Seven Tatar translations of the Lord’s Prayer (1803-2015) [Part 1]

The Bible is the world’s most translated book. Throughout his‑ tory it has been translated into a great many languages, and these translations have in recent years begun to attract wider attention. This article investigates a selection of historical translations of the Lord’s Prayer from the Gospel of Matthew in a language called Ta‑ tar, and one contemporary translation, Volga Tatar. The timespan of the translations encompasses over two hundred years: from 1803 to 2015. The translations are compared on a variety of linguistic le‑ vels, with special attention given to the lexicon. Orthography presents a noteworthy challenge, since most of the historical translations are in the Arabic script, not reflecting the nuances of the vowels. Features common to the translations are described, and those distinctive to each text are analysed. I discovered that many of the translations ad‑ here to strict norms of the literary language, clearly differing from spoken variants. Up to the 20th century many Turkic literary langua‑ ges were “transregional”, that is, similar established literary norms ex‑ tended over many Turkic peoples, whose spoken languages displayed a far greater variety. Interacting with the biblical text gives us a val‑ uable glimpse of the multiple voices represented by the translations, and the circumstances in which they were created.