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The Short Obligatory Prayer Project

Goals of the Project

The short term goal of this Short Obligatory Prayer project is to display all the versions of the prayer listed in volumes of The Bahá'í World. Eventually I would like to make this site the catalyst for the translation of the prayer into new languages and dialects. These can then be officially approved and displayed on this web site to expand the listings already given in The Bahá'í World.

Sources

The versions of the Short Obligatory Prayer by Bahá'u'lláh which are presented in this project are drawn from the volumes of the periodical journal The Bahá'í World. The specific references are:

The usage and spelling chosen for primary listing in The Bahá'í World “follow where possible C.F. and F.M. Voegelin, Classification and Index of the World’s Languages.” “Exceptions to Voegelin & Voegelin’s usage have been made in a few cases: where the name of a language has been officially changed in the country in which it is spoken; where Voegelin & Voegelin’s primary listing is known to be pejorative by speakers of the language or dialect; and in a few other instances.”

Language Names

The languages present in this project may have many names. I have generally represented them by the name as shown in the volumes of The Bahá'í World, which tends to follow Voegelin and Voegelin. When only one dialect of a language is present it is often listed simply by the common name with no indication of the particular dialect. One place to find more information on language families, dialects and names is the linguistic site called Ethnologue . (The Ethnologue is a catalogue of nearly 7000 languages spoken throughout the world. The Ethnologue Language Name Index lists over 39000 language names, dialect names, and alternate names. The Ethnologue Language Family Index organizes languages according to language families.) I have attempted to identify the languages by the names and three letter codes given by the international standard ISO 639-3 . However, in accord with the statement found in the The Bahá'í World, I have tended to favor official names for languages and those used by the people themselves. In cases where a name is common in English, I have listed the English name first followed by the indigenous name for the language.

Discussion, Corrections & Additions

I can use your assistance with this project. Here's how you can help:

Provide me with updated versions of the Short Obligatory Prayer in languages you know. I would prefer these to come from authorized bodies of the Bahá'í Faith (National Spiritual Assemblies, etc.). Information on new translations will be gratefully accepted from anyone however. This will help me to seek official confirmation of a new version. It would be nice to have hard copies that can be scanned as well as a copy of the title page of the book or booklet, if available. Scanned image files can be emailed to me as attachments as well. Please provide as much information as possible about small indigenous languages or dialects.

Provide new authorized translations (with the same stipulations as above).

Correct any misspellings due to errors on my part, errors from the OCR software that I did not catch, or errors in the original text of The Bahá'í World volumes.

Be kind to me. I speak about three of these languages so most of them are Greek to me (including Greek). I mean no offense if errors arise.

A discussion about the Short Obligatory Prayer Project is found in this site's discussion forum. You can contact the site administrator directly via the website technical support page.