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Luther wrote later: “I wanted to speak German, not Latin or Greek, since it
was German I had undertaken to speak in the translation. We do not have to
inquire of the literal Latin, how we are to speak German as these asses do.
Rather we must inquire about this of the mother in the home, the children on
the street, the common man in the market-place. We must be guided by their
language, the way they speak, and do our translating accordingly.” 6
This was not a word for word translation. He felt free to depart from
the original at times in order to get a sense of a passage to its readers, and to
ensure it was expressed in a language which ordinary Germans would use. Un-
like the King James Version of a much later age, this was no attempt to speak
in exact literary terminology, but an attempt to make the prophets sound like
German artisans, and the apostles like Saxon peasants. He argues that the key
requirement in a translator is not so much knowledge of the original donor
languages but a good profound knowledge of the receptor language – the lan-
guage used by those who are the intended readers of a text.
As a result, this was a translation that profoundly shaped modern Ger-
man, drawing a number of distinct dialects into one common language. Luther
was a master at popular language and communication, and with the ability to
express the gospel in terms that could be understood precisely by those who
had felt left out of some of the social developments of recent years. The Re-
formation was at times an unashamedly populist movement, not particularly
worried about appealing to the highbrow or the educated elites. Again it did
not always manage to communicate with such simplicity, but in its radical shift
to the vernacular language, the Reformation was a movement that moved
Europe in a more dispersed and democratised direction, opening the treasures
of the Bible to a much wider group of people, and taking the risk of allowing
them to read it for themselves.

4. The Rise of Islam
Constantinople had fallen to the Turks in 1453, and in the following decades,
Muslim armies had consolidated their power and presence up to the river
Danube. 1520 saw the capture of Belgrade, and in 1526, the Ottomans won the
decisive battle of Mohacs in Hungary. The victory of the forces of Suleiman the
Magnificent over the armies of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia (who died in
the battle) not only put an end to the Hungarian nation as a united entity, but

6 LW 35.189

$15