Shakespeare and KJV - What Other Languages Have Had Such Dominant Influences

[Joe D.]

The English language can trace a huge number of its idioms back to two sources, the King James Bible and William Shakespeare. That is incredible when you seriously contemplate. Or is it? Are any other languages so heavily influenced in their idioms by one or two sources? Perhaps that is common. I don't really know. But I find it fascinating and would like to know. The best answers will probably come from native speakers of other languages, as they are so intimate both with the language and the culture from which it springs. Can some you native speakers of other languages enlighten me on this?

[MyDigitalpoint]

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote's author) is probably the most dominant influence in the Spanish Language.

In fact Cervantes was Shakespeare's contemporary and his works are the foundation stone of the Spanish literature.

[DiesIrae]

I guess, Jose Rizal for Filipinos. First, he's our national hero and he's well-known as one of our smartest historical figures. If he was maybe in another country, his smarts might not be enough for him to get sooo well-known but during the old times, we were under Spanish rule, which makes having a good education and really using it something that can be very difficult to achieve. Anyway, he wrote books that I think were in Spanish first, but the government made it a required reading for people when we got freedom so we had translations. I guess he's one of the main reasons why fiction that serves as commentary to our cultures, and idioms for that specific use has influenced many of our writers to do the same.