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TOPIC TWO LINGUISTIC ACTIVITY DURING THE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN PERIOD The spread of Christianity has as one of its secular benefits a vast widening of linguistic horizon. In accordance with Christ’s commission to the Apostles to go into the entire world and preach the Gospel to every creature, missionaries ventured far beyond the boundaries of the Greco-Roman World. Translating the Bible into the vernaculars became a principal task for Christian scholars, with the results we can date many of the great Bible translations from these centuries: the Armenian (5th century) the Gothic (4th century), the Old Church Slavonic (9th century). From these centuries, too, are dated many of the collections or paraphrasing into some vernaculars of Latin words and expressions intended to help, presumably a priest, in his preaching and catechizing. Indeed glossaries such as these occasionally constitute some of our oldest records of certain languages, for...

LINGUISTIC ACTIVITY DURING THE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN PERIOD Things to note about this period: 1. The Bible and gospel materials were translated in vernaculars for the ease of teaching the gospel in local languages instead of the classical languages. Some of these translations are: the Armenian (5th century) the Gothic (4th century), the Old Church Slavonic (9th century). These translations occasionally constitute some of our oldest records of certain languages, for example, German language. 2. A practical knowledge of diverse linguistic types gradually became available to medieval scholars and the information was made accessible by the introduction of printing with movable type and almost overnight, there appeared a spate of grammars and dictionaries most of them dealing with the vernaculars rather than the classical languages. Some of these descriptions are extremely valuable. For example, a Gothic word list compiled in the years of 1560-62. 3. From this era are also dated the ...