I discovered the following from the Twitter feed of A Way with Words, the weekly public radio program. Turns out it came from Jared Diamond’s 1991 book The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee, so I’m a little late to the party.
Anyway, it’s a look at how English has changed over the last 1,000 years, using the first two verses from the 23rd Psalm as a reference.
Old English (800–1066)
Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan.
And he me geset on swythe good feohland.
And fedde me be waetera stathum.
Middle English (1100–1500)
Our Lord gouerneth me, and nothyng shal defailen to me.
In the sted of pastur he sett me ther.
He norissed me upon water of fyllyng.
King James Bible (1611)
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
Modern (1989)
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He lets me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me to still waters.
Now, the “modern” version Diamond uses—whatever it is—is pretty soulless as far as Bible translations go. I prefer the English Standard Version, published in 2001, which uses the 1971 Revised Standard Version as a textual basis. The ESV renders the same passage thus:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
Not so different from the King James, is it? Pretty remarkable, considering that nearly 400 years had passed between the two versions.
I fear, however, that within my lifetime it’ll be nothing but emojis.
