English makes a distinction between second person singular and

plural. However, Chaucer already uses a system in which the

plural forms ye, yow and youre can be used to a single addressee
[4
~"'~,.,'
mm:mJ Early Modern English: Standardisation
in order to express politeness and respect (see chapter 8 for a brief
account of the history address terms).
Intra" The Early Modern English period is usually dated from 1500 to
Verbs As in Modern English there is a distinction between strong and duction 1700. The English language looks already very familiar now, but
weak verbs. the familiarity is often deceptive. Many words that look like mod-
ern words have a different meaning in Early Modern English. One
infinitive preterite past participle of the most prominent differences between Middle English and
Strong knowe(n) knew knowe(n) Early Modern English is the pronunciation. Early in the fifteenth
breke(n) brak broke(n) century people started to pronounce certain long vowels differ-
ently. Over a period of two centuries eventually all long vowels
Weak dounce(n) dounced daunced were affected. This set of changes in the pronunciation of English
is called the Great Vowel Shift. The beginning of the Early Mod-
Past participles are sometimes preceded by y- / i- (a reduced form
ern English period is marked by the gradual change from hand-
of the Old English prefix ge-, found chiefly in the dialects of the
written manuscripts to print. The introduction of printing in
south and west in Middle English), e.g. ycleped and ycome(n). The
England in 1476 was one of the important factors in the stan-
infinitive often ends in -en or -n, but may also occur without an
dardisation process olthe English language. The end is less clearly
ending. The third person of the verb normally ends in -eth in the
marked by any external historical event. In 1700 Modern Stan-
singular and -en in the plural. Verbs ending in -d or -t sometimes
dard English was well established and the English language had
show simplification, e.g. For euery wight which that to Rome wente
started its expansion across the world.
instead of wendeth. Such present tense forms may look like
preterites and cause some problems to the unwary. Other verbs
showing such variation are rit instead of rideth; sit instead of sit-
teth; writ instead of writeth; and bit instead of biddeth. Subjunctives
o Sociohistorical context
report hypothetical facts, Wished-for circumstances or possibilities;
they express the speaker's attitude. They end in -e instead of -est "Caxton,s· ofOnetheofEnglish
the more important factors in the standardisation process
language, which had begun in the early fifteenth
or -eth (singuiar only), for example: And thogh that he weere wor- 'printing
press centuryl was the introduction of the printing press in England in
thy, he was wys. The subjunctive is regularly used in clauses begin-
1476 by William Caxton. Caxton was born around 1420 in Kent.
ning with if, though and lest and after the verb hopen.
He was a textile dealer and spent some thirty years of his life on
the Continent, mostly'in Bruges.ln 1471, he travelled to Cologne,
where he stayed for eighteen months and learnt the art of print-
Further reading ing. Back in Bruges he set up his own printing press and there pro-
.duced the first book printed in English, his own 700-page trans-
The most accessible recent introduction to Middle English is the book by Burrow
lation of The Recuyell (I.e. 'compilation') of the Historyes of Troy.
and Turville-Petre (1992). Masse (1969) is still one of the standard introductions.
Returning to Englandl he set up a printing press in Westminster,
Markus (1990) is a German introduction to Middle English. Blake (1992) is the
where he was near the court. There he produced over one hundred
second volume of the Cambridge History of the English Language and indispens-
items. Several of them were different editions of the same work.
able for any serious scholarly approach to Middle English. Among the many
Many of his publications were books that he himself had trans-
introductions to the language of Chaucer, which is certainly the best documented
lated into English. He published two editions of Geoffrey Chaucer's
variety of Middle English, I would like to single out the folloWing: Burnley (1983)
Canterbury Tales, his translation of Boethius, the works by John
and Fries (1985) both give an introduction to Chaucer's language. Pearsall (1992),
Gower and John Lydgate, books of indulgences, statutes, phrase
presents a very readable biography of Chaucer. And Cooper (1996) provides a
books l devotional pieces, and a Latin grammar.
detailed and comprehensive guide to Chaucer's Canterbwy Tales. For general his-
: I tories of the language see the further reading section of chapter 1.

I
i' ;;,
I. "
40 Wib.WUt Middle English: The influence of French

_______1 _ o Soclohlstorixal context 41

r
Early The introduction of printing can without exaggeration be consid-
printing ered as Q watershed in the dissemination of the written English
language. Before the introduction of printing} every book was in
a sense unique. Even if it was a copy of another book, it was likely
to differ from the original In many ways. Scribes would often
change the dialect ofthe original into their own dialect when they
copied books. It was easy to add or to leave out passages, either
accidentally or on purpose. With the advent of printing, books
could be produced more efficiently and more people got access to
written texts. They could be produced in a great number of iden-
tical copies. This gave texts a new kind of fixity. It is only at the
end of the twentieth centUly that texts are about to loose their
fixity again. When texts are produced electronically rather than
printed, they are no longer fixed. They can be modified and
changed by whoever gets the text on his or her screen (see chap-
ter 6).
Standardi- As a printer and translator, Caxton, who was Q merchant and not
,sation a linguist, faced several major problems, which he often described
in the prologues and epilogues of his publications. As he was pro-
ducing multiple identical copies, he had to decide on whether he
should print a book in its original variety of English, or whether
he should change it into a variety that was understood as far as
possible by all his potential customers. He also had to decide on
whether he should use foreign words in his translations or whether
he should adapt some native English word for new purposes. Cax-
ton himself did not come up with a consistent system that he used
in all his publications, but the technique of printing helped the
standardisation process in that such questions had to be settled
I, by mutual convention.
The period between 1500 and 1650 was later to be called the
iIil Renaissance. It was characterised by a new interest in the classi-
Ii' cal languages and literatures. There was a flood of new publica-
II' tions in English including scientific treatises which were now more
regularly written in English. There was an increased demand for
II
translations, and where English words did not exist for particular
concepts, foreign words were borrowed freely, in particular from
Latin but also from Greek, Italian, French, Spanish and Portu-
guese, Later in the Renaissance, during the time of the European
explorations of Africa and the Americas, words were borrowed
from many other languages as well. But first it was the Reforma-
,
, ,\ tion which was to influence the further development of the En-
I glish language.
Reformation Henry Vlll (1509-1547) had married Catherine ofAragon, daugh-
ter of the King of Spain and widow of his older brother Arthur.
I a translation of Petrus Ramus's Dialecticae Partitiones, published
I case in point. The translator states the following:
I
42 ril'QiiUil 4~ Early Modern English: Standardisation
L D Sociohistorical context
When it became clear that there would not be a male heir to the
throne from this marriage, Henry tried to get permission from the
Pope to annul the marriage in order to marry Anne Boleyn. As the
Pope, because of his connections to Spain, refused, HenlY severed
relations with Rome, and in 1534, the English Parliament declared
the king to be 'Supreme Head of the Church ofEngland'. The Pope
promptly excommunicated Henry, but Henry as head of both
Church and the state ordered the monasteries to be closed and
their enormous wealth to be transferred to the king. In contrast to
the Reformation in GermanYI the English Reformation was not
predominantly motivated by a desire to change Catholic doctrine
but by political considerations. Henry wanted to escape from
papal interference.
Bible The introduction of English into the Church led to the need of new
translations Bible translations. Seven major translations appeared in the six-
teenth century alone. William Tyndale's translation of the New
Testament was printed in 1525 in Cologne. It was the basis for
most subsequent versions. Tyndale was a strong proponent of the
view that people should be able to read the Bible in their own lan-
guage. The Great Bible of 1539 was the first official Bible transla-
tion. A copy of this Bible was placed in every parish church in the
country.
,The At the beginning of the Early Modem English period, English had
'language asserted itself as the official language in the Chancery, the office
:of sdenee of the royal scribes. It was used in most official and formal situa-
tions, but it did not yet have enough prestige to be used in all fields
of knowledge. Latin remained the language of the grammar
schools, the universities and scholarship. Latin was the lingua
franca of European scholars and had a position not unlike English
today. The philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon (1561-
1626), the physician William Harvey (1578-1657), and the math-
ematician and physicist Isaac Newton (1642-1727) all wrote their
works in Latin. And so did the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus
(1473-1543) in Poland, the astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-
. ·1642) in Italy, and the philosopher and mathematician Rene
Descartes (1596-1650) in France.
iDefenee English was criticised as being "vulgar" and "barbarous", because
it did not have enough words and was unstable and changing.
,~of English Latin, on the other hand, as a dead language was a fixed and
unchanging language. For a long time, authors who used English,
or translators who translated Latin or other works into English,
felt the need to defend themselves in their prefaces. The preface to
as The Logike of the moste excelient Philosopher P. Ramus Martyr, is a
43
 Seing it is the dewtye ofall Christians (beloued Reader) to labour by all
meanes, that they maye prorytte and ayde their bretherne, and to hyde
or kepe secrete nothing, whlche they knowe maye bring greate vtilitie to
the common wealthe: I thought it my dewtie (hauing perceyued the
greate commoditie whiche this booke blyngethe to the Reader of what
state and quaiitie soeuer he be) to make thee and all others to whose
knowledge it shall come pertakers thereof. (quoted after Barber 1976:
48-9)
But there were always voices that considered English not only a
useful language but an eloquent language. Towards the end of
the sixteenth century, these voices gained in strength, and Barber
(1976: 52) even argues that the change in attitude towards Eng-
Literacy
lish took place quite suddenly between 1575 and 1580. After that
date most authors are convinced of its eloquence, which it had
gained through the translation of Important works, the expansion
of its vocabulary by borrowing new terms (see below section 4.3),
and by being adorned with devices of classical rhetoric. In this
view, it only remained for the language to be fixed and regulated.
As yet no dictionary or grammar had been published. But in the
seventeenth century, the desire to regulate the English language
grew stronger in parallel with the growing prestige of the lan-
guage.
Elizabeth I (1533-1603), daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn,
Elizabe-
than Age had succeeded to the throne in 1558 at the age of twenty-five.
During her reign, England experienced new prosperity. The fifteen
seventies have been called the golden age of English music with
the composers Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Thomas Morley
active in London. The first public theatres were built in London.
Philip Sidney wrote his Arcadia and sonnets to Stella, and in 1579
Edmund Spenser published his Shepherd's Calendar. In 1588, Philip
II of Spain prepared to invade England from the Netherlands, but
his great Armada of lIinvincible ll galleons was defeated by a much
smaller English fieet. England had asserted its place on the seas
and the New World lay open for English explorers, which ulti-
mately led to the worldwide spread of the English language. By
this time William Shakespeare had arrived in London, where he
saw Christopher Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine. During the last
ten years of the reign of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare wrote some
twenty plays. Edmund Spenser, George Chapman, Michael Dray-
ton, Ben Jonson and John Donne were all writing at this time. And
, 'I there was a new generation of composers including John Dowland
and Orlando Gibbons.
Jacobean When Elizabeth I died in 1603, she was succeeded by James VI of
Age Scotland, who became James I of England and was the first king
I
44 WJmJ: &.~!.
~
Early Modern English: Standardisation
_____1
of the four countries of the British Isles. They were not yet a United
Kingdom. One of the major achievements of his reign was the pub-
lication of the Authorised Version or King James Bible mentioned
above. During his reign the British Empire began with the foun-
dation of Virginia in 1607 (see chapter 5). Shakespeare wrote his
greatest plays, from Othello to The Tempest, and England saw some
of its greatest scientific achievements. William Gilbert had just
published De Magnete, with which he initiated the science of elec-
tdcity. William Harvey delivered his lectures on the circulation of
the blood, and Francis Bacon paved the way for the exact exper-
imental science of the new age.
The assessment of the level of literacy is very difficult. It must be
based on circumstantial evidence such as the ownership afbaoks,
the number of schools and the ability or inability of people to sign
their own names on wills, marriage bonds and depositions in
ecclesiastical courts. Althe beginning of the Early Modern English
period, illiteracy was very high in particular among women, but
there were large regional and social differences. In London, liter-
acy was higher than in the country, and for certain professions it
was much higher than for others. Lawyers and clergymen were all
literate. The nobility and gentry also had high literacy levels. But
the lowest social ranks together with the women of all classes were
largely illiterate. Throughout the Early Modern English period, lit-
eracy levels improved considerably. A new class of readers from
the middle layers of society developed, and they needed texts in
the vernacular. The increased demand was met by an increasing
number of books. The availability of affordable books, in turn,
augmented the demand for learning. The growing audience
required reading material for instruction} for edification and for
entertainment.
Another fa<;1:or that influenced communication, and written com-
munication in particular, was the improvement of the postal ser-
vices in the sixteepth and seventeenth centuries. At the beginning
there had been irregular services created for the needs of the state
'using private messengers and carriers. But slowly a postal system
with fixed rates, available to private citizens was developed. In the
first half of the seventeenth century, regular weekly transports
were organised along six main roads to different parts ofthe coun-
try. The system, which depended on decent roads, a sufficient net-
work of local posts and horses, was a combination of horse trans-
portation along the main roads and couriers on foot, who carried
the letters to their final destinations.
_ D Sociohistorical context 45
 fJ Communicative needs and genres
Intro· The Early Modern English period was charactelised by a huge
duction increase in genres and text types. There were many reasons for
this. Throughout the Old and much of the Middle English period,
book production had been the privilege of the Church. Towards
the end of the fifteenth century this changed radically. Printing
placed book production in the domain of printing shops, which
could achieve a much larger output. The cost of books dropped
drastically, and they became available to broader sections of the
public. New ways of distributing written texts opened up. In addi·
tion, there WQS a renewed interest in learning and a steadily grow-
ing literacy rate. This led to a diversification of the reading mate·
rial and to new genres and text types.
Pamphlet~ A new genre of the early fifteenth century would not have been
possible without the art of printing, viz. pamphlets. Pamphlets
were an early form of moss media. They were cheap and fast to
produce. They consisted often of eight pages or were just single·
sheet broadsides. But some were fifty pages or more. They were
published in reaction to the events ofthe day, and often contained
polemical controversies. In the 1520s, shortly after Luther's attack
on the supremacy of the Pope, the issue was hotly debated by Eng·
lish pamphleteers. Text 8 in appendix 1 reproduces the opening
paragraph of a pamphlet written on behalf of King Henry VIII. It
is a strong attack against "the disciples of Martyn Luther and other
Heretykes!l, and it praises the king as the uDefensor of the Faith",
who has decided to protect his realm and the "true Catholike fayth
of Christes religion II against the threat from abroad.
A new genre that was not directly linked to the art of printing was
drama. It developed out of the medieval mystery and miracle
plays, which originally were performed during church services in
particular on special religious occasions such as the feast of Cor-
pus Christl. They dramatised Biblical stories. Some of these plays
have been acclaimed for the interesting ways in which they
develop plot and character and thus add to the religious content.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, these plays had become
more elaborate and were now performed in front of the church or
on the market place. They were usually produced by guilds or by
town authorities and performed by lay actors. During the reign of
Elizabeth I (1558-1603) a new form of drama established itself
and became very popular. The main authors were Christopher
Marlowe (1564-1593), William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Ben
Jonson (1572-1637). Their plays were performed in public theatres
by professional actors. The first of these theatres were built in the
late sixties and seventies of the sixteenth century (The Red Lion in
46 Ci.""n r' 4 ,'l,', Early Modern English: Standardisation
i IfJ Communicative needs and genres
I
~ ____1
1567, The Theatre in 1576 and The Curtain in 1577). In 1599 The
Globe replaced The Theatre. The plays were the property of the pro·
ducing company which commissioned them. As long as they were
successful on stage, the company did not want them to be printed
and published. For this reason pirated and distorted versions were
often produced by fellow actors. The written text of these plays
now had a different status. In the case of Shakespeare's work,
many plays were first produced in a quarto (Le. a small) format,
a single play at a time. Many of these are today considered to be
IIbad ll quartos because they were based on the reconstruction of
the play from the memory of an actor who was involved in one
of the performances. It was only seven years after Shakespeare's
death, in 1623, that a more carefully prepared Folio (Le. a larger
format) edition was published. No substantive manusctipts by
Shakespeare himself have survived. Text 9 in appendix 1 gives an
extract from the grave-digger scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The The most influential of all Bible translations was the Authorised
Authorised Version of the Bible, which is also known as the King James Bible.
Version It was commissioned by King James I after he had succeeded to
the English throne in 1603. It was the work of 54 translators, who
followed a number of strict guidelines. They used the Bishop's
Bible, which was a revised version of the Great Bible, but in many
cases they went further back and also consulted earlier versions
including Tyndale's Bible. The translators aimed at a dignified
and somewhat archaic style. They did not want to produce a new
translation but to improve the old translations. In contrast to
Shakespeare's work, the Authorised Version of the Bible contains
only very few new words. Text 10 in appendix 1 is an extract from
the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7.1-12). It is reproduced
alongside a modern version of the same text. The verb morphol·
ogy is old·fashioned for its time. The third person singular of the
present tense of verbs, for instance, always ends in ·(e)th. Other
texts at that time usually already have ·s. (cf. asketh, receiueth,
seeketh and findeth in the text reproduced in the appendix). Older
word orders are still used and negations and questions do not use
the empty operator do (And why beholdest thou the mote that is in
thy brothers eye, but considerest not the beame thatis in thine owne eye).
:Sclentiflc In the late fourteenth century the first scientific texts started to be
iWriting written in English, but Latin was still dominant, and the texts that
"
appeared in English closely followed the Latin models. At the end
"
ofthe Early Modem English period, however, English had asserted
itself as the language of science. In the fifteenth century, hand·
books established themselves as a new genre of scientific writing
in connection with the rise of the middle class, increased literacy
and learning and a desire for improvement and edification. Med-
47
_ -,--._._--,--,- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 kal handbooks, for instance} give advice to Q general public on
maintaining health, keeping fit and preparing medicine.
Dialogues From the middle of the sixteenth century, such handbooks were
often written in dialogue form. Such dialogues could take the form
of supposedly IIreol" conversations between fictional characters,
such as a master and a student, or they could follow an older pat-
tern of scholastic questions and answers. The following is on
example from a text that was addressed to a wider public ("teach-
ing how every Man should keepe his body and mind in health:
and sicke, how hee may safely restore it himselfe" J Taavistainen
1999: 250). The extract shows a passage in the scholastic ques-
tion-answer pattern.
What be the causes of the preseruation of Mans health?
The causes of the preseruation of mans health be foure; the first, Airel
Fire and Water. The second, meate and drinke, and such as we vse for
nourishment. The third, mirth, exercise, and tranquillity of the body. The
fourth, auoydance of excrements. , .
What is Ayre? Aire naturally by it selfe, is an element
[What are the factors contributing to man's healt? The factors con-
tributing to man's health are four: (1) air, fire, and water; (2) food and
drink, such as we use for nourishment; (3) joy, exercise and tranquillity
of the body; (4) avoidance of excrements, ..
What is air? Air naturally by itself is an element]
(Appraved Directions for Health, 16/2, quoted after Taavitsainen 1999:
250)
. cation that several of the references of this text were potentially
i :Observa- Text 11 in appendix 1 is taken from Robert Boyle's Electricity and
1::
1
tions and Magnetism (1675-6). It demonstrates a very different scientific
,1'"
experiments style. The author relates his personal observations resulting from
It scientific experimentsl which he sets in relation to observations of
'I
similar phenomena made by others (whom he does not name in
this extract). He also expresses doubts or uncertain conclusions
(limy particular Observations incline me to adde, that .. ."; /land
11
though I doubt whether the Rule be infallible, yet I deny not but
that .. :').
'i
II: . NllVvspapers. The first English newspapers, initially called carantos", appeared
/I
in 1620. They were translations of Dutch corantos and were pro-
I,
duced in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam dispatches arrived from
:I
Iii many important towns such as Rome, Venice, Prague, Vienna,
Cologne and Paris. They were collected and published once a week
j'
: '·.'1'
on single sheets of paper. There was no other organisational prin-
I questions and presses Dunne to tell the truth. He even insults
ciple in the newspaper except for the headings for each individ-
ual correspondent Thus the first newspapers consisted of long
sequences of letters from correspondents} who would report on the
current affairs from the place of their postings.
48 'iililiiB -4 Early Modern English: Standardisation
Dispatch The following is a typical example of such an entry. It is a direct
from Nels and almost word-far-word translation from the Dutch.
From Neis the 73 of june 1621
On Whitsunday his grace let Balchaser Hoffman Van Garlitz that was
agent for the Emperor heere, vntill this present~ goe out of prison who
was forced to deliuer the key of his Masle, and it was opened to see what
was therein.
Lieutenant Lohane hath a good number of men by him againe, yester-
day he caused 10. barrels of beere, and some wine to be sent into his
quarter, a great number of men come to him with his grace, entertaines,
and the money giuen them in hand is payd in Bethlemish duckets, and
Rhens gold Nobles; hegiues a horse man 75. Florins in hand; itis thought
that they will shortly goe to Otmachawa mile and a halfe from hence,
which for that it Is a strong Fort, therefore they intend to fortifie them-
selues therein: Lenschwitz was yesterday more then halfe burnt by fire
that fell in a Malt house. (Brownlees 7999: 69)
In contrast to modern newspapers, there are no headlines which
summarise the topic of the article, and indeed there seem to be
three different news items embedded in the news from Nels. The
first concerns the release from prison of a certain Balchaser Hoff~
man van Garlitz. The second concerns Lieutenant Lohane, who is
apparently assembling some troops in order to man a fort at
Otmachaw. And the third tells of a fire in Lenschwitz. A surviving
copy of the issue in which this report was printed shows contem-
porary handMwritten marginal annotations, which give an indi-
obscure even to contemporary readers. One annotation specifies
that Neis is a place in Silesia, and another identifies his grace as
/(the marques of Fagerdol/.
Court records provide particularly interesting data for historical
:CQurt
~records analyses. We do not know, of course, how accurately the written
words of the documents represent the words that were spoken in
the court room. This depends on the skill of the court clerk who
was responsible for the written documentation. Text 12 in appen-
dix 1 is an extract from the records of a trial that took place on
August 27, 1685. Lady Alice Lisle was tried at Winton for high trea-
son in what might be called a show trial. In the extract, the Lord
Chief Justice intenogates one of the main witnesses in the trial,
Dunne. The extract reveals the unequal distribution of power in
this situation. The Lord Chief Justice introduces new topics, asks
Dunne (you Blockhead; I see thou art set upon nothing but Prevarica-
tion). Dunne, on the other hand, who keeps contradicting himself
and is clearly confused by the questions, gives very brief answers
fA Communicative needs and genres 49
 and always addresses the Lord Chief Justice as my Lord. It is notice-
able that the Lord Chief Justice switches between thou and you,
when he addresses Dunne. There seems to be a tendency for him
to use you in questions and thou when he accuses Dunne of not co-
operating with the investigations. However, even.the short extract
given in text 12 shows some deviati?ns from t~lS system. In sev-
eral cases} he uses you as a mock-pohte form to Insult ?unne .even
further (see chapter 8 on the history of address terms In Enghsh).
II Lexical inventory
The Early Modern English period was a time of great lexical
Intro-
duction enrichment. The exclusive use of Latin and French In many areas
throughout much of the Middle English period had deprived En-
Shake-
glish of an opportunity to develop its vocabulary. When Enghsh
,spearean
asserted or reasserted its place as the language for all commu-
firsts
nicative purposes, many new words had to be invented. In ?ddi-
tion, new concepts, techniques and inventions from the Contn~ent
required new words. The exploration of Africa and the Amenc~s
introduced new concepts from different cultures and chmates. AnI-
mals} plants , customs and so on had to be named. The transla M
tions of classical works and the fact that scientificwriting was now
almost exclusively in English were further reasons for an increased
demand for new words,
The following are some of the words that were adopted into En-
Examples
glish during the Early Modern English period.
From Latin
alphabet, angina, category, chromatic, climax, ~ritic, ,cynic, diIem.ma,
dogma, emphasis, energy, encyclopcedia, gIgantIc, gymnasJUm,
homonym, hydraulic, hyphen, icon, logarithm, maniac, mausoleu~,
membrane, metonymy, microscope, monopoly, nausea, nectal~ oaSIS,
orchestra, orgasm, ornithology, palimpsest, paradox, parame~er, para-
site, parenthesis, phallus, pleonasm, pseudony~, rheumatzsm, s~r­
casm, scholastic, skeleton, sympathy, symposwm, system, tactIC,
tetrameter, thesaurus, tragic
From Greek
agonism, agnostic, antagonize, apostrophe, bibliography, dema?ogue,
diacritic, drastic, economist, hedonic, hyperbole, larynx, olIgarch,
orthodox, polygamist, semantic, topic, topographic
From or via French
apology, architect, bizarre, diaiect, epilepsy, epilogue, geography, hiero-
glyphic, hygiene, mathematics, metaphor, method, ode, paraphrase,
satire, scene, strategy, symmetry, syntax, trophy, vest
",I
I
50 tjimiUi1 ti!l Early Modern English: Standardisation
4 __1
From or via Italian
algebra, archipelago, balcony, bandit, bankrupt, granite, largo, madli-
gal, manage, motto, nave, oboe, opera, piazza, portico, stanza, tele-
scope, tempo, vermicelli, violin, volcano
From or via Spanish
avocado, banana, cargo, cockroach, desperado, embargo, guitar,
machete, masquerade, Negro, potato, siesta, tobacco, tornado
From other languages
Algonquian: racoon, skunk, squaw; Arabic: coffee, giraffe, harem,
sheikh; Dutch: brandy, cruise, easel, knapsack, landscape, yacht; Chi-
nese: tea; Hindi: guru; Japanese: shogun; Malay: bamboo, ketchup;
Norwegian: troll; Persian: bazaar, caravan, turban; Portuguese:
Dodo; Tamil: anaconda, cuny; Turkish: kiosk, pasha, yoghurt
Shakespeare's language had a very considerable influence on the
further development of the English language, mainly on its
vocabulary. He invented many new words or used existing words
in new ways. In addition, he also picked up words that were new
and fashionable at the time. The Oxford English Dictionary records
over 2000 entries that are first attested between 1590 and 1610
and have a supporting quotation from Shakespeare's works. In
many cases, Shakespeare's quotation is the earliest quotation
available and we may credit him with having introduced this
word, or this use of an existing word, into the English language.
Shakespeare's lexical firsts fall into different categories.
Borrowings
Some are new lexemes altogether which he borrowed from French
or Latin or some other source, as for instance the following words:
assassination, bandit, courtship, dawn, denote, go-between, hint, lady-
bird, obscene, operate, outweigh, pageantry, roguery, tranquil, wild
goose chase, priceless, remorseless.
Adaptations
Some words were new creations from existing English words, They
were created by adding an ending such as wer to a verb in order to
form a noun, or -ly to an adjective to form an adverb and so on.
Examples: appearer, barefuce4 ceremoniously, countless, disgraceful,
disiocate, distasteful, Insulter, iaughable, unhelpful, unreai, weli-behaved.
Conversions
Some Shakespearean firsts, finally, were conversions, that is to say
nouns that he used as verbs or vice versa, The following are releM
vant examples: champion (v.), character (v.) drug (v.), essay (n.),
hand (v.), lip (v.), muddy (v.).
The following are examples given by the Oxford English Dictionary
to illustrate some of the conversions introduced by Shakespeare.
_ II Lexical inventory 51
 1591 Shakes. Two Gent. il. vii. 4 The Table wherein ali my thoughts Are In the end, the purists could not stem the tide. The influx con-
visibly Character'd, and engrau'd, (character, v.) tinued unabated, and the lexical enrichment of the English lan-
1607 Shakes. Timon ii. ii. 52 Var. How dost Foole? Ape. Dost Dialogue guage remains one of the distinctive features of the Early Modern
with thy shadow? (dialogue, v.) English period.
1610 Shakes. Temp. i. I. 25 If you can command these Elements to
silence.. wee will not hand a rope more. (hand, v.)
1604 Shakes. Oth. iv. i. 72 To iip a wanton in a secure Cowch (lip, v.) o Pronunciation: The Great Vowel Shift
1591 Shakes. Two Gent. ii. i. 32 And now you are Metamorphisid with
a Mistris, that when I looke on you, I can hardly thinke you my Master. Il'\tro- The term Great Vowel Shift refers to a complex of changes that
(metamorphize, v.) ·duction affected all Middle English long vowels. It was a gradual shift that
started in the fourteenth century and took several centuries to be
The It is perhaps not surprising that the great influx of new words
completed. The following table gives one possible summary of the
"inkhornJl attracted some bitter criticism from people who insisted that the sequence of events.
controversy language should remain pure and undefiled by obscure foreign
words or lIinkhorn terms" as they came to be called. Thomas Wil-
ME 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 ModE
son in his Arte of Rhetar/que (1553) argued as follows:
[i:) rlse(n) [Ii] [4i] .. [ail rise
Among ali ather lessons this should first be learned, that wee never affect
[u:] mouth - - l i [UU] [4U] )I [au] mouth
any straunge ynkehorne termes, but to speake as is commonly received: [e:} feet iii [I:] Me- )I [i:] feet
neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet living over-care/esse, using our
[0:] liDOS )I [u:] II [u;J lIoose
speeche as most men doe, and ordering our wittes as the fewest have
Ie:] bMme Ii [e:] Ii ~:] beam
dane. Some seeke so for for outlandish English, that they forget alto-
[;>:] ston .. [0:] ...... [ou]/[au] stone
gether their mothers language. And I dare sweare this, If some of their
[a:] name • • [re:]. [e:] .[e:]4Iio'>[el] naTM
mothers were alive, thei were not able to teli what they say: and yet
these fine English clerkes will say, they speake In their mother tongue, if Figure 4.1: The Great Vowel Shift as a puli chain (adapted from
a man should charge them for counterfeiting the Kings English. (quoted Bourcier 1981: 197)
after Baugh and Cable 1993: 213)
·Raising and Figure 4.1 shows that the two highest long vowels in Middle En-
Others, however, came to the defence of the borrowings, arguing
,dlphtongi- glish [i:] and [u:] were diphthongised. All other vowels were raised.
that all languages, including Latin and Greek, enriched them-
·sation Middle English [e:] was raised to [i:]. [0:] was raised to [u:J. [€:] was
selves by borrowing from other languages. Moreover, many of the
raised not just by one degree but by two to become [i:], and thus
familiar English words of the time were themselves earlier bor- fell together with the reflex of Middle English [e:]. In three cases,
rowings that had become familiar with repeated usage and the
break, great and steak, the more open form [€:] even diphthongised
same would happen in due course to the new borrowings. This
to rei]. It is interesting to note that orthography was standardised
position was summed up by George Pettie in the preface to his
at a time when there was still a difference in the pronunciation of
".1 translation of Guazzds Civile Conversation: -the vowels in words like feet and beam. Thus the Modern English
For the barbarousnesse of our tongue, Imust Iykewyse say that it Is much spelling difference is a reflection of pronunciation differences in
the worse for them [the objectors}, and some such curious feliowes as Middle English. As a general rule, Modern English words with
they are: who if one chaunce to derive any woord from the Latine, which a long [i:] and spelt with <eo> go back to the Middle English [€:]
is insolent to their eares (as perchaunce they wyli take that phrase to pronunciation, while those spelt with <ee> go back to Middle En-
be) they foorthwith make a jest at It, and terme It an Inkehorne terme. glish [e:].
And though for my part I use those woords as litle as any, yet I know no
,Chain The whole complex of changes seems to have been a chain reac-
reason why I should not use them, and I fin de it a fault in my selfe that
iireaction tion. As soon as words like mouth were no longer pronounced with
I do not use them: for it is in deed the ready way to inrich our tongue,
a long [u:] but with a diphthong, the [u:] sound became free and
and make it copious, and it Is the way which ali tongues have taken to
people started pronouncing words like goos no longer [go:s] as but
inrich them selves. (quoted after Baugh and Cable 1993: 215-16)
as [gu:sJ. Thus a small change in the system caused further

52 ii
C,iblij U il Early Modern English: Standardisation

_1----. 19 Pronunciation: The Great Vowel Shift 53

 changes, until the chain reaction had modified the entire system.
But the case of Middle English [£:] and [e:], which fell together as
Modem English [i:], shows that it is not necessarily a perfect chain.
Push or pull While the overall result of the Great Yowel Shift is not disputed,
the datings of the individual changes are very controversial.
Changes are always gradual, and they may proceed at different
times and at different speeds in different parts of the country. Fig-
Ufe 4,1 can therefore be no more than a very rough approximo w
tion. In fact it is not even certain that the set of changes described
above was indeed a pull-chain in which the vowels at the top
moved out and made room for vowels further down. Many
researchers leave open the possibility that it was a push-chain
with the changes starting at the bottom. According to this view,
the lower vowels moved up first, which created the danger of
clashes with the higher vowels. These were therefore pushed up.
The whole set of changes can be summarised as follows in a vowel
chart.
[ar;] .......[i:]
\\[e:] [o:J
~8:]
(~:]
[ee] ....... [a:] '--..-------'
Figure 4.2: The Great Vowel Shift as a pull chain (adopted from
Bourcier 1981: 198)
m Syntax and morphology
Int!-';: The syntax and morphology of the Early Modem English period
~duction are in many respects already very similar to Modern English, but
there are some characteristic features that have still survived from
earlier periods.
, Nouns The only inflections retained in the noun were those marking the
plural and the genitive. The plural was marked as today by the
ending -5 and in a few words -en. Shakespeare occasionally writes
eyen ('eyes') and shoen ('shoes'). In Modem English, children,
brethren and oxen are the only words that retain this form. The gen-
itive had been -es in Middle English. As it was often unaccented
and written wis or -ys) it was sometimes mistaken for the personal
pronoun his that was pronounced without the initial h. Thus Shake-
speare writes} for instance} the count his galleys, meaning (the
54 1,'!-!iiiU 4 Early Modern English: Standardisation
count's galleys'. Eventually the mistaken "pronoun 'l was abbrevi-
ated again, but the error left its mark in Modem English in the form
of the apostrophe between the noun and the genitive ending, -'so
Adjectives The adjective had lost its case endings earlier. The comparative
and superlative degrees sometimes differ from modern usage.
Both the forms with the ending -er and -est and the f01ms with the
adverbs more and most already existed, but there was more varia-
tion in their use. Shakespeare used comparisons like honester and
violentest, where we can only say more honest and most violent.
Double comparatives or superlatives were also possible, as for
instance in Shakespeare's This was the most unkindest cut of al/.
Pronouns Since the thirteenth century, the plural pronoun ye had been used
as a pronoun of deference and respect for single addressees. It was
used by the higher social ranks to address each other or by peo-
ple of the lower ranks addressing their superiors. Ye was the nom-
inative form, your the genitive, and you the object form of the pro-
noun. This system of making a distinction between deferential you
and non-deferential thou persisted well into the seventeenth cen-
tury, but the nominative form ye and the object form you were
often confused in Early Modern English. Thus Shakespeare writes,
for instance: Stand, sirs, and throw us that you have about yeo In the
seventeenth century you becomes the regular form for both nom-
inative and object form.
Verbs Features of the verb phrase are perhaps the most conspicuous dif-
ferences between the Early Modem English period and today's
English. The progressive f01m is still rare. Polonius in Hamlet asks:
What do you read my Lord, where we would have to say What are
you reading? The use of the dummy operator do in questions is still
variable. Thus in Macbeth, Lennox asks Goes the King hence today?
The perfect is sometimes formed with the operator "be" as in Julius
Caesar, where Cassius says: My me is run his compass, where we
would have to ~QY has run. This sentence also shows 'Q pronoun
usage that was still common at this time. Impersonal verb con-
structions like me thinks he did and double negatives like I cannot
go no further were still common.
,Word order In affirmative statements, the pattern subject - verb - object (SYO)
had established itself by the beginning of the Middle English
period. However/ some deviations still remained. In particular the
inversion of subject and verb after sentence-initial adverbials per~
sisted for a long time, as for instance in and then shalt thou see clear-
ley in the Authorised Version of the Bible (text 10, appendix 1). There
were considerable differences between individual authors and dif-
ferent genres.
g Syntax and morphology 55
 Further reading
G6rlach (1978, 1991a) and Barber (1976) provide accessible textbooks to Early
Modern English. G6rlach (1978) is in German; G6rlach (1991a) is its translation.
Both books contain an extensive appendix with sample texts. Blake (1989) is a
concise introduction to the language of Shakespeare. Lass (2000) is volume III of
the Cambridge History oflhe English Language. For general histories ofthe language
see the further reading section of chapter 1.
,~~sJ
13ImiiIJ: Modern English: The expansion of English
Intro- The beginning of the Modern English period is usually set at 1700.
duction There is no major external factor that justifies this date. Internally,
on the other hand, the English language in 1700 is in most respects
very much like our own language. The complex set of changes in
the pronunciation of the language, the Great Vowel Shift (see seo-
tion 4.4 above), which had started in the fourteenth century, was
more or less completed by 1700. In syntax and morphology, too,
the language was already modern. The colonial expansion of Eng-
land had started in the seventeenth century. It continued and
increased in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The advances
in science and technology in the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
tury as well as social, cultural and political developments led to
an unprecedented expansion of the English vocabulary.

o Communicative needs and genres

;'iAscertain~ The end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eigh-
mentl/ teenth witnessed the rise of experimental sciences and a new trend
towards rationalism in philosophy. Explanations in all areas of
life were based on reason and logical thinking. There was a strong
appeal to order and the value of regulation. This way of thinking
was prevalent in the attitudes towards the English language,
which was felt to be in dire need of standardising, refining and
fixing. The grammar of English had not been codified into a set
oflogical rules. There was much variety in many matters of gram-
matical usage. This was distasteful to an age which set its highest
values on order in everything. Many writers argued for the need
for grammar books and dictionaries to lay down the rules of the
Ifcorrect" use of lexical items and rules of grammar. This tendency
,wos summed up in the term tlascertainmenf', as for instance in
the title of Jonathan Swift's Proposal for Correcting, Improving and
Ascertaining the English Tongue in 1712. In this proposal he
deplored the present state of the English language and asserted
that English had achieved its highest state during the Elizabethan
period.
Many voices advocated an academy which was to regulate the
English language. In Italy the Academia delia Crusca had been
founded in 1582 and in France L'Academie Fran.;:aise in 1635. They
both set out to "purify" their national language and to compile a

1
I

i ' ;,1:'1'
i
56 'llUm, Early Modern English: Standardisation

_1_ D Communicative needs and genres 57