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In reply to the discussion: Happy Hour with Will Shakespeare. Ask us anything. [View all]Lionel Mandrake
(4,076 posts)36. The move from Latin to the vernacular, especially in print, must have played a role.
The same thing was happening in other countries and probably influenced the history of other modern European languages. Luther, for example, translated the Bible into German. A bit later, Galileo wrote the book that got him into trouble in the vernacular, whereas he had previously written in Latin.
Ironically enough, Henry VIII, who had been called the "defender of the faith", broke with Rome; this led to development of liturgy in English and created a market for English translations of the Bible. But without Gutenberg's invention of printing with movable type, these books in English would not have affected the language as much as they did.
History sure is complicated!
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The move from Latin to the vernacular, especially in print, must have played a role.
Lionel Mandrake
Feb 2014
#36