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Overcoming the language barrier has prompted me to do what I enjoy most, problem solving. Our church service is totally in Arabic and so visitors find it difficult to fully participate. There are English equivalents to the Arabic Book of Common Prayer, Arabic hymn book, and Arabic service book. We use the Arabic prayer book for the collect and readings - problem simply solved by ordering English prayer books. The hymn book is more problematic. We have been given some 'New English Hymnal' hymn books, and so I am matching the tunes found in both books and producing a list of hymns that can be sung together in English and Arabic. And finally, although we have English service book for visitors, they like to join in certain parts of the service in Arabic (Lord's prayer, sharing the peace etc). To solve this last problem I am producing the Arabic service book in simple phonetics. But I'll still need to use all the books, so it's a good job I sit at an old choir stall instead of the small prayer desk. P
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Lingo
Overcoming the language barrier has prompted me to do what I enjoy most, problem solving. Our church service is totally in Arabic and so visitors find it difficult to fully participate. There are English equivalents to the Arabic Book of Common Prayer, Arabic hymn book, and Arabic service book. We use the Arabic prayer book for the collect and readings - problem simply solved by ordering English prayer books. The hymn book is more problematic. We have been given some 'New English Hymnal' hymn books, and so I am matching the tunes found in both books and producing a list of hymns that can be sung together in English and Arabic. And finally, although we have English service book for visitors, they like to join in certain parts of the service in Arabic (Lord's prayer, sharing the peace etc). To solve this last problem I am producing the Arabic service book in simple phonetics. But I'll still need to use all the books, so it's a good job I sit at an old choir stall instead of the small prayer desk. P
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3 comments:
Wow ! I thought attending the Church in Wales was bad enough Their prayer book is dual language. Luckily the language is basically phonic so can usually cope with the hymns. The Lords Prayer still has me beaten as the congrgation rattle it off too fast for me - they are pretty speedy in English too !Hope the New year is going well for yoy Bet you were glad to miss "The Big Freeze"
I would like to know when translating to English why there are numbers mid word? Can you solve this problem that I have? Do I sing 9 as nine?
Try doing it in two other languages! We have tri-lingual services quite often going from Tamil to Sinhala to English and back again!
Fortunately the Holy Communion service is laid out tri-lingually and even some of the hymn books too!
We also have triplicate languages in communications from the Diocese Bishop's letters.
Great fun!!! My ecclesiastical Sinhala is better then my Tamil, but with clergy synod next week I will be doing some quick revision!
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