William Tyndale and the English Language
$38.75
- Hardcover
248 pages
- Release Date
11 March 2026
Summary
This book is a pioneering exploration of Tyndale’s enormous impact on the development of the English language.
‘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 …
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781851246656 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1851246657 |
| Author: | David Crystal |
| Publisher: | Bodleian Library |
| Imprint: | Bodleian Library |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 248 |
| Release Date: | 11 March 2026 |
| Weight: | 776g |
| Dimensions: | 103mm x 242mm x 209mm |
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Critics Review
…beautifully clear and succinct exploration of Tyndale’s language.
– Christopher Howse…if you are interested in the history of the English language, there is a great deal here to delight in.
– Mathew Lyons * Books to look out for in March *This isn’t the first time that the great David Crystal has written about Tyndale… But this is the first time he has dedicated a whole book to Tyndale and his immense contribution to our language…I should say right here that this is in no way, shape or form a biography. But what it does offer is fascinating and sometimes thrilling piece…of linguistic detective work.
– Mathew Lyons * Books to look out for in March *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.
– Richard Lofthouse * Off The Shelf *[This] new book by the esteemed linguist David Crystal homes in on Tyndale’s lexical legacy, taking stock of the great author and translator’s methods, borrowings, and coinages, as well as quantifying the impact his Bible had on the King James and later translations. Here is a brick-by-brick examination of a towering edifice.
– by the Editors * The Critics Notebook *Crystal manages to be laugh-out-loud funny as well as astonishingly learned and perceptive. He has a reliable eye for what will attract the reader.
– Cally Hammond * Bottomless pit for ink-horn words *In this book, in a typically intricate detective exercise, Crystal confirms previous claims that almost eighty percent of the King James Bible is influenced by Tyndale’s translation.
– Nick Mattiske * Before Shakespeare, There Was Tyndale *As his title states, [Crystal] is presenting Tyndale as a uniquely rich source for the vocabularly and idioms of the language as a whole - a very ambitious task, but one that he carries through with great aplomb.
– Rowan Williams * The man who rewrote the Bible *This is a clear, scholarly, rigorous, surprising, and genuinely enjoyable book, and a great example of how the genre that academic publishers call ‘trade-cross’ (i.e., books with real academic depth that are nonetheless written to appeal to a general reader) ought to be written.
– Gareth Prior…a fascinating book.
– Susie Dent * Artworks, August 2026 *David Crystal
David Crystal is a writer, editor, lecturer and broadcaster on language, and honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor University. His many books include The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (CUP 3rd edn, 2019), A Date with Language (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2023) and Bookish Words (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2025).
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