Language analysis goes multicultural

Gessner named his book Mithridates (shelfmark: MUE Klein l 72 : 1) after the King of Pontus, who allegedly spoke 22 languages. This work is currently of interest to linguists on account of its comparative approach. Gessner compared dozens of languages and dialects, e.g. Swiss German and Swabian. He contrasted the languages by means of the Lord's Prayer. Their "quality" is determined by how much they deviate from the three languages of education: Latin, Greek and Hebrew, of which he himself had a command.