# If Jesus, Buddha, etc returned who'd find it easiest to be understood? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628 "2017-01-20T15:16:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/21 "2017-01-21T00:22:42Z")
Would Jesus not understand Latin what with Judea being part of the Roman Empire? And would Mohammed understand Byzantine Greek? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/22 "2017-01-21T00:33:21Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But this is the salient part : would you be able to ask where the loo is in that language, or understand when they ask you the same ? To be honest, it took a moment to remember what you meant by “loo”. (I’m American.) And we’re both communicating in modern English in the same period of history. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/23 "2017-01-21T00:36:50Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > … Yes ? I mean, I can sort of tell it’s about King Henry and he’s the richest man in London (or possibly in the land ?), and it’s kind of a diss in the end, maybe (“that knave king ain’t no Emperor” ? I think ?) but what the hell is muð and how should I spek it ? 🙂 It’s part of a love poem. That verse says, basically, that the guy is the richest man in the land, and has lands from King Henry himself… > [@](#): > > If þu Him woldest luve beode, > And bycumen His leovemon, > He brou3te þe to suche wede > That naveð king ne kayser non! is, basically **If you would give him your love and become his lover He’ll bring to you such clothes that neither king nor emperor [have]** and you spekeð with muð, because with what else would you spekeð? speketh with muth means “speak with mouth”. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/24 "2017-01-21T00:42:35Z")
Also, btw, the "He"that the poem is referring to, is Jesus. The writer was a Franciscan, and he wrote it to a girl who was becoming a nun. It’s just more erotic a poem than most modern devotionals. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/25 "2017-01-21T01:37:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > It’s part of a love poem. > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > The writer was a Franciscan, and he wrote it to a girl who was becoming a nun. So was the writer being Jesus’ Cyrano de Bergerac and writing love poems on Jesus’ behalf or did he just have his own sublimated crush on said nun? Err…like a Cyrano de Bergerac, I guess :). ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/26 "2017-01-21T01:51:54Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Would Jesus not understand Latin what with Judea being part of the Roman Empire? And would Mohammed understand Byzantine Greek? Jesus would likely know much more Greek than Latin, since Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern Roman Empire. After all, the New Testament was written in Greek, not Latin. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/27 "2017-01-21T01:52:32Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The other thing is sometimes the spoken word is easier to understand than the written and vice versa. With the spoken word, there is a certain amount of “getting used to the accent” and of course whether the two people are trying to make each other understood or not. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NB2Z6pZBNA) is a medievalist reading a passage in Old English (Beowulf obviously, one of the very few examples of Old English that still exists), and Middle English (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). For my part, I think it’s fair to say I couldn’t understand a word of the Old English just listening to the recitation, and only got a word or two of the Middle English. I got a bit more from reading them. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/28 "2017-01-21T07:19:34Z")
Aramaic still exists as a language today (also called “Syriac”). It’s used asa liturgical language by some religious communities ( Christians and Mandaeans) in parts of the Middle East and India. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/29 "2017-01-21T07:53:08Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Aramaic still exists as a language today (also called “Syriac”). It’s used asa liturgical language by some religious communities ( Christians and Mandaeans) in parts of the Middle East and India. It’s more than that-- there are speakers of the language today, but not many. However, one might get into the kind of argument such as: Can we say that Latin is still spoken today in Italy-- it’s just the Modern version of the language. After all, an Italian speaker almost certainly understands more Latin than an English speaker today would understand “English” circa 100 AD. Or even 500AD if you want to put “English” in England proper. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/30 "2017-01-21T08:25:24Z")
Gautama Buddha’s sermons are recorded in Pali. It’s a dead language in the wider world, but it is still widely studied by Theravada buddhist scholars. However he probably didn’t actually speak Pali, as that’s a language only used for buddhist texts. He probably spoke a mixture of Old Indic (Vedic) and Sanskrit and only used Pali words when speaking about religious matters. Anyway plenty of scholars in India, Nepal, SE Asia can understand all of these languages, so he’d be understood, once he found the right people to talk to. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/31 "2017-01-21T10:19:14Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Well, if we posit that semantic and phonetic drift happens in all languages at roughly the same pace (it’s wrong, nowhere close to observable facts and borderline insane a suggestion … Preserved ancient writings, when widely studied as part of a religion, serve as a brake on language mutation. The Sanksrit _Rigveda_ were probably written at least 1000 years before the time of the Buddha. Sanskrit is a liturgical language (and, though irrelevant here, closer to Proto-Indo-European than any other known language). In addition to being ancestral to probably all living languages in the Indo-Aryan family it is still in wide use as a literary language, and, due to a revival movement, is spoken as a 2nd or 3rd language by millions of Indians. > [@coremelt](#): > > Gautama Buddha’s sermons are recorded in Pali. It’s a dead language in the wider world, but it is still widely studied by Theravada buddhist scholars. However he probably didn’t actually speak Pali, as that’s a language only used for buddhist texts. He probably spoke a mixture of Old Indic (Vedic) and Sanskrit and only used Pali words when speaking about religious matters. The Buddha almost certainly spoke spoke Magadhi Prakrit, which is the ancestor of the Pali liturgical language still memorized by Buddhist monks. Magadhi is also ancestral to Indo-Aryan languages in the Bihari subfamily. But more importantly, the Buddha was almost certainly skilled in Sanskrit. While he would be incomprehensible to most Indians, he would presumably be able to converse with millions of Indians today. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/32 "2017-01-22T03:22:53Z")
Hector St. Claire: > [@](#): > > Aramaic still exists as a language today (also called “Syriac”). It’s used asa liturgical language by some religious communities ( Christians and Mandaeans) in parts of the Middle East and India. It’s also the language in which the Talmud is written, so a good number of Orthodox Jews, while not able to be conversationally fluent in it, could read it and probably make out what a speaker of it is saying. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/33 "2017-01-22T04:10:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Are we talking written language, spoken, or both? Written Arabic has been deliberately preserved in the form used by Mohamed, but it’s impossible to shackle a spoken language, especially in the pre-recording era, so there’s bound to have been some drift, there. And even today, there are dozens of different spoken Chinese languages, as different from each other as French is from German, but they all share (more or less) the same writing. I am not an Arabic speaker but I’ve been exposed to a lot of it. Classical Arabic has indeed been preserved, and although there may have been some drift in the spoken language (I can’t say for a fact), Arab countries and regions have their own dialects of colloquial Arabic that has certainly drifted dramatically in the same time (my Egyptian wife can’t understand her Iraqi relatives). When you speak two different versions of language, I would expect it to be somewhat easier to preserve the one deliberately marked for preservation. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/34 "2017-01-22T13:52:07Z")
[markn+](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php) [![](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif) ](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif) Guest ``` Join Date: Feb 2015 Quote: Originally Posted by **John Mace** [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/buttons/viewpost.gif](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=19936562#post19936562) The other thing is sometimes the spoken word is easier to understand than the written and vice versa. With the spoken word, there is a certain amount of "getting used to the accent" and of course whether the two people are trying to make each other understood or not. ``` [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NB2Z6pZBNA) is a medievalist reading a passage in Old English (Beowulf obviously, one of the very few examples of Old English that still exists), and Middle English (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). For my part, I think it’s fair to say I couldn’t understand a word of the Old English just listening to the recitation, and only got a word or two of the Middle English. I got a bit more from reading them. Aruvqan: Sorry, my quote function seems to be screwed today so I had to cut and paste. I might add that I enjoy audiobooks of Beowulf, Canterbury Tales and various Shakespeare plays because IMHO some things are better as performed works rather than stuck in books works. I also find that after I do a couple ‘read alongs’ it becomes easier to understand the spoken word performances. IMHO, any work that was originally a poem/song tends to be enjoyed more as a performance than as flat on a page. I adore the Illiad/Odyssey as an audio work even though I have absolutely no idea what they are saying [it’s all greek to me _snicker_] ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/35 "2017-01-22T21:18:20Z")
Jesus grew up speaking Hebrew/Aramaic, but I figure it’s safe to assume he spoke to Pilate in Latin–given what is known about the kind of person Pilate was I doubt that he would have bothered to learn the lingua franca. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/36 "2017-01-22T21:29:10Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Jesus grew up speaking Hebrew/Aramaic, but I figure it’s safe to assume he spoke to Pilate in Latin–given what is known about the kind of person Pilate was I doubt that he would have bothered to learn the lingua franca. All we know about Pilate is that he was the Prefect of Judea, which, as an eastern province of the Roman empire, was almost certainly administered in Greek, not Latin. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/37 "2017-01-22T22:14:20Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > All we know about Pilate is that he was the Prefect of Judea, which, as an eastern province of the Roman empire, was almost certainly administered in Greek, not Latin. But: there are numerous monuments from that region in that era that are in Latin. Including [one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilate_stone) with Pilate’s name on it. The most common outside language was Greek Koine which was a commoner’s _lingua franca_. It wasn’t an “official” language and not used by everyone. (And not the same as literary Greek.) Pilate and other Roman officials would have no problem with literary Greek. It was a standard language taught to the children of well-to-do Romans (among others). The Jews in Egypt would have been quite familiar with Greek. Alexandria was the largest “Jewish” city at the time. They had quite an effect on Jewish culture all over the Roman world. The Roman admins would likely use mostly Latin among themselves and for a lot of official documents. But with some Greek. The locals would know their native language (e.g., Aramaic) and possibly some form of Greek. Latin wouldn’t be common but some did know it, e.g., Paul. One of the best known passages suggesting Jesus knew Greek is the pun on calling Simon “Peter” (rock). But, as usual, that could have been a latter explanation for the name change. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/38 "2017-01-23T04:07:45Z")
I’d also be curious to know the answer to this question for [Guru Nanak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Nanak) (the founder of Sikhism, who lived in 15th-century Punjab) and [Bahá’u’lláh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27u%27ll%C3%A1h) (founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who lived in 19th-century Persia.) The latter is probably close enough to the modern day that he’d be understandable, but I’m not so sure about the former. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/39 "2017-01-23T04:26:26Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > But: there are numerous monuments from that region in that era that are in Latin. Including [one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilate_stone) with Pilate’s name on it. > > The most common outside language was Greek Koine which was a commoner’s _lingua franca_. It wasn’t an “official” language and not used by everyone. (And not the same as literary Greek.) Pilate and other Roman officials would have no problem with literary Greek. It was a standard language taught to the children of well-to-do Romans (among others). > > The Jews in Egypt would have been quite familiar with Greek. Alexandria was the largest “Jewish” city at the time. They had quite an effect on Jewish culture all over the Roman world. > > The Roman admins would likely use mostly Latin among themselves and for a lot of official documents. But with some Greek. The locals would know their native language (e.g., Aramaic) and possibly some form of Greek. Latin wouldn’t be common but some did know it, e.g., Paul. > > One of the best known passages suggesting Jesus knew Greek is the pun on calling Simon “Peter” (rock). But, as usual, that could have been a latter explanation for the name change. Well, He wouldn’t have had any problems with the lingua franca himself… ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628/40 "2017-01-23T06:34:48Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > I’d also be curious to know the answer to this question for [Guru Nanak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Nanak) (the founder of Sikhism, who lived in 15th-century Punjab) and [Bahá’u’lláh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27u%27ll%C3%A1h) (founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who lived in 19th-century Persia.) The latter is probably close enough to the modern day that he’d be understandable, but I’m not so sure about the former. Guru Nanak studied Persian (Farsi), Arabic and Sanskrit and would also have spoken Punjabi. So he would be able to be understood pretty easily, as mentioned above both classical Arabic and Sanskrit are “fixed” by the need to understand the religious writings in them. And Bahá’u’lláh, was only 19th century, I suspect Farsi is still pretty intelligible from then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-buddha-etc-returned-whod-find-it-easiest-to-be-understood/777628.md?page=3)