Abstract：Religion is one of the important parts of culture and penetrates into every part of social and cultural lives. It is widespread because it is implicit in the way the mind processes the world, as it determines what people ought to do, practically and morally, to achieve their goals. Broadly speaking, the history of religion is also a history of human culture. Language is the carrier of customs and habits. Actually, Chinese and English are both greatly influenced by religions, especially English. A lot of words in English are derived from the Bible. As the source of western culture, Greek mythology has a great influence on English as well. In China, Buddhism exerts great influences on the Chinese ideology and these influences are reflected in the Chinese language. So by researching the influence of religions on the English language and the Chinese language, one can understand the role of religion in history correctly, which can help people to learn about each other’s language, cultural background, modes of thinking, values, etc, and to avoid some misreading and misunderstanding in intercultural communication. Furthermore, learning the relationship between languages and religions can also help people when they do some translation. It can make the version more expressive, graphic and idiomatic.
Key words: religion; language; Buddhism; Christianity; Taoism
