Language Change

The Seventeenth Century

How can I succeed today?

C – Apply terminology appropriately and link language choices

to an aspect of context.
B – Apply terminology with precision and detail and analyse
how aspects of context work together to affect language.
A – Identify patterns and complexities in language and explore
analysis within the context.
Language Change
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fxy6ZaMOq8
 Standardisation
• The process of standardisation began in 1476
when William Caxton introduced the printing
press to England. Up to 20,000 books were
printed in the following 150 years.
• At the time of the introduction of printing there
were five major dialects in England. There
were 30 different ways to spell ‘church’ and 500
different ways to spell ‘though’! Caxton’s
decision to use the East Midlands dialect led to
this becoming the standard English and spelling
became more and more fixed.
• By the 17th century, standardisation was well
underway but it was a slow and halting process.
Shakespeare himself spelled his name
differently in each of his six known signatures.
 The Great Vowel Shift
• During the 15th-17th centuries, there was a radical change in how
English was pronounced. Long vowel sounds began to be made
higher and further forward in the mouth. For example, before the
Great Vowel Shift, ‘bite’ was pronounced ‘beet’, ‘too’ was
pronounced ‘toe’, and ‘mouse’ was pronounced ‘moos’. Nobody
really knows why this change took place.
• This is one of the main reasons why English spelling is so strange:
the spelling of many words was fixed before the great vowel shift,
so the spelling no longer fits how the words are pronounced. For
example, the vowel sound in ‘food’, ‘good’ and ‘blood’ is spelled
the same because originally it was pronounced the same (to rhyme
with ‘goad’).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMkljqA-sUA&ab_channel=The
ChildrenoftheCodeProject
Seventeenth Century

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vLwGzTEPfo&t=6s
Seventeenth Century Society
• England became steadily richer. Trade
and commerce grew and industries such
as glass and brick making and iron and
coal mining expanded.

• At the top of society were the nobility.

Below them were the gentry, who were
not rich but comfortably off. Then came
yeomen, who were working farmers
who owned their own land. The
majority of the population were at the
bottom: craftsmen, tenant farmers and
labourers.
 Seventeenth Century Education
• In well off families, both boys and girls
went to primary school (called petty
school) but only boys went on to
secondary school. Upper class girls
were taught by tutors and some middle
class girls were taught by their mothers.

• As the 17th century progressed, boarding

schools for girls were founded where
girls were taught subjects like writing,
music and needlework.

• Only 30% of men could read and write.

Statistics for women are not known, but
would have been significantly lower.
 The Enlightenment
• For centuries, no-one had questioned the
ideas about the natural world developed
by Greek philosophers. However, Francis
Bacon (1561-1626) began to overturn this
attitude, declaring that careful observation
and experiment was the key to finding out
how the natural world works.

• By the late 17th century, the new scientific

approach had triumphed in Europe. Belief
in witchcraft and magic declined and the
last person was executed for witchcraft in
1685.
 The Inkhorn Controversy
• In the 16th and early 17th centuries there
was a revival of classical scholarship.
This led to a huge number of new
words being deliberately introduced to
the English language.

• Latin, and to a lesser extent Greek and

French, was considered the language of
education and scholarship. Words such
as genius, apparatus, anonymous,
premium, physician, comedy and
anthology were introduced to the
language. A whole category of words
ending in ‘-ize’ and ‘-ism’ (a Greek
suffix) were introduced
The Inkhorn Controversy
• There was huge debate around the
introduction of so many new, Latinate terms
into English. Some writers embraced them
enthusiastically, but others objected that
these terms were obscure and awkward.
They called them ‘inkhorn’ terms, meaning
they came from the writer’s inkpot.
• Many of the terms invented at the time
have survived, such as encyclopaedia,
exaggerate, capacity and ingenious.
• However, many others, including some
coined by Shakespeare, have not stood the
test of time, such as exsufflicate, questrist
and implausive.
 The Inkhorn Controversy
• Another objection to ‘inkhorn’ terms was
that they were foreign terms that polluted
the English language. A 16th century scholar
named John Cheke stated that:
‘I am of this opinion that our own tung whould
be written cleane and pure, unmixt and
unmangeled with borowing of other tunges.’
• Some writers tried to resurrect older English
words, such as ‘gleeman’ instead of
‘musician’ and ‘yblent’ for ‘confused’. Others
tried to create words from Germanic rather
than Latinate roots such as ‘endsay’ instead
of ‘conclusion’ and ‘yeartide’ instead of
‘anniversary’.
 Travel
British naval superiority was growing and in the 16th and 17th centuries
international trade expanded immensely. Loan words were absorbed
from the languages of many other countries.
• French eg. Chocolate, passport, garage, moustache
• Italian eg. Carnival, macaroni, violin, umbrella
• Spanish eg. Cork, cannibal
• Portuguese eg. Tank, breeze, marmalade
• German eg. Noodle, muffin, seminar
• Dutch eg. Stripe, booze, scum, yacht
• Norwegian eg. Iceberg, ski
• Persian eg. Lemon, caravan, tambourine
• Arabic eg. Jar, magazine, sherbert
• Turkish eg. Cofee, chess, turban
Representation

‘How does the writer use language to create

meanings and representations?’
 What is
representation
Representation

• What is being represented?

• What representations of these things are being
created?
• How are these representations being created?
• What is being
represented?
• What representations of
these things are being
created?
• How are these
representations being
created?
How does the writer use language to create
meanings and representations?
• Say what representation is being created.
• Put two or three short quotes to demonstrate how
it is being created.
• For each quote, use terminology to label the
language used.
• Link to the context – why does the writer want to
create this representation?
 How does the writer use language to create
meanings and representations?
The writer represents the reader as an individual who is struggling
to understand the language that they are encountering. He
describes them as ‘unskillful persons’. This noun phrase sounds
insulting to a modern reader, but as the writer is seeking to
persuade the reader to buy their dictionary, we can assume that
the adjective ‘unskillful’ only meant someone who needed
support and did not have pejorative connotations at the time. He
also suggests that the dictionary can help them to understand
words, ‘which they shall hear or read in Scriptures, Sermons or
elsewhere’. This subordinate clause assumes that the reader is
someone who attends church and reads the Bible, as the modal
verb ‘shall’ suggests that this is something which will definitely
happen to them. Attendance at church was mandatory in the 17th
century, so the reader would be able to relate to the situation of
encountering these difficult words in a religious context.