1. Module (3)
The Development of English
Early Modern English

2. *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.

3. *The first edition of the King James Bible and
the works of William Shakespeare both
belong to the late phase of Early Modern
English.

4. *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 revival of classical scholarship brought
many classical Latin and Greek words
into the Language.

5. *Two other major factors influenced the
language and served to separate Middle and
Modern English.
1. The Great Vowel Shift
2. The invention of printing

6. The Great Vowel Shift
* This was a change in pronunciation that began around 1400.
* Long vowel sounds began to be made higher in the mouth
* The letter e at the end of words became silent.
* Examples:
1. Chaucer’s Lyf (pronounced /leef/) became the modern
word life.
2. name was pronounced /nam-a/
3. five was pronounced /feef/
4. down was pronounced /doon/.

7. The invention of printing
* William Caxton brought the printing press to England in 1476.
* Books became cheaper and as a result, literacy became more
common.
* The printing press brought standardization to English.
1. The dialect of London, where most publishing houses were
located, became the standard.
2. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the first English
dictionary was published in 1604.

8. Feature Change
Adjectives Adjectives lost all endings except for in the comparative and
superlative forms.
Pronouns The neuter pronoun it was first used as well as who as a relative
pronoun. The class distinctions between formal and informal
you were decreasing, so that today there is no difference
between them.
Verbs More strong verbs became weak and the third person singular
form became -(e)s instead of -(e)th.
Pronunciation The Great Vowel Shift (1400-1600) changed the pronunciation
of all the vowels.
Several consonants were no longer pronounced, but the spelling
system was in place before the consonant loss, so they are still
written in English today.

9. *Shakespeare's writings greatly influenced the entire
English language.
*Prior to and during Shakespeare's time, the grammar
and rules of English were not fixed.
*Once Shakespeare's plays became popular in the late
seventeenth and eighteenth century, they helped
contribute to the standardization of the English
language.

10. *Many familiar words and phrases were coined or first
recorded by Shakespeare, some 2,000 words and
countless catch-phrases are Shakespeare’s.
*Examples:
1. Catch-phrases: One fell swoop, vanish into thin
air, and flesh and blood
2. Words
critical, leapfrog, majestic, dwindle, and pedant.
*He expanded the scope of English literature by
introducing new words and phrases, experimenting
with blank verse, and also introducing new poetic and
grammatical structures.