What is it about?
Churches - but also governments and other organizations - choose languages based in part on their understanding of place. Some policies are about "walls": they aim to safeguard the sanctity and purity of a bordered location. Examples include the Russian Orthodox Church preserving the ancient Slavonic language in its temples and the Russian State requiring Cyrillic lettering in public spaces. Other policies are the equivalent of "bridges": they foster mobility and the crossing of boundaries. Using Latin as a lingua franca for certain prayers at the international Lourdes pilgrimage site and adapting the Frutiger font for signage in major world airports illustrate this latter ethos.
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Why is it important?
The article offers a new way to think about language policies, one that emphasizes contrastive approaches to place: locative "walls" vs. utopian "bridges." The model is applicable not only to religious but also to secular ventures.
Perspectives
What I hope to have shown is that religion is not something sequestered from the so-called real world. The pattern I find in religious language policies (locative "walls" vs. utopian "bridges") can also shed light on certain governmental policies -- and even on why a particular font is used in major airports around the world.
Dr. Brian Bennett
Niagara University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Placing religious language policies, Language Problems & Language Planning, April 2026, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/lplp.25032.ben.
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