasp,
preparatory to carrying him off to some fearful place of torment, the
mention of which provoked more crossings and holy words than all
the masses which the gossipers had attended for the last week.
Elbowing his way through the throng, Maître Picard assumed all
his wonted importance, whilst he ordered Philippe to admit no one
but the members of his household; and then, accompanied by Pierre
Frater, the Commissary’s clerk, he ascended to the room which
Gaudin had occupied.
It teemed with that fearful interest which sudden death throws
around the most unimportant objects connected with the existence
of the victim. The pen lay upon the half-finished letters; a list of
things to be attended to on the morrow was pinned to the wall; and
the watch was ticking on its stand, although the hand that had put it
in action was still and cold. On the table were some dice, at which
their owner had evidently been working, to render their cast a
certainty at the next game of hazard he engaged in. A flagon of
wine, half-emptied, a book marked for reference, a cloak drying
before the expiring embers of the fireplace, each inanimate article
spoke with terrible meaning.
‘You have the seals, Maître Frater,’ said the bourgeois; ‘we will
secure everything until we have further orders.’
The clerk of the Commissary produced the official seal, together
with some long strips of parchment to bind them together, and
assisted by Philippe they proceeded to attach them to everything of
importance in the room. But whilst they were thus engaged, a
confused murmur was heard in the court below, and Maître Picard,
looking from the window, saw a carriage drive through the porte-
cochère as hastily as the snow would permit. A man sprang from it,
closed the door after him, and the next minute came up the
staircase hurriedly, and almost forced his way into the room.
‘There is no admittance, monsieur,’ said the little bourgeois,
presenting his halberd.
But the intruder was already in the centre of the chamber.
‘I am the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix, and my name is Lachaussée,’
he said. ‘I oppose this proceeding of sealing up his effects.’
‘On what grounds?’ asked the clerk, Frater.
‘Because there is much that is my own property,’ replied
Lachaussée. ‘You will find one hundred pistoles, and the same
number of silver crowns in a canvas bag, in that bureau. My master
gave them to me, and promised still further to transfer three
hundred livres to me. You will, without doubt, find that he has done
so; if he has not, you may depend upon my word that everything is
right which I have stated.’19
‘We do not doubt your word, monsieur,’ said the clerk; ‘but we
cannot, at present, give up to you so much as a pin from this room.
When the seals are broken by the authorities, whose servants we
merely are, and under whose orders we now act, you may rest
assured that the interests of no one will be overlooked.’
‘But this is such a trifle; you surely will not put me to such great
inconvenience, for such it will be,’ answered Lachaussée, changing
his tone.
 ‘We regret it,’ answered Maître Picard with much grandeur—now
he had heard from Pierre Frater what he was to say; ‘we regret it;
but, at present, the law is peremptory.’
‘If I have no influence with you,’ said Lachaussée, ‘I will bring
hither one who, possibly, may have some.’
Before they had time to reply he left the room, and in the course
of a minute returned, bringing back with him, to the astonishment of
every one present, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.
Marie was pale as marble. Her beautiful hair, usually arranged with
such careful taste, was hanging about her neck and shoulders in wild
confusion; her eyes glistened, and her lips were blanched and
quivering. She had evidently left home hurriedly, wrapping about her
the first garments that came to hand, which she drew closely round
her figure from the inclemency of the weather. And yet, looking as
she then did the picture of agony and consternation, from time to
time she made visible efforts to master her excitement and, with
that habitual duplicity which had long become her nature, to deceive
those with whom she was confronted, respecting the real state of
her feelings.
She looked wildly at the assembled party as she entered, and at
last her eye fell upon young Glazer, whom she was well acquainted
with, as we have already seen. Glad to meet with any one who knew
her, under such circumstances, she directly went towards him, and
caught his arm for support, exclaiming in a hollow and trembling
voice—
‘O Philippe!—you know all—this is indeed terrible!’
Glazer addressed a few commonplace words of consolation to her;
but ere she had finished, an access of violent hysterics placed the
terrified woman beyond the comprehension of his words. He
supported her to a chair, and Frater, Picard, and their attendants
gathered round her in silence, as they watched her convulsed form
with feelings of real pity; for the attachment existing between
Gaudin and herself was now no secret. The only one perfectly
unmoved was Lachaussée, and he regarded her with an expression
of unconcern, showing that he doubted the reality of the attack.
 In a few minutes she recovered; and starting up from her seat,
addressed herself to Pierre Frater, who, from his clerkly look, her
perception enabled her to tell was the chief person in authority.
‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘I know not what Lachaussée has sought to
obtain; but there is a small box here belonging to me alone, which I
presume there will be no objection to my carrying away with me.
Philippe Glazer may divine the nature of the papers it contains. He
will explain it to you.’
‘Madam,’ replied the clerk, ‘it pains me to repeat the same answer
to you which I gave to the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix; but nothing
can be moved except with the consent of the Commissary, my
master.’
‘Nothing of M. de Sainte-Croix’s property, I am aware,’ replied the
Marchioness: ‘but this is mine—my own—do you understand? See!
there it is!—you must give it to me—indeed, indeed you must.’
As she spoke she pointed to the small inlaid cabinet which has
been before alluded to, and which was visible behind the glass-front
of a secretary between the windows. She repeated her request with
renewed energy. And well, indeed, she might; for it was that box
which had furnished the most terrible poisons to her victims.
‘Indeed, madam,’ answered Frater, firmly but respectfully, ‘you
cannot have it at this moment.’
‘You must give it to me!’ she exclaimed, seizing the clerk by the
hand. ‘It contains a matter of life and death, and you cannot tell
whom it may affect. Give me the box; my position and influence will
free you from any responsibility for so doing. You see, the seals have
not yet been put on the bureau; it can be of no consequence to you
in the discharge of your duty. Let me have it.’
She let go his hand and went towards the bureau. But Frater
stepped before her, as he exclaimed—
‘Pardon me, madam; and do not oblige me to forget my gallantry,
or that politeness which is due to a lady of your station, by
forgetting your own proper sense. The cabinet can only be delivered
up to you upon the authority of M. Artus.’
‘And where is he?’ she inquired hurriedly.
 ‘He is ill—at his house in the Rue des Noyers,’ answered the clerk,
‘To-morrow he will, without doubt, give you every assistance.’
‘To-morrow will be too late!’ exclaimed Marie. ‘I must see him now
—this instant. Au revoir, messieurs; I shall hope in a few minutes to
bring you his order that you may deliver me my cabinet.’
And without any further salute she turned and left the room,
requesting Lachaussée to await her return.
Her exceeding anxiety was placed to the score of her attachment
to Sainte-Croix; and as she quitted the apartment the others went
on with their duties in silence. Lachaussée seated himself in a recess
of the chamber and watched their proceedings; and Philippe
collected a few things together which belonged to his father, and
consisted principally of some chemical glasses and evaporating
dishes, placing them in a box by themselves to be moved away as
soon as it was permitted.
But scarcely five minutes had elapsed ere another carriage drove
into the court, and Desgrais, the active exempt of the Maréchaussée,
came upstairs to the apartment, followed by one or two agents of
the police. As he entered the room, he cast his eye over the different
pieces of furniture, and perceiving that the judicial seal was already
upon many of them, nodded his head in token of approval. Then
turning to Philippe he said—
‘Monsieur Glazer, there will be no occasion to inconvenience you
by detaining your own goods. Whatever you will describe as yours,
shall be at once made over to you on your signature.’
‘You are very good,’ replied Philippe; ‘but everything belonging to
us, in the care of this poor gentleman, was of little consequence.
There is, however, that little cabinet, which may be returned to its
owner, who is most anxious to have it. It has been earnestly claimed
by the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers!’ exclaimed Desgrais with some
emphasis. ‘And you say she was anxious to carry it away?’
‘Just as I have told you; in fact her solicitude was remarkable.’
Desgrais was silent for a minute.
‘Stop!’ at length he said; ‘we will examine this cabinet that
appears so precious. I have reasons for it.’
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