Every religion on this planet has its own liturgical language.
In Judaism, the liturgical language is obviously Hebrew and in rare cases Kaddish or Aramaic. A Yorùbá or Igbo covert to Judaism cannot substitute his/her mother tongue for Hebrew. Yahweh must be worshipped in Hebrew.
In Islam, Arabic is the liturgical language for salat and ibadah (Islamic prayer and worship). You cannot perform your salat and ibadah in Yorùbá or English or Hausa.
A Yorùbá muezzin cannot use Yorùbá for call to prayer even if all the worshippers are Yorùbá. Also, your prayer in any other language, even in your mother tongue is not acceptable! If you pray using Yorùbá at your mosque, the prayer will not be answered by Allah! In fact, you could be banished from the mosque for sacrilege.
In Roman Catholicism, the liturgical language is Latin. A Pope, irrespective of his mother tongue must communicate with the Catholic God in Latin even though Latin is a dead language here on planet Earth! No other language is acceptable for performing liturgy, not even Italian - the lingua franca of the Vatican!
In Protestantism, you must use the correct Hebrew lingo if you want your prayer to be answered irrespective of your mother tongue. “Hallelujah”, “Hosanna”, “Amen” etc are not Yorùbá words but you must sprinkle them on your prayers or during your worship before your request can be accepted for consideration by the Judeo Christian God.
In Pentecostalism, you must speak in tongues using the angelic language of heaven (glossolalia). You cannot speak in tongues in any African language. In fact, you cannot use any decipherable earthly language at all.
In Ifá, the liturgical language is Yorùbá. you cannot chant Odù Ifá in any other language except in Yorùbá when communicating with Ifá. No other language is acceptable. Your ẹbọ and ètùtù must be accompanied by the correct liturgy in Yorùbá. English or Arabic or German or Spanish etc will not cut it! In fact, you can incur the wrath of the Irunmọlẹ if you try it!
Same thing goes for other religions. You must use the language of the God of that religion whenever you want to communicate.
By Olobe Yoyon
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