Prayers in Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, or Sanskrit etc with your Child?

[TurnAgainCat]

Are there any mothers whose place of worship or Sunday school teaches traditional prayers in a scripture language other than English, which you as a family do not use at home? Ds has just started a lovely Sunday school, which is all in English except for opening and closing prayers, which we are both struggling to learn. I have a very good religious knowledge, but all from my parents and books, and I always prayed in English. I am happy for ds to learn these classic prayers in their original language, but wondering how to help him, and how to learn them myself. I don't want to learn them by rote. I know how to read the scripture language but I don't really know that language.

tbh i don't really see any way round learning them by rote, and then learning the translation along side, so at least you have an idea of what all the words mean - which would mean that you need a basic grounding in the language and/or a dictionary. otherwise it would mean a lot of effort getting latin, hebrew, arabic and sanskrit up to realistically GCSE standard

Did you find that learning them by rote worked well for your children, or was boring for them?

i'm actually thinking of my own experiences learning prayers in Hebrew rather than DS (and some passages of Latin Literature at GCSE level)!
i think that it is much more interesting to learn the translation along with the prayer iyswim

Maybe ask your cleric's advice? I will be facing this in a few years (and would like to be able to join in services myself) and in our case there are courses at our synagogue for people in this situation, plus the rabbi has published a book designed to help with this. If no help there, maybe you could publish a notice in the newsletter (if any) asking if any others want the same, and a group could be started. Or you may find that someone who did it a few years back could help out?

Probably you have already done this which is why you are trying Mumsnet! Sorry if so.

Thanks, it is good advice. It is reassuring that I am not the only one in this position. I was feeling embarrassed that I don't know these prayers, and I sort of wanted ds to attend a few times to show that he does have a good knowledge of our religion and traditions (ie that I am a "good" mother in that way) before I confessed my ignorance. There are actually GCSE classes for adults running in the scripture language, but unfortunately I can't attend because I have no one to look after ds at that time so it is one of those things I will be putting off until the family is older. However, I have asked the language teacher for advice about this issue now.

We don't use Hebrew at home (although I use it in my parents' home), so to help ds learn Hebrew at a later date and to help him learn prayers I play a lot of Hebrew songs and sing with him. Similarly a lot of the prayers are sung, so he is learning them as songs. I know it's not quite the same as your sitation because I speak the scripture language, but I speak the 'spoken' language, which is slightly different.