William Tyndale and the English Language

...beautifully clear and succinct exploration of Tyndale's language. The Oldie, Christopher Howse, April 2026 As his title states, [Crystal] is presenting Tyndale as a uniquely rich source for the vocabulary and idioms of the language as a whole - a very ambitious task, but one that he carries through with great aplomb. The Observer, Rowan Williams, June 2026 This book is a pioneering exploration of Tyndale's enormous impact on the development of the English language...a fascinating exploration of the work of the father of the English Bible. Off The Shelf, Richard Lofthouse, March 2026 ‘Dearly beloved’, ‘say the word’, ‘the powers that be’, ‘for ever and ever’ – these familiar phrases and many more were set down in print for the first time by William Tyndale. For his groundbreaking English translation of the Bible, he deliberately chose to write in a way that could be understood by the widest possible audience. In the first half of this pioneering exploration of the extraordinary impact Tyndale’s writing had on the development of the English language, David Crystal provides an analysis of his prose style, demonstrating its character as a novel genre of ‘written speech’, and bringing to light the remarkable number of cases where Tyndale is the first recorded user of a word or phrase in English. He also draws attention to the hitherto unrecognised role of Tyndale as an early lexicographer. The second half of the book is a linguistic detective story, devising an innovative lexical and grammatical metric to investigate the often-stated claim that eighty per cent of later biblical translations display Tyndale’s influence. The result is a fascinating exploration of the work of the Father of the English Bible.

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