The forgotten masterpiece that helped shape the modern English languageAn homage to the Book of Common PrayerAs our new Education Secretary rethinks how we learn about language, Eliot Wilson on one of the most forgotten and seminal English textsFive hundred years ago this year, the first copies of an English translation of the New Testament appeared in London. While Shakespeare was writing his later plays—King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest—the second treasure-house of modern English was in production. The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges said in a 1977 interview:“I find English a far finer language than Spanish… English is both a Germanic and a Latin language. Within less than 75 years, this country laid the foundations of the modern English language, the world’s lingua franca. Former Cabinet minister Lord Gove has often spoken enthusiastically about not only the ethics but the linguistic beauty of the Prayer Book.