Early Modern English (1500-1650)



  1. Quest for Standardization
    1. Caxton's complaint
    2. From the Early Modern period onward, five forces help define the English language:
      1. Printing Press:
        1. printing press introduced to England in 1476 -- century later mss. books have all but disappeared; over 20,000 titles printed in England by 1640; economics of publishing
        2. printing press allowed exact duplication of book whereas mss had allowed scribes to incorporate regional variation in language.
      2. Rapid spread of popular education
        1. Which comes first? The reader or the book?
        2. By some estimates between 1/3 to 1/2 of the population of Shakespeare's London could read and write
      3. Increased communication & means of communication
        1. Extension of trade enlarged vocabulary
        2. Connections between communities intermingled language and eased some local idiosyncrasies
        3. This dynamic become especially important in the later centuries
      4. Growth of specialized knowledge
        1. New knowledge often requires new vocabulary
        2. Latin declines as the vehicle for learned discourse
      5. New individual and public self-consciousness about language
        1. Individual: as people raise their social, economic, intellectual status, they try to adapt their speech to the group with which they identify
        2. Public: society begins to debate what is correct speech, etc. (meta-linguistics)
    3. These five forces are both radical and conservative
      1. Radical: promotes change in language; conservative: preserves existing language
      2. Radical changes in vocabulary; conservation of grammar
      3. compare to opposite dynamic in ME




  2. Great Vowel Shift
    1. Short vowels don't change significantly
    2. Long vowels all shift upward
    3. Many words "froze" their pre-GVS spellings
  3. Three major challenges for English in the Renaissance
    1. Recognition in fields where Latin was common
    2. More uniform orthography
    3. Enrichment of vocabulary