![]() ![]() Latin continued to influence letter values (such as I = J, U = V and W = VV). Two examples are the change of Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum (Latin: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord with you) into Virgo serena, pia, munda et immaculata (Latin: Serene virgin, pious, clean and spotless), and the anagrammatic answer to Pilate's question, Quid est veritas? (Latin: What is truth?), namely, Est vir qui adest (Latin: It is the man who is here). There were attempts to regulate anagram formation, an important one in English being that of George Puttenham's Of the Anagram or Posy Transposed in The Art of English Poesie (1589).Īs a literary game when Latin was the common property of the literate, Latin anagrams were prominent. In particular, spelling in English only slowly became fixed. Īny historical material on anagrams must always be interpreted in terms of the assumptions and spellings that were current for the language in question. They became hugely popular in the early modern period, especially in Germany. Est vir qui adest, explained below, was cited as the example in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language. Īnagrams in Latin were considered witty over many centuries. ![]() Later, Kabbalists took this up with enthusiasm, calling anagrams temurah. In the Talmudic and Midrashic literature, anagrams were used to interpret the Hebrew Bible, notably by Eleazar of Modi'im. They are said to date back at least to the Greek poet Lycophron, in the third century BCE but this relies on an account of Lycophron given by John Tzetzes in the 12th century. They were popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, for example with the poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut. ![]() History Īnagrams can be traced back to the time of the ancient Greeks, and were used to find the hidden and mystical meaning in names. "Anagrams" itself can be anagrammatized as "Ars magna" (Latin, 'the great art'). They can change part of speech, such as the adjective "silent" to the verb "listen".
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