What Christians Believe: The Story of God and People in Minimal English

by Anna Wierzbicka

Many people today, both Christians and non-Christians, are confused about or unaware of the essentials of Christian faith. In this book, Anna Wierzbicka takes a radically new approach to the task of communicating "what Christians believe" to the widest possible audience. The Story of God and People, the heart of the book, sets out the core tenets of Christian faith in narrative form using simple language that is accessible to anyone, even those with no familiarity with Christianity or Christian vocabulary. The Story is not only simple but also universal: though written in English, it is not phrased in full English -- English as we know it today, shaped by history, culture, and tradition -- but in "Minimal English". Minimal English contains only those 400 or so English words that can be translated into any other language; essentially, it corresponds to the shared core of all languages.

In the introduction to the book, Wierzbicka explains Minimal English and minimal languages in general, and in The Story of God and People that follows, she demonstrates the effectiveness of Minimal English as a tool for global understanding. At the same time, the use of Minimal English allows her not only to retell the Christian story in a strikingly new way, but also to rethink its meaning, bringing into relief its internal cohesion, logic and beauty.

Genres: Theology, Linguistics

342 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 28, 2019

About the author

Anna Wierzbicka is Professor of Linguistics at Australian National University. Her many books include Semantics: Primes and Universals (OUP 1996), Emotions across Languages and Cultures (CUP 1999), and Experience, Evidence & Sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English (OUP 2010). Professors Goddard and Wierzbicka are co-editors of two collective volumes: Semantic and Lexical Universals and Meaning and Universal Grammar (John Benjamins, 1994 and 2002).

Reviews

[Ash F · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend who recommended this beautifully described it as “like hearing the Gospel for the first time”. The extreme simplicity of “Minimal English” is initially somewhat challenging, but once you spend time with it, is incredibly edifying. It’s obvious that a task like this is as much a theological undertaking as a linguistic one, and fortunately Wierzbicka draws from a small but solid collection of theological references across different Christian denominational traditions to defend her choices. A very rewarding read with much to offer everyone from divinity postgrads to my pre-school children.