What happens in minority language areas?

[DL82]

E.g. where there is a mission church in an African village where they speak a language that’s unique to a tiny area, or has never been written down and codified.

Does the priest try to improvise the mass in the vernacular, or use the ‘official’ language of that country (i.e. the language of their former colonial overlords, English/French/Spanish) or revert to Latin?

Just wondering.

Also, what about places where they can’t afford lots of new missals?

I guess if these places keep using the Latin mass, we can be certain that it will never fall into disuse, and will always be available to be brought back at some future date.

 

[CatholicNick]

Missionaries never seemed to have to deal with such issues when they went to foreign lands.

The Mass would be in Latin.

 

[palmas85]

E.g. where there is a mission church in an African village where they speak a language that’s unique to a tiny area, or has never been written down and codified.

Does the priest try to improvise the mass in the vernacular, or use the ‘official’ language of that country (i.e. the language of their former colonial overlords, English/French/Spanish) or revert to Latin?

Just wondering.

Also, what about places where they can’t afford lots of new missals?

I guess if these places keep using the Latin mass, we can be certain that it will never fall into disuse, and will always be available to be brought back at some future date.

They would probably have the Mass in the official language of that country, unless it is in an area where another language pre-dominates. For instance, lets say the Philippines. On the island of Cebu, you might find Masses in any one of three languages, Tagalog, the national language, Cebuano, the local dialect or English which many people speak and which is often used as kind of a lingua franca…