8 - Creators of English

Summary

William Tyndale

Introduction

William Tyndale (?1494–1536) rightly believed himself to be a pioneer. He wrote of his work, ‘I had no man to counterfeit [imitate], neither was helped with English of any that had interpreted the same or such like thing in the Scripture beforetime.’ The Wyclif Bible had been largely suppressed, so that he was working almost without English precedent to open the Bible anew to the people. He had to invent his own appropriate English. No subsequent English translators, not even his immediate successor, Myles Coverdale, ever again found themselves in this situation. Tyndale's English became the model for biblical English, and he is indeed the father of English biblical translations. From a larger perspective, Sir Thomas More's jibe at the deficiencies of his English vocabulary, that they were such that ‘all England list now to go to school with Tyndale to learn English’ (Confutation, p. 187), has turned out true in more ways than one: more of our English is ultimately learnt from Tyndale than from any other writer of English prose, and many erstwhile illiterates did indeed ‘go to school with Tyndale’ and his successors.

One such illiterate was William Maldon. His story not only shows the connection between Tyndale's work and reading but movingly illustrates the internecine strength of the conflict over the vernacular Bible.