The Akan-only-at-shrine instruction (English-prohibition at the shrine) operationalizes a deeper claim: languages are not neutral-conveyance-vehicles; they carry cosmological-quality. Akan-language preserves Akan-cosmology at the etymological-level (Mpi = splittings; Samain = moored-ones; Abosom = offspring-of-water; NTR = wave-form-radiance). Speaking the same content in English does not produce equivalent cosmological-effects because English-language vocabulary does not encode the same cosmological-architecture.
The Live Wire: Cross-cultural sacred-ritual-language traditions converge on this principle (Sanskrit for Vedic; Hebrew for Jewish; Arabic for Islamic; Latin for traditional Catholic; Coptic for Coptic-Orthodox; Pali for Theravada Buddhist). Contemporary cognitive-linguistics (Sapir-Whorf research; Boroditsky; Levinson) provides empirical-grounding: different languages structure cognition differently. The convergence of traditional ritual-language insistence + contemporary cognitive-linguistic research suggests that language-as-cosmological-substance is a defensible cross-disciplinary claim.
The implication: The thinning of sacred-ritual-language across many contemporary traditions (English-language masses; vernacular-language Vedic chanting; etc.) may produce measurably-thinned cosmological-effects in ways the traditions originally recognized.
Cross-references: