Early Modern English
Encyclopedia
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language
used from about the end of the Middle English
period (the latter half of the 15th century) to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare
both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English. Prior to and following the accession of James I
to the English throne in 1603 the emerging English standard began to influence the spoken and written Middle Scots
of Scotland
.
Current readers of English are generally able to understand Early Modern English, though occasionally with difficulties arising from grammar changes, changes in the meanings of some words, and spelling differences. The standardisation of English spelling falls within the Early Modern English period and is influenced by conventions predating the Great Vowel Shift
, which is the reason for much of the non-phonetic spelling of contemporary Modern English
.
, the informal singular pronoun, and ye, which was both the plural pronoun and the formal singular pronoun. (This usage is analogous to the modern French tu and vous and modern southern German du and ihr). Thou was already falling out of use in the Early Modern English period, but remained customary for addressing God and certain other solemn occasions, and sometimes for addressing inferiors.
Like other personal pronouns, thou and ye had different forms depending on their grammatical case
; specifically, the objective form of thou was thee, its possessive forms were thy and thine, and its reflexive or emphatic form was thyself; while the objective form of ye was you, its possessive forms were your and yours, and its reflexive or emphatic forms were yourself and yourselves.
In other respects, the pronouns were much the same as today. One difference is that my and thy became mine and thine before words beginning with a vowel or the letter h (or, more accurately, the older forms "mine" and "thine" had become "my" and "thy" before words beginning with a consonant other than "h," while "mine" and "thine" were retained before words beginning with a vowel or "h"); thus, mine eyes, thine hand, and so on.
The orthography
of Early Modern English was fairly similar to that of today, but spelling was unphonetic and unstable. For example, the word acuity could be spelled either <acuity> or <acuitie>. Furthermore, there were a number of features of spelling that have not been retained:
Nothing was standard, however. For example, "Julius Caesar" could be spelled "Julius Cæſar", "Ivlivs Cæſar", "Jvlivs Cæſar", or "Iulius Cæſar" and the word "he" could be spelled "he" or "hee" in the same sentence, as it is found in Shakespeare's plays.
cemented their distinctive syntactical characteristics during the Early Modern period. Thus, modals' use without an infinitive became rare (as in "I must to Coventry"; "I'll none of that"). Use of modals' present participles to indicate aspect (from 1556: "Maeyinge suffer no more the loue & deathe of Aurelio"), and of their preterite forms to indicate tense ("He follow'd Horace so very close, that of necessity he must fall with him") also became uncommon.
Some verbs ceased to function as modals during the Early Modern period. The present form of must, mot, became obsolete. Dare also lost the syntactical characteristics of a modal auxiliary, evolving a new past form (dared) distinct from the modal durst.
and French
(see unaccusative verb
).
The modern syntax used for the progressive aspect ("I am walking") became dominant by the end of the Early Modern period, but other forms were also common. These included the prefix a- ("I am a-walking") and the infinitive paired with "do" ("I do walk"). Moreover, the to be + -ing verb form could be used to express a passive meaning without any additional markers: "The house is building" could mean "The house is being built."
to Early Modern English was not just a matter of vocabulary or pronunciation changing: it was the beginning of a new era in the history of English.
An era of linguistic change in a language with large variations in dialect was replaced by a new era of a more standardized language with a richer lexicon and an established (and lasting) literature. Shakespeare's plays are familiar and comprehensible today, 400 years after they were written, but the works of Geoffrey Chaucer
and William Langland
, written only 200 years earlier, are considerably more difficult for the average reader.
. By 1750, a distinct American dialect
of English had developed.
There are still elements of Early Modern English in some dialects. For example, thee and thou can still be heard in the Black Country
, some parts of Yorkshire
and Dawley
, Telford
. The pronunciation of book, cook, look, etc. with a long [uː] can be heard in some areas of the North and the West Country
. However, these are becoming less frequent with each generation.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
used from about the end of the Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
period (the latter half of the 15th century) to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English. Prior to and following the accession of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
to the English throne in 1603 the emerging English standard began to influence the spoken and written Middle Scots
Middle Scots
Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 13th century its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English...
of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
Current readers of English are generally able to understand Early Modern English, though occasionally with difficulties arising from grammar changes, changes in the meanings of some words, and spelling differences. The standardisation of English spelling falls within the Early Modern English period and is influenced by conventions predating the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
, which is the reason for much of the non-phonetic spelling of contemporary Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
.
Pronouns
In Early Modern English, there were two second-person personal pronouns: thouThou
The word thou is a second person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in almost all contexts by you. It is used in parts of Northern England and by Scots. Thou is the nominative form; the oblique/objective form is thee , and the possessive is thy or thine...
, the informal singular pronoun, and ye, which was both the plural pronoun and the formal singular pronoun. (This usage is analogous to the modern French tu and vous and modern southern German du and ihr). Thou was already falling out of use in the Early Modern English period, but remained customary for addressing God and certain other solemn occasions, and sometimes for addressing inferiors.
Like other personal pronouns, thou and ye had different forms depending on their grammatical case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
; specifically, the objective form of thou was thee, its possessive forms were thy and thine, and its reflexive or emphatic form was thyself; while the objective form of ye was you, its possessive forms were your and yours, and its reflexive or emphatic forms were yourself and yourselves.
In other respects, the pronouns were much the same as today. One difference is that my and thy became mine and thine before words beginning with a vowel or the letter h (or, more accurately, the older forms "mine" and "thine" had become "my" and "thy" before words beginning with a consonant other than "h," while "mine" and "thine" were retained before words beginning with a vowel or "h"); thus, mine eyes, thine hand, and so on.
Orthographic conventions
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
of Early Modern English was fairly similar to that of today, but spelling was unphonetic and unstable. For example, the word acuity could be spelled either <acuity> or <acuitie>. Furthermore, there were a number of features of spelling that have not been retained:
- The letter <S> had two distinct lowercase forms: <s> (short s) as used today, and <ſ> (long sLong sThe long, medial or descending s is a form of the minuscule letter s formerly used where s occurred in the middle or at the beginning of a word, for example "ſinfulneſs" . The modern letterform was called the terminal, round, or short s.-History:The long s is derived from the old Roman cursive...
). The short s was used at the end of a word, and the long s everywhere else, except that the double lowercase S was variously written <ſſ> or <ſs>. This is similar to the alternation between medial (σ) and final lower case sigmaSigmaSigma is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and carries the 'S' sound. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 200. When used at the end of a word, and the word is not all upper case, the final form is used, e.g...
(ς) in GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
. - <u> and <v> were not yet considered two distinct letters, but different forms of the same letter. Typographically, <v> was used at the start of a word and <u> elsewhere; hence vnmoued (for modern unmoved) and loue (for love).
- <i> and <j> were also not yet considered two distinct letters, but different forms of the same letter, hence "ioy" for "joy" and "iust" for "just".
- The letter <Þ> (thornThorn (letter)Thorn or þorn , is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the...
) was still in use during the Early Modern English period, though increasingly limited to hand-written texts. In print, <Þ> was often represented by <Y>. - A silent <e> was often appended to words. The last consonantConsonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
was sometimes doubled when this <e> was appended; hence ſpeake, cowarde, manne (for man), runne (for run). - The sound /ʊ/ was often written <o> (as in son); hence ſommer, plombe (for modern summer, plumb).
Nothing was standard, however. For example, "Julius Caesar" could be spelled "Julius Cæſar", "Ivlivs Cæſar", "Jvlivs Cæſar", or "Iulius Cæſar" and the word "he" could be spelled "he" or "hee" in the same sentence, as it is found in Shakespeare's plays.
Marking tense and number
During the Early Modern period, English verb inflections became simplified as they evolved towards their modern forms:- The third person singular present lost its alternate inflections; '-(e)th' became obsolete while -s survived. (The alternate forms' coexistence can be seen in Shakespeare's phrase, "With her, that hateth thee and hates vs all").
- The plural present form became uninflected. Present plurals had been marked with -en, -th, or -s (-th and -s survived the longest, especially with the plural use of is, hath, and doth). Marked present plurals were rare throughout the Early Modern period, though, and -en was probably only used as a stylistic affectation to indicate rural or old-fashioned speech.
- The second person singular was marked in both the present and past tenses with -st or -est (for example, in the past tense, walkedst or gav'st). Since the indicative past was not (and is not) otherwise marked for person or number, the loss of thouThouThe word thou is a second person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in almost all contexts by you. It is used in parts of Northern England and by Scots. Thou is the nominative form; the oblique/objective form is thee , and the possessive is thy or thine...
made the past subjunctive indistinguishable from the indicative past for all verbs except to be.
Modal auxiliaries
The modal auxiliariesEnglish modal auxiliary verb
In the English language, a modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb. The key way to identify a modal verb is by its defectiveness...
cemented their distinctive syntactical characteristics during the Early Modern period. Thus, modals' use without an infinitive became rare (as in "I must to Coventry"; "I'll none of that"). Use of modals' present participles to indicate aspect (from 1556: "Maeyinge suffer no more the loue & deathe of Aurelio"), and of their preterite forms to indicate tense ("He follow'd Horace so very close, that of necessity he must fall with him") also became uncommon.
Some verbs ceased to function as modals during the Early Modern period. The present form of must, mot, became obsolete. Dare also lost the syntactical characteristics of a modal auxiliary, evolving a new past form (dared) distinct from the modal durst.
Perfect and progressive forms
The perfect of the verbs had not yet been standardized to use uniformly the auxiliary verb "to have". Some took as their auxiliary verb "to be", as in this example from the King James Bible, "But which of you ... will say unto him ... when he is come from the field, Go and sit down..." [Luke XVII:7]. The rules that determined which verbs took which auxiliaries were similar to those still observed in GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(see unaccusative verb
Unaccusative verb
In linguistics, an unaccusative verb is an intransitive verb whose subject is not a agent; that is, it does not actively initiate, or is not actively responsible for, the action of the verb. Unaccusative verbs thus contrast with unergative verbs...
).
The modern syntax used for the progressive aspect ("I am walking") became dominant by the end of the Early Modern period, but other forms were also common. These included the prefix a- ("I am a-walking") and the infinitive paired with "do" ("I do walk"). Moreover, the to be + -ing verb form could be used to express a passive meaning without any additional markers: "The house is building" could mean "The house is being built."
Vocabulary
Although the language is otherwise very similar to that current, there have in time developed a few "false friends" within the English language itself, rendering difficulty in understanding even the still-prestigious phrasing of the King James Bible. An example is the passage, "Suffer the little children"; meaning, "Permit ..." (this usage of the word "suffer" is still found in some dialects in formal circumstances; it is also the source of the word "sufferance").Development from Middle English
The change from Middle EnglishMiddle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
to Early Modern English was not just a matter of vocabulary or pronunciation changing: it was the beginning of a new era in the history of English.
An era of linguistic change in a language with large variations in dialect was replaced by a new era of a more standardized language with a richer lexicon and an established (and lasting) literature. Shakespeare's plays are familiar and comprehensible today, 400 years after they were written, but the works of Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
and William Langland
William Langland
William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman.- Life :The attribution of Piers to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin...
, written only 200 years earlier, are considerably more difficult for the average reader.
Timeline
- 1476 – William CaxtonWilliam CaxtonWilliam Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England...
starts printing in WestminsterWestminsterWestminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
; however, the language he uses reflects the variety of styles and dialects used by the authors who work the prints. - 1485 – Tudor dynastyTudor dynastyThe Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...
established; start of period of (relative) political and social stability. Caxton publishes Thomas MaloryThomas MalorySir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland as well as John Bale believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholars, beginning with G. L...
's Le Morte d'ArthurLe Morte d'ArthurLe Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...
, the first print bestseller in English. Malory's language, while archaic in some respects, is clearly Early Modern, possibly a Yorkshire or Midlands dialect. - 1491 or 1492 – Richard PynsonRichard PynsonRichard Pynson was one of the first printers of English books. The 500 books he printed were influential in the standardisation of the English language...
starts printing in London; his style tends to prefer Chancery Standard, the form of English used by government. - c. 1509 – Pynson becomes the king's official printer.
- From 1525 – Publication of William TyndaleWilliam TyndaleWilliam Tyndale was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther...
's Bible translation (which was initially banned). - 1539 – Publication of the Great BibleGreat BibleThe Great Bible was the first authorized edition of the Bible in English, authorized by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Sir Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry...
, the first officially authorised Bible in English, edited by Myles CoverdaleMyles CoverdaleMyles Coverdale was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English.-Life:...
, largely from the work of Tyndale. This Bible is read to congregations regularly in churches, familiarising much of the population of England with a standard form of the language. - 1549 – Publication of the first Book of Common PrayerBook of Common PrayerThe Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
in English under the supervision of Thomas CranmerThomas CranmerThomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
. This book standardises much of the wording of church services. Some have argued that, since attendance at prayer book services was required by law for many years, the repetitive use of the language of the prayer book helped to standardize modern English. - 1557 – Publication of Tottel's MiscellanyTottel's MiscellanySonges and Sonettes, usually called Tottel's Miscellany, was the first printed anthology of English poetry. It was published by Richard Tottel in 1557, and ran to many editions in the sixteenth century.-Richard Tottel:...
. - c. 1590 to c. 1612 – William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's plays written; they are still widely read and familiar in the 21st century. - 1607 - The first successful permanent English colony in the New World, JamestownJamestown, VirginiaJamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...
, is established in Virginia. The beginnings of American EnglishAmerican EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
. - 1611 – The King James Bible is published, largely based on Tyndale's translation. It remains the standard Bible in the Church of EnglandChurch of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
for many years. - c. 1640–1660 – Period of social upheaval in England (the English Civil WarEnglish Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
and the era of Oliver CromwellOliver CromwellOliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
). - 1651 – Publication of LeviathanLeviathan (book)Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil — commonly called simply Leviathan — is a book written by Thomas Hobbes and published in 1651. Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan...
by Thomas HobbesThomas HobbesThomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
. - 1662 – New edition of the Book of Common Prayer, largely based on the 1549 and subsequent editions. This also long remains a standard work in English.
- 1667 – Publication of Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
by John MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
.
Development to Modern English
The 17th century port towns (and their forms of speech) gained in influence over the old county towns. England experienced a new period of internal peace and relative stability, encouraging the arts including literature, from around the 1690s onwards. Another important episode in the development of the English language started around 1607: the English settlement of AmericaAmericas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
. By 1750, a distinct American dialect
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
of English had developed.
There are still elements of Early Modern English in some dialects. For example, thee and thou can still be heard in the Black Country
Black Country
The Black Country is a loosely defined area of the English West Midlands conurbation, to the north and west of Birmingham, and to the south and east of Wolverhampton. During the industrial revolution in the 19th century this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation...
, some parts of Yorkshire
Yorkshire dialect and accent
The Yorkshire dialect refers to the varieties of English used in the Northern England historic county of Yorkshire. Those varieties are often referred to as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke. The dialect has roots in older languages such as Old English and Old Norse; it should not be confused with modern slang...
and Dawley
Dawley
Dawley is a small town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. Today it forms part of the new town of Telford...
, Telford
Telford
Telford is a large new town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, approximately east of Shrewsbury, and west of Birmingham...
. The pronunciation of book, cook, look, etc. with a long [uː] can be heard in some areas of the North and the West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
. However, these are becoming less frequent with each generation.
See also
- Early Modern BritainEarly Modern BritainEarly modern Britain is the history of the island of Great Britain, roughly corresponding to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Major historical events in Early Modern British history include the English Renaissance, the English Reformation and Scottish Reformation, the English Civil War, the...
- Early Modern English literature
- History of the English languageHistory of the English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic invaders from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the...
- Inkhorn debate
- Elizabethan eraElizabethan eraThe Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
- Jacobean eraJacobean eraThe Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...
- Caroline eraCaroline eraThe Caroline era refers to the era in English and Scottish history during the Stuart period that coincided with the reign of Charles I , Carolus being Latin for Charles...
- English RenaissanceEnglish RenaissanceThe English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th and early 16th centuries to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century; like most of northern...
- Shakespeare's influenceShakespeare's influenceWilliam Shakespeare's influence extends from theatre and literature to present-day movies and the English language itself. Widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language, and the world's pre-eminent dramatist, Shakespeare transformed European theatre by expanding expectations about...
- Middle EnglishMiddle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
- Modern EnglishModern EnglishModern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
External links
- English Paleography Examples for the study of English handwriting from the 16th-18th centuries from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University