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Languages of Crown: French, and the beginnings of English

Languages of scholarship:Latin, Greek, French and “Ink-Horn English”

In Thomas More’s work, Anthony “espied & percevid & sene.”

Language of the Church

• Latin. Only. Ever.

(don’t worry, he’ll happily ring the bell at the important bits for you).

Koiné Greek

Accuracy and Clarity

• Consistent spelling• Using established Anglo-Saxon (that means

“English”) words.• Providing a glossary and notes in the margins

for the tricky words.• Translating from the original Greek in context

and with a full grasp of its connotations and denotations.

Too far?The serpent to a reluctant Eve:

“Tush, ye will not die!”

SYNTAX

“They say it cannot be translated into our tongue it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin”

Word Order

• Before:

“The Kingdom is Thine”

After:

“Thine is the Kingdom”

The Substantive Adjective

“Noun-ing” a descriptive word.

Stolen from the Koiné.

We use this all the time now; listen to the Beatitudes before and after Tyndale translated them.

Subaudition

Implementation of Greek rhetorical device that used implied continuation in a parallel structure.

Sorry. Here you go:

Matthew 17:15 in Wycliffe:for he is lunatic, and suffereth evil, for ofte tymes he falleth in to the fire, and ofte tymes he falleth in to water

In Tynsdale:for he is frantic and sore vext and oft tymes falleth into the fyre and oft into the water.

Again?1 Corinthians 13:4

Love doth not forwardly, swelleth not, dealeth not dishonestly, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thynketh not evyll, rejoyseth not in iniquity: but rejoyeth in the trueth, beleveth all thynges, hopeth all thynges, endureth in all thynges.

(He only wrote “love” once, but we still know what he’s talking about 11 verbs later).

TROUBLE

In the end, Tyndale was captured, strangled, and burned at the stake for heresy. His condemnation was based on his translation of seven words that “undermined” the Church’s authority, but have since been accepted as accurate.

Legacy:

• 80-90% of the King James Bible comes from him.

• Hundreds of words and phrases that he gave us still exist.

• “Plain English” was established as both dignified and credible.

• A plethora of grammatical, syntactical and rhetorical conventions and styles can be directly attributed to his original work.