Elizabethan language translator11/23/2023 When we attempt to share our faith with someone, and we don’t attend to the way we use words like “salvation, ” “incarnation, ” or even “Holy Spirit, ” we may end up being about as comprehensible as if we’d started speaking in Elizabethan English. What creates a problem is forgetting that we have to do the work of meaning-making. Helping people to gain that grasp of the meaning is an essential part of discipleship and evangelization. But to benefit from it, people need a full, meaningful grasp of the words. This precision of language and this specificity of meaning is both essential and valuable for the Christian: the Creed helps keep us firm in the truth and prevents us from drifting off into error. The precise language of the Creed is very important, because it conveys an astounding amount of information in a relatively short space. Even the phrases that sound more conversational are difficult: “true God from true God.” Begotten? Consubstantial? Incarnate? Those are technical words. ![]() Now consider how the language of the Nicene Creed-and indeed of many of our explanations of Christian doctrine-uses language that is unfamiliar to most modern people. What do you do if you don’t happen to be in a college class with a professor who 1) is making you read it, and 2) can help you understand it? Well, you probably don’t read the plays, because there are lots of other things that are also worth reading, and that you can understand when you read them. The plays are tremendously rewarding when we get into them: the characters, Shakespeare’s insight into human nature, the imagery-it’s all rich and engaging! But it’s a richness that is hard to enter into. In short, Shakespeare’s language is difficult for modern readers. We’re also not used to reading verse, so the line-breaks are distracting to most readers who are (naturally) accustomed to prose. To insult someone, we might make an obscene gesture, but not yank on a man’s beard, and we don’t swear by God’s wounds (‘swounds). Even so, the cultural context means that some of the words and phrases are difficult to understand. To be sure, a reader with a very good vocabulary will recognize the unfamiliar “pate ” (skull, head), and “kite ” (in this context, a bird of prey, not a child’s toy). With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!ĭespite the absence of any confusing thees and thous, this passage is bound to be difficult for modern readers. I should have fatted all the region kites ‘Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,Īs deep as to the lungs? who does me this? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? Consider this bit from Hamlet, in which Hamlet is chastising himself for his lack of courage in speaking up about the murder of his father:īegotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father Īnd by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, We also don’t use many of the vocabulary words and phrases that were common in Shakespeare’s day. ![]() Outside of Renaissance Faires, we don’t talk to each other like that. Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell, Of whence I am, nor that I am more better Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, whoĪrt ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing Here is Prospero speaking to his daughter in The Tempest: Fortunately, I’ve been teaching Shakespeare in my classes for many years now, so that every year I have a fresh reminder that the language is rather opaque. well, the language is pretty weird, isn’t it? As an English professor, it’s easy to forget just how strange Shakespeare’s language is to people who (very understandably) are familiar only with modern prose. One of the most noticeable things about reading (or seeing) a Shakespeare play is that. Good-you are the perfect audience for the rest of this piece. ![]() At the end of a tiring, busy day, have you ever thought, “Ah, yes, I need to unwind.
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