Quote

I joined a organisation called Wycliffe Bible Translators that had the objective of translating the Bible into all the languages of the world, and to do that you had to study linguistics, and so that was my initial exposure to linguistics.

For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.

Notwithstanding my present incompetency, I am beginning to translate the New Testament, being extremely anxious to get some parts of Scripture, at least, into an intelligible shape, if for no other purpose than to read, as occasion offers, to the Burmans I meet with.

I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible.

Our purpose is simply to ask how theological principles can be shown to have usable secular analogues that throw light upon the nature of language.

I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember.

My most interesting correspondence is with my translators. I marvel at their sensitivity over certain passages that just anyone, even if he knows German well, would not appreciate.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

Expressing myself through language was always something that I had had to learn to do more so than others.

Second, we also got a more authentic liturgy of the people of God, in the vernacular language.