Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Unter der Leitung seines Geistes": Spiritual translation in early America -- Reversing the heritage of Babel: Visions of religious and linguistic renewal in seventeenth-century Europe -- Translating Pennsylvania: visions of spiritual community in promotional literature -- Debating Pennsylvania: religious and linguistic diversity and difference -- "Honey-combs" and "paper-hives": Francis Daniel Pastorius and the gathering of a translingual community of letters -- A hidden voice amplified: music, mysticism, and translation -- "What will become of Pennsylvania?": war, community and the language of suffering for peace -- Confusio linguarum redux: Moravian missions, multilingualism, and the search for a spiritual language.

Description based on print version record.

In early Pennsylvania, translation served as a utopian tool creating harmony across linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences. This book challenges the long-standing historical myth - first promulgated by Benjamin Franklin - that language diversity posed a threat to communal coherence. It deftly traces the pansophist and Neoplatonist philosophies of European reformers that informed the radical English and German Protestants who founded the 'holy experiment'.