Early modern English

 Influence of Past Vocab and Grammar towards Modern English

Early Modern English (Tudor Houses 1485-1603 -> Shakespearean Era)

Changes and pronunciations of consonant sounds became more localized. It needed to be more accessible to trading partners (since England was becoming more influential)

Main power was Spain before? England was considered a backwater country before Elizabethan era, but in its rise to power it required a shift?

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1. English became standardized. Shakespeare works contributed significantly to the standardization of grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. Shakespeare introduced 1,700 original words into the language, many of which we still use (despite significant changes to the language since Shakespeare’s time). These words include: “lonely,” “frugal,” “dwindle,” and many more>many more.

In addition to all these words, many phrases that we use daily originated in Shakespeare’s work. When you talk about “breaking the ice” or having a “heart of gold,” or when you use any number of other phrases, you’re using Shakespeare’s language.

Finally, Shakespeare had a profound impact on poetry and literature that has lasted centuries. He perfected blank verse, which became a standard in poetry. 

1. Pronunciation change and the Great Vowel Shift

• 16th century; English spelling became increasingly different with pronunciation owing mainly to the fact that printing was fixing it in its late Middle English form just when various sound changes were having a far-reaching effect on pronunciation.

• Great Vowel Shift can be illustrated with the three vowel sounds: mite, meet, and mate.

• After the shift: 

• long i became a diphthong

• long e took its place with the value [i:]

• long a became a front vowel; [e:].

2. Spelling: general principles

• At the start of the sixteenth century the main systematic differences in spelling from present-day English were as follows:

Examples:

• u and v were graphic variants of a single letter. The form v was used at the beginning of a word and u in all other positions, irrespective of whether the sound was a vowel or a consonant

                 -  (And we defende the that thou be not so hardy for euer to do vyolence     

                     vnto the holy token of the crosse the whiche we put in his forhede.)

3. Spelling: particular words

• Variation in the spelling of particular words is due to 2 main factors.

• During the early modern period numerous words were respelt according to their true or (occasionally) false Latin etymologies; this tendency began in late Middle English but gathered strength in our period. 

• In some of these words the pronunciation has been adjusted to conform to the spelling, while others have not (hence the existence of ‘silent’ consonants)

Examples:

• Anchor (middle english: anker)

• Author (middle english: autour)

• Doubt (middle english: doute)

• Fault (middle english: faute)

• Nephew (middle english: nephew)

2. The stabilization of spelling

• By the mid-17th century printers followed general principles of spelling much like present English. -Modern distinctions between I and J and U and V were established by about 1630. 

• The spelling of nearly all individual words was also identical with present-day forms in printed books. 

• In ordinary handwritten documents, however, even those of well-educated people, spelling continued to vary noticeably until well into the eighteenth century.

The gerund (which has the capability of governing an object or complement) came in this period to be used alongside the verbal noun, giving rise to various mixed uses which are difficult to classify: ‘as in reciting of playes, reading of verses, &c, for the varying the tone of the voice’ (John Evelyn, 1665).

Adverbs without the ending –ly were much commoner in this period.

Examples include:

‘No man spake clear, equal, or without artifice’ (Paul Rycaut, 1681)

‘This proclamacion..was..fair writen in parchment’ (Thomas More, a1535)

The compound adverbs of the form here, there, and where + preposition were in widespread use as equivalents of preposition + this, that (or it), and what, e.g. ‘To make there through a nauigable passage’ (Thomas Blundeville, 1594).

Compound subordinating conjunctions with that as their second element were common in this period.

Examples include:

‘The propertie thereof is to mount alwaies vpwards, vntill that it hath attained to the place destinated vnto it’ (R. Dolman, 1601).

‘Though that the Queene on speciall cause is here, Hir army is moued on’ (William Shakespeare, King Lear)

Influence through established literature: Grammar, syntax, vocab seen in the standardisation of popular text.

(from Geoffrey Chaucer)

1485 – Caxton publishes Thomas Malory (French Influence)

From 1525 – Publication of William Tyndale's Bible translation (unifying language through religion)

1549 – Publication of the first Book of Common Prayer in English

Built on the centralising on the existing use of localised dialects

SHAKESPEAREAN

standardize English language rules and grammar in the 17th and 18th centuries, invented 1000+ words that remained through popular use

Eyeball, moonbeam (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Puking (As You Like It)

Obscene, new-fangled (Love’s Labour’s Lost)

Cold-blooded , savagery (King John)

Hot blooded, epileptic (King Lear)

Addiction (Othello)

Arch-villain (Timon of Athens)

Assassination , unreal Macbeth

Bedazzled, pedant (The Taming of the Shrew)

Belongings (Measure for Measure)

Dishearten, swagger, dawn (Henry V)

Eventful, marketable (As You Like It)

Fashionable (Troilus and Cressida)

Inaudible (All’s Well That Ends Well)

Ladybird, uncomfortable (Romeo and Juliet)

Manager, mimic (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Pageantry (Pericles)

Scuffle (Antony and Cleopatra)

Bloodstained (Titus Andronicus)

Negotiate (Much Ado About Nothing)

Outbreak (Hamlet)

Jaded, torture (King Henry VI)

Grovel (Henry IV)

Gnarled (Measure for Measure) etc

https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/shakespeare-influence-english/#:~:text=The%20writings%20of%20Shakespeare%20actually,the%2017th%20and%2018th%20centuries.&text=The%20introduction%20of%20new%20words,it%20more%20expressive%20and%20colorful.

https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-pronunciation-and-spelling/

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