Editing Lord's Prayer (section)

==Use as a language comparison tool==
[[File:Lithuanian language in European language map 1741.jpg|thumb|Detail of the ''Europa Polyglotta'' published with ''[[Synopsis Universae Philologiae]]'' in 1741; the map gives the first phrase of the Lord's Prayer in 33 different [[languages of Europe]]]]

In the course of [[Christianization]], one of the first texts to be translated between many languages has historically been the Lord's Prayer, long before the full Bible would be [[Bible translations|translated into the respective languages]]. Since the 16th century, collections of translations of the prayer have often been used for a [[parallel text|quick comparison of languages]]. The first such collection, with 22 versions, was ''Mithridates, de differentiis linguarum'' by [[Conrad Gessner]] (1555; the title refers to [[Mithridates VI of Pontus]] who according to [[Pliny the Elder]] was an [[Hyperpolyglot|exceptional polyglot]]).

Gessner's idea of collecting translations of the prayer was taken up by authors of the 17th century, including [[Hieronymus Megiserus]] (1603) and Georg Pistorius (1621). {{ill|Andreas Müller (Orientalist)|de|lt=Andreas Müller}} in 1680 published an enlarged collection of 83 versions of the prayer, under the pseudonym of Thomas Ludeken,<ref name="Lüdeken">''[https://books.google.com/books?id=8NlYAAAAcAAJ Orationis dominicae versiones praeter authenticam fere centum...]'', Thomas Lüdeken, Officina Rungiana, 1680.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pytlowany |first1=Anna |last2=Van Hal |first2=Toon |title=Merchants, scholars and languages: the circulation of linguistic knowledge in the context of the Dutch United East India Company (VOC) |journal=Histoire Épistémologie Langage |date=2016 |volume=38 |issue=1 |page=30|doi=10.1051/hel/2016380102 |url=https://lirias.kuleuven.be/handle/123456789/528863 }}</ref> of which three were in fictional [[philosophical language]]s.
In 1700, Müller's collection was re-edited by [[Benjamin Motte|B. Mottus]] as ''Oratio dominica plus centum linguis versionibus aut characteribus reddita et expressa''.
This edition was comparatively inferior, but a second, revised edition was published in 1715 by [[John Chamberlayne]].
This 1715 edition was used by Gottfried Hensel in his ''[[Synopsis Universae Philologiae]]'' (1741) to compile "geographico-polyglot maps" where the beginning of the prayer was shown in the geographical area where the respective languages were spoken.
[[Johann Ulrich Kraus]] also published a collection with more than 100 entries.<ref>Augustin Backer, Alois Backer, ''Bibliothèque des écrivains de la compagnie de Jésus ou notices bibliographiques'', vol. 5, 1839, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hElDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA304 304f.]</ref>

These collections continued to be improved and expanded well into the 19th century; [[Johann Christoph Adelung]] and [[Johann Severin Vater]] in 1806–1817 published the prayer in "well-nigh five hundred languages and dialects".<ref>''Mithridates oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde mit dem Vater Unser als Sprachprobe in bey nahe fünf hundert Sprachen und Mundarten'', 1806–1817, Berlin, Vossische Buchlandlung, 4 volumes. Facsimile edition, Hildesheim-Nueva York, [[Georg Olms Verlag]], 1970.</ref>

Samples of scripture, including the Lord's Prayer, were published in 52 oriental languages, most of them not previously found in such collections, translated by the brethren of the [[Serampore]] Mission and printed at the mission press there in 1818.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}