If he has now and then the Northern theire (illorum), he
employs thilke (iste), and has both ilk and same; whiche,
eche, suche, and myche, all occur in his writings. He still
uses the old sum man for quidam, but this was soon to drop,
and to be replaced by a certain man. He has one peculiarity
that may be still found in Yorkshire; the Old English
butan (nisi) is not enough for him, but he turns it into
no but. In Mark xvi. 5, he has a ʓong oon, instead of the
old Accusative ânne geongne; the oon (one) seems to
stand for wight; the phrase is common enough with us.
He corrupts Orrmin's þu wass into thou wast (Mark
xiv. 67); the old form was kept by Roy 150 years
later. He also corrupts a Strong Perfect now and then,
as, ‘thou betokist’ (Mat. xxv. 20). He speaks of ‘thi
almes,’ not ‘thine alms’ (Mat. vi. 4). We see our well-known
yea, yea; nay, nay (the Gothic ya and ne).
Wickliffe has both the old windewe and the new winewe,
our winnow. He has shipbreche, which had not yet
become shipwreck, a strange corruption. We find also
debreke (Mark i. 26), one of the first instances of a
French preposition being prefixed to an English root;
renew and dislike were to come long afterwards. A remnant
of the older speech lingers in his nyle ye drede
(fear not); we still say willy, nilly. Hys efen-þeowas
was in 1380 turned into his even servauntis; but this
most useful prefix, answering to the Latin con, was soon
to drop. To express forsitan, he uses by hap and happily
(our haply). The Old English reafung is with him raveyn
(our ravening).
The great English Reformer clave far too closely to the idioms of the Latin Vulgate, whence he was trans-
