“Then sayde Nathan vnto Dauid: Thou art euen the man.“
That’s from the Coverdale Bible, printed in 1535, the first Modern English translation of both testaments of the Bible. As you can see, it’s not just Modern English but surprisingly Modern English. At least, aside from the spelling convention that u and v were both written as v word-initially and u word-internally. And the use of thou art. Also, even doesn’t get used like that anymore (I believe it is supposed to mean “precisely” in this context). Okay, so there’s a lot of differences. But just try and tell me you’re not picturing Sean Connery right now, straight out of Finding Forrester, bellowing “THOU ART EVEN THE MAN NOW DOG“. What, that scene’s not commandeering your mind right now? How I envy you, then.
Anyway, I guess the big point here is that language often comes full circle; what is now known as slang was once used in the Bible, blah blah blah. I’m sorry, I still have Sean Connery stuck on a loop in my head.
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July 23, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Jonathon
What a coincidence. Today at work I was trying to check a quote from the Coverdale Bible, but I couldn’t find the source. I came across that site, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have the preface, which is what I needed.
I did come across the copyright statement, though, which was puzzling: “The text of the Myles Coverdale Bible (1535) was developed into electronic form through the work of dozens of laborers in the Ukraine.” Laborers? What, are they in a factory?
July 24, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Gabe
Now that’s an absurd coincidence! And yeah, you didn’t know that the Internet is actually completely manufactured in a single factory in Ukraine?