1. Historical Linguistics
From Middle English to Early Modern English

2. Middle English  Early Modern English
1300s: All religious texts in England were in Latin
Bible
Mass
Most people didn’t understand Latin. Priest rang a bell during the important parts of Mass so people would pay attention.
Street performers did “Mystery Plays”—soap opera versions of Bible stories in English

3. Middle English  Early Modern English
1380s: People wanted a Bible to belong to them
Thomas Wycliff
Believed the church was corrupt
Translated the Bible from Latin to English
Hand-copied and distributed translations
Popularized regionalisms:
zeal, puberty, childbirth, envy, barbarian, birthday, communication, crime, dishonor, humanity, injury, madness, novelty, pollute, tramp, visitor
Kept some Latin words with no English equivalents
emperor, justice, city, cradle, angel, glory
Wycliff excommunicated, Bibles burned, but continued to be read in secret

4. Middle English  Early Modern English
Spellings not uniform throughout England—people sounded it out the way they talked.
Example: CHURCH
Kirk, kyrk, kyrke, kirke, kerk, kerc, kerke, churche, cherche, chirche, cherch, chyrch, cherge, chyrche, schyrche

5. Middle English  Early Modern English
1500 AD: Chancery: Public records office
Kept records in English
Had to be consistent with spellings
Spellings become uniform, don’t change
English becomes recognizable
XalSchallShall
RitheRight
HathHas
DothDoes
IcheI

6. Middle English  Early Modern English
Why doesn’t English make any sense?
“Mongrel” nature of English (many influences)
Workers at Chancery standardized “how it’s always been spelled” vs. how it sounds
Words with Latin roots given a “Latin look” (like “debt”)
“Rhyme” has a /y/ because “rhythm” does
Words were spelled how they sounded at the time, but the pronunciation changed (/l/ in “should” wasn’t silent)

7. Middle English  Early Modern English
Great vowel shift
Happened in 1400s, same time as Chancery was standardizing spelling
/oo//oh/ (stoon  stone)
/ee/  /i/ (weef  wife)
/eh/  ee (mete  meet)

8. Middle English  Early Modern English
1435 AD: The Gutenberg Press
Widespread distribution of books
Printers had to choose spellings from many regional pronunciations
Further standardized spellings

9. Middle English  Early Modern English
1530s: Henry VIII wants a divorce, splits from the Catholic church, creates the Church of England
Needed an English Bible to create separate identity
Used one that had been illegal previously
Popularized many words and sayings:
scapegoat, let there be light, the powers that be, my brother’s keeper, milk and honey, a man after my own heart, fight the good fight, the apple of my eye, sign of the times, beautiful, landlady, brokenhearted, fisherman, zealous, Jehovah, Passover

10. Early Modern English
By 1550, English is now the language of literature, the court, the legal system, and religion
English considered authorized by God

11. Early Modern English 1588: Queen Elizabeth I
Defeated the Spanish Armada
Opened up new trade routes
Brought in 10,000-12,000 new words from other languages

12. Early Modern English
Loanwords: Words brought from one language to another
From French: creue (crew), detail, passeport, progresse, moustache, explorer
From Spanish and Portuguese: embargo, tronada (tornado), canoa (canoe), port
From Dutch: kielhalen (keyhole), smokkelen (smuggle), jaghte (yacht), kruisen (cruise), reef, knapzak (knapsack), landschap (landscape); also swear words from sailors: fokkinge, krappe, bugger
From Italian: balcony, piazza, villa, miniature, design, opera, violin, solo
More than 50 other languages loaned new words

13. Early Modern English Around 1600: The Renaissance
Huge growth in scholarship and learning
Scholars needed to communicate with scholars in other countries, so revived Latin as common language
Needed new words for scientific discoveries and philosophical terms
Old Latin words became part of English lexicon
excavate, horrid, cautionary, pungent, submerge, specimen, manuscript, atmosphere, chaos, critic, paradox, eternal, chronology, technique, skeleton, tendon, larynx, temperature, parasites, pneumonia, thermometer

14. Early Modern English Some words came from Latin that we don’t use:
nidulate—to build a nest
electrobus—delicat
deruncinate—to weed
absygify—to cleanse
latirate—to bark like a dog
expede—opposite of impede

15. Early Modern English The theatre’s influence on language
Shakespeare, Marlowe, Johnson, Webster, etc.
Theatres held people
Half the people in London saw any given play
Everyone in London went to the theatre
Had to include language for common people and rich people
Common people heard aristocratic words; rich people heard slang
Here’s what Shakespeare’s English would have sounded like

16. Early Modern English
Shakespeare’s language exported to other countries and around England
Shakespeare invented 2000 words (or recorded them for the first time)
Shakespeare’s vocabulary was 21,000 words
Gave words to new thoughts: “To thine own self be true”
What is the nature of personal identity?