“Of particular relevance in that page, however, is the statement, “Also known as abécédaires, ABCs (and similar variations), alphabet books have introduced children to their native language since at least the 16th century.” Prior to the 16th century, such grammar and spelling books did not exist BECAUSE THERE WAS NO GRAMMAR STANDARDIZATION TO TEACH PRIOR TO THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE.”
You’re being foolish and are basically trying to wrest a website, talking about 16th-18th century ABC books, to cover your embarrassing comments. The Wycliffe Bible would therefore date to the end of the 14th century. Tyndale died in 1535. What you’re trying to do is deny that anyone taught English as a written language, that way you can claim that nobody bothered to teach it, and therefore to justify the keeping of the Bible from being written in the vernacular. Since, in your silly world, only Latin was taught to be read, since it would be too crazy, in your Catholic world, to expect English to have a written language. While, prior to the reformation, literacy, as in that other link, was estimated at a mere 1 percent, and certainly there was a wide array of different spellings, John Calvin himself having many different spellings for his name even in French, with the coming of the reformation came attendant literacy, as they said, edging into 50 percent by the time of Elizabeth. It is a fact that in England during these times, there was, in fact, an English written language, that was taught, as you would hope would not be the case, as these ABCs from the 16th century show plainly show, Mr. “English was taught... as a spoken language” only. LOL
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Oh, read a bloody book. Wycliffe was the very start of the development of English grammar, not the end of a process. You hardly have to have a PhD in medieval languages to know the truth of what I write. Any early modern author is making up his grammar and spellings as he goes. Even Shakespeare, at the end of that era, has various spellings for the same word many, many times over.
As Wikipedia puts it, citing David Daniell and William Noah, “Tyndale took the ill-regarded, unpopular and awkward Middle-English “vulgar” tongue, improved upon it using Greek and Hebrew syntaxes and idioms, and formed an Early Modern English basis that Shakespeare and others would later follow and build upon as Tyndale-inspired vernacular forms took over.”
IN case you’re not grabbing what I mean by the English language not being mature enough to unambiguously create arguments, Wycliffe translated “Fiat Lux” as “Be made light.” (Or actually, “Be maad li[ch]t.”) Even in his day, that would seem to many to say God was commanding something to become light.
Also: How slight was the demand for English bibles, prior to Church of England institutionalizing an English bible? No-one had even bothered printing Wycliffe’s bible, Protestant or Catholic.