The linguistic Proposals of Juan de Valdés, their Contribution to Translation and Influence on the Spanish Version of the ‘Bear’s Bible’ (Biblia del Oso)

Juan de Valdés should be included in the list of significant Spanish humanists, in that his development both at a personal level and as a man of letters are clearly marked by Humanism, cultivating all the values pertinent to this movement. Language and literature were always permanent features in the humanistic culture of Valdés, especially in his contribution to the development of the Spanish language through his main work Dialogue of Language in which he formulates important Linguistic Proposals. The knowledge of language shown by Valdés in this work and the academic training received in Latin, Greek and Hebrew at Alcalá University show him fit to carry out translation tasks by which he continued the humanist tradition in this field and joined the list of humanist reformers who also undertook this difficult role. Specifically, his work in the field of translation and his Linguistic Proposals influenced the first complete version of the Bible in Spanish (1569) of Casiodoro de la Reina, known as the Bear’s Bible (Biblia del Oso), because of the printer’s seal. This was a milestone, not only because it was the first complete version of the Bible in Castilian, but also because it established linguistic and hermeneutic canons that passed into the humanistic translation tradition and were also supported by the majority of reformers of the sixteenth century exile, The Casiodoro de la Reina translation of the Biblewas particularly influenced by the work and translations of Juan de Valdés.