WILLIAM TYNDALE AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (HB)

For his ground breaking English translation of the Bible, William Tyndale he deliberately chose to write in a way that could be understood by the widest possible audience. David Crystal provides an analysis of Tyndale’s 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, investigating the often-stated claim that eighty percent of later biblical translations display Tyndale’s influence.