Rules of language — speech — words in the Psalter, Proverbs of Solomon and The Holy Gospel

Spiritual texts implicitly contain rules and recommendations for the construction of speech communication. These rules are derived from direct references to the language-speech-word, or indicate speech actions or language actions. The texts of the Psalter, the book of Proverbs of Solomon, and the Holy Gospel are selected for this article. The author identified direct or hidden references to the terms language-speech-word-mouth that express judgments about the content or evaluation of these words in the life of a person. All these terms are used in the sense of “an instrument of communication, an instrument of organizing human contacts.” And they all receive a fundamentally dual moral and ethical assessment: language-speech-word can either “praise God” and be “words of good,” carry “joy in the response of the mouth,” or become an instrument of evil (“slander”), deception (“flattery”), suffering and destruction (“flood verbs”). Compared with oral pre-literate speech in folklore at a new stage of civilization development, these terms have acquired new meanings in written and printed literature: the term language obtains the meaning of “people” (in the Psalter), the term word becomes of overriding importance for European culture as the Word of God (the Holy Gospel), and the term mouth is metaphorically used most frequently in the Proverbs of Solomon. The revealed position in regard to the primacy of moral and ethical requirements for the speaker in the preparation of speech, when “pure heart” is mentioned first (“create a pure heart in me, oh God”), about righteousness and wisdom (in “Parables”), about the qualities of a person (see the Beatitudes), and only then it is about actions “of the tongue and mouth.” The duality of assessments of language-speech-word also speaks of the dual nature of man, who either “praises God with his mouth” or receives “judgment” for idle and false words. The analysis of judgments about language-speech-word-mouth in spiritual texts allows us to form recommendations and instructions for language acts and actions of a modern person who must preserve moral and cultural traditions and creatively apply the newly revealed rules in their own speech acts.