doi: 10.18178/IJLLL.2026.12.1.626
La Loubère’s Translation of the Lord’s Prayer into Thai
Philipp Brandenburg
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, D-10117 Berlin, Germany
- Manuscript received August 25, 2025
- accepted December 24, 2025
- published February 27, 2026
Abstract
One of the earliest documented translations of any biblical passage into the Thai language is the Lord’s Prayer in La Loubère’s report of his diplomatic mission to the kingdom of Siam from 1691. When Komonbut translated La Loubère’s book into Thai in 1967, he also restored the original Thai text of the prayer from La Loubère’s rudimentary transcription. His failure to provide any commentary on his restoration, however, largely conceals his achievement. This paper will evaluate Komonbut’s success in establishing the Thai wording and thereby provide some commentary on both La Loubère’s transcription and the difficulties of restoring a Thai text from it. At the same time some suggestions for minor improvements of the transmitted text will be made.
Keywords
- Thai language
- Bible translation
- Early modern era
- Christian missions to Southeast Asia
How to Cite
Philipp Brandenburg, "La Loubère’s Translation of the Lord’s Prayer into Thai," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 28-32, 2026. https://doi.org/10.18178/IJLLL.2026.12.1.626
Copyright & License
Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).