From Middle to Modern English Tempe Public Library, 1 November 2016, Elly van Gelderen
1. Early Modern English One characteristic of this period is that carpe diem ('celebrate the day') replaces the medieval memento mori ('remember that you will die'). The Renaissance is a time of freedom of ideas; for language that means freedom in creating and borrowing words. During the Renaissance, English continues to become more analytic although the large number of Latin words make it synthetic as well. A number of events took place at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries that make 1500 an appropriate date for the start of Early Modern English: in 1476 Caxton introduced the printing press to England and made texts available to a wider group of people, and in 1492 Columbus reached the 'New World'.
2. Printing and authors In fewer than 200 years after the introduction of the printing press, between 1476 and 1640, 20,000 titles were printed in English (Baugh & Cable 2002: 201). Throughout Europe, 100,000 titles appeared during the first 100 years of printing (Hirsch 1967). The print run of a book might be 200 or a 100 times that. As for the types of books printed, the estimates are that 45% were theological in nature, 36% literary, 11% legal, and 8.5% scientific (Lenhart 1935). Caxton chose to print texts such as Chaucer and Malory (see Blake 1969) that he thought would appeal to an aristocratic public. Elizabeth I (1533‐1603) Edmund Spenser (1552‐1599) Walter Ralegh (1552‐1618) Philip Sidney (1554‐1586) John Lyly (1554‐1606) Thomas Kyd (1558‐1594) Francis Bacon (1561‐1626) Christopher Marlowe (1564‐1593) William Shakespeare (1564‐1616) Thomas Dekker (1570‐1632) Cyril Tourneur (1570/80‐1626) Ben Jonson (1572‐1637) John Donne (1572‐1631) John Fletcher (1579‐1625) John Webster (1580‐1625) Thomas Middleton (1580‐1627) Philip Massinger (1583‐1639) Francis Beaumont (1584‐1616) John Ford (1586‐1640) John Milton (1608‐1674) Margaret Cavendish (1623‐1673), John Bunyan (1628‐1688) John Dryden (1631‐1700) Samuel Pepys (1633‐1703) Aphra Behn (1640‐1689) Table 1: Early Modern English authors, in chronological order
QUESTION What’s the difference between a folio and quarto?
3. The Great Vowel Shift
i u aj aw e o
E o A Figure 1: The GVS from 1400‐1700 The vowels yet to be shifted in Shakespeare can be heard in words such as seate and sea, pronounced with an [e] where Modern English has [i]. The sound spelled ea is pronounced [E] in Middle English, and it raises to [e] around 1600 and to [i] around 1700. This [e] pronunciation of sea(te) in (1) shows the GVS was not complete by Shakespeare's time. In Shakespeare's English, see and sea are therefore pronounced differently: the former has already shifted to [i], in accordance with the GVS, but the latter has not and is pronounced more like [e]. The [o] in stone and moate in (1) sounds different in Early Modern and Modern English as well. (1) Shakespeare ‐ Richard II This royall Throne of Kings, this sceptred Isle, This earth of Maiesty, this seate of Mars, This other Eden, demy paradise, This Fortresse built by Nature for her selfe, Against infection, and the hand of warre: 5 This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone, set in the siluer sea, Which serues it in the office of a wall, Or as a Moate defensiue to a house, Against the enuy of lesse happier Lands, 10 This blessed plot, this earth, this Realme, this England, This Nurse, this teeming wombe of Royall Kings, Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their birth, Renowned for their deeds, as farre from home, For Christian seruice, and true Chiualrie, 15 As is the sepulcher in stubborne {Iury} Of the Worlds ransome, blessed {Maries} Sonne. This Land of such deere soules, this deere ‐ deere Land, Deere for her reputation through the world, Is now Leas'd out (I dye pronouncing it) 20 Like to a Tenement or pelting Farme. England bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beates backe the enuious siedge Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With Inky blottes, and rotten Parchment bonds. 25 That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shamefull conquest of it selfe. Ah! would the scandall vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death? (II, i)
spelling 1400 1500 1600 1700 ModE ______i (ice) i ej j aj aj ee (meet) e i i i i ea (meat/great) ej i/ej i/ej a (ace) a a> ej ej ou (out) u ow ow aw aw oo (boot) o u u u u oa (boat) oa oa o ow ow Table 2: Dates of GVS changes
Once one vowel shifts, we know that speakers tend to repair that by having other vowels occupy that empty space but what starts it? Fennell (2001: 159ff.) thinks a social reason can be given for the start of the shift. This view is based on Dobson (1957) who discusses the struggle between the [i] and [e] pronunciations in sea, great, meat, and break. The 'polite' pronunciation was the one with [e], similar to the words in (3); ultimately the less polite one won in the majority of cases, as (2) shows. (2) sea, neat, clean, fear, read, teach, leave, eat, weak, meaning, meat (3) steak, great, yea, break, Reagan, Yeats Names often retain the old pronunciation: Reagan and Yeats have the old pronunciation, and Beatty is pronounced both ways. But the story is not finished. Gjertrud Stenbrenden (2012) concludes that the GVS started earlier than when the handbooks and textbooks claim, and that it overlaps with other vowel changes that previously had been presumed to have been finished by the time the GVS started. So, this shift is a much more continuous process than what has been assumed previously and we can therefore expect more work on this. Evidence There is rhyming evidence, e.g. raisin and reason rhyme. In his 1633 grammar, Charles Butler published a list of homophones (different words with the same pronunciation) and Richard Hodges provided more in 1643 (see Dobson 1957: 396 ff.). Apart from rhyming evidence, there are also many grammars. A grammar for Dutch learners of English, for instance, lists ea as pronounced [e] as late as 1646 (Dobson 1957: 379). 4. Changes in the language Singular Plural 1 2 3 1 2 3 ______NOM I you she, he, (h)it we you they (ye(e), thou) (ye) GEN my/mine your/s her/s, his, his our/s your/s their/s (thy/thine) ACC me you her, him, hit/him us you them (thee) Table 3: Early Modern English pronouns (4) Queen Thou hast thy Father much offended. Hamlet Mother, you haue my Father much offended. Queen Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Hamlet Go, go, you question with an idle tongue.
`Mistakes’ (5) all debts are cleerd between you and I (Merchant of Venice III, 2, 321) (6) So sawcy with the hand of she heere (Anthony & Cleopatra III, 13, 98) (7) you have seene Cassio and she together (Othello IV, 2, 3) (8) let nothing fail of all that thou has spoken (Esther 6) (9) Both death and I am one. (As You Like It I, 3, 99) (10) Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul ... (I Henry IV I, ii, 115)
Starting around 1600, most verbal endings are left out in writing; the third person verbal ending may no longer have been pronounced ‐th long before that. Forms in ‐th rhyme with forms in –s: in 1643, Richard Hodges mentions that boughs and boweth are the same. Shakespeare no longer uses third person ‐th endings on verbs, except for hath and doth, and even those disappear after 1600 (Taylor 1972; 1976). Lexical verbs, as in (11), mostly have the ‐s ending: there are 29 instances of appeares and two of appeareth in F1. (11) it appeares no other thing to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation of va‐pours (Hamlet II, 2, 315) Some texts keep the archaic endings. (12) King James Version ‐ 1611 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (KJV, Genesis 3) (13) The hay appeareth and the tender grass sheweth itself. (KJV, Proverbs 27)
Adjectives: (14) This was the most vnkindest cut of all. (Julius Caesar III, II, 181) (15) for the more better assurance (Midsummer Night's Dream III, i, 21) (16) the worsser welcome (Othello I, i, 94) (17) that loues thee better then he could. (Richard 3 I, ii, 141) (18) better then him I am. (As you like it I, i, 43) Adverbs: (19) and haste thee quick away. (Measure for Measure IV, i, 7) (20) A man may sit as quiet in hell, as in a sanctuary. (Much Ado about Nothing II, i, 266) Verbs and dummy `do’ (21) And his great Loue ... hath holp him. (Macbeth I, vi, 23) (22) They shaked their heads. (KJV, Psalm 109.25, from Partridge 1973: 126) (23) Do you not heare him? (Tempest, Appendix B) (24) A heauie heart beares not a humble tongue. (LLL V, ii, 747) Conversion: (25) Grace me no Grace, nor Vnckle me (Richard 2 II, iii, 78) (26) Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hugge (Timon I, i, 44)
a. Who I made Lord of me (F1) > b. Whom I made Lord of me (F2, Comedy of Errors V, i, 137) a. To who, my Lord? (F1) > b. To whom my Lord? (F2, 3 Henry 6 II, ii, 112) a. Contempt and beggery hangs vpon thy backe! (F1) > b. Contempt and beggery hang on thy backe! (F2, Romeo & Juliet V, i, 71)
Table 4: Attempts to clean up Shakespeare
5. The Inkhorn Debate Some estimate that between 1500 and 1660 nearly 27,000 new words enter the language (Garner 1982: 151; Wermser 1976: 23), even though Baugh and Cable (2002: 233) put the number of loans at 10,000. Görlach (1991: 136) says that the period between 1530 and 1660 "exhibits the fastest growth of the vocabulary in the history of the English language." Half of the neologisms are probably loans, such as the ones in (27a), and half are new words (sometimes made up from Latin or Greek models), such as in (27b). (27) a. anachronism, disability, expectation, folio, delirium, atmosphere, pneumonia b. episcopal, blatant, disaccustom, effectful, urban, urge Cheke coins mooned `lunatic’ and foresayer `prophet’ and Spenser belt, elfin, dapper, glee, grovel, gloomy, and witless (Baugh & Cable 2002: 230‐1). 1505: bleat, bloomed, bogle, bounder, brat, brawned, bumbard, choice, chop, harbour, importance, mose, prisage, stud, timber‐tree, toque, varnishing, verditer, younker 1605: abhorrency, acoustic, anagrammatical, assassination, bemonster, botch, chemistry, disknow, emancipate, flippant, hot‐brain, masterpiece, long‐necked, Norwegian, Roman Catholic, resent, syntax, unchild, whimsy Table 5: All of the new words for the year 1505 and some for 1605 Not all of the new words survive into Modern English. Some of my favorite rejected words are listed in: (28) adminiculation 'aid', anacephalize 'to summarize', eximious 'excellent', illecebrous 'alluring', ingent 'immense', and honorificabilitudinitatibus.
John Cheke is a fierce opponent of new words and comes up with his own terms, mooned for lunatic and foresayer for prophet, as mentioned earlier. In 1557, he wrote:
(29) I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borrowing of other tunges, wherin if we take not heed by tijm, ever borrowing and never payeng, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt. (Baugh & Cable 2002: 217)
QUESTION Is he consistent?
Latinate vs English: (30) a. re‐, trans‐, anti‐, macro‐, micro‐, meta, pro‐, contra‐, extra‐, ultra‐, vice‐, ex‐. b. out‐, in‐, up‐, down‐, under‐, over Some authors, such as Shakespeare, are not concerned about hybrids. Garner (1983: 231‐33) counts 107 hybrids in Shakespeare: out‐villain, fore‐advise, under‐honest, which have English prefixes and Latin words, and renew, ingrateful, and trans‐shape, which have Latin prefixes and English words. The KJV, in comparison, has only 7 such hybrids, and they are 'old' hybrids, coined in the 13th and 14th centuries. Other languages: (31) amateur, avenue, ballet, bankrupt, bigot, brochure, camouflage, cheque/check, essay, etiquette, menu, shock, ticket (32) balcony, granite, grotto, stucco, volcano; allegro, duo, concerto, fugue, madrigal, opera, stanza, violin (33) barbecue, canoe, cigar, cocoa, maize, potato, sherry, tobacco, tomato Until the 1650s, there is much debate on vocabulary and spelling, and English is technically without a standard, i.e. the language of one social or regional group that is typically taught in schools and used in official circles. The centuries that follow impose many restrictions on linguistic freedoms and the need for an Academy is debated. Authorship debates: # of lines Latinisms Latinisms 4‐5 syllable per line word Elegye 578 870 1.51 78 Cymbeline 555 538 0.97 19 Winter's Tale 472 503 1.07 13 Tempest 502 552 1.09 17 Table 6: Latinate and polysyllabic words in different works (adapted from Vickers 2002: 78). Compositor B (e.g. nn4v‐nn5v; oo5v): ha's, has, and hath Compositor I (e.g. nn6‐nn6v; oo1v‐oo2): ha's, and hath Compositor E (e.g. pp5‐pp5v): ha's, has, and hath. Table 8: Compositors and the spelling of has in Hamlet
QUESTION There seems to be a relationship between sure and secure; construe and construct; poor and pauper; and ray and radius. What might be the reason there are such pairs?
6. From Early Modern to Modern The Enlightenment is an 18th century movement characterized by reliance on science and reason and concern for humanity. It may be considered responsible for certain social and political changes towards the end of the 18th century: American Independence (1776), the French Revolution (1789), and the abolition of slave trade by the British Parliament (1807). However, Romanticism, a 19th century movement with an emphasis on nations and peoples may also have stimulated those changes. Romanticism is a philosophical and literary movement at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century that emphasizes a subjective approach to topics such as nature, mysticism, dreams, and emotions. In many respects, it is a reaction to the rational ideas of the Enlightenment even though it also builds on them. The 19th century is characterized by the Industrial Revolution which transforms a (mainly) agricultural society into an industrial one and can be said to start in limited ways after 1700. It is characterized by an increased use of machines and factories as well as urbanization. English Imperialism is at its height during the reign of Victoria (1819‐1901). We will see that both Industrialism and Imperialism lead to many linguistic changes. The 20th century is characterized by revolutions in art (e.g. Cubism, Surrealism, (Abstract) Expressionism, Minimalism, Outsider Art, and Performance Art), many wars, and many technological and medical advances as well as changes in political and social ideas (the anti‐communism of the 1950s, the civil liberties movement of the 1960s, and the anti‐Vietnam movement of the 1970s in the United States). The last part of the 20th and early parts of the 21st century are categorized as a Post‐Industrial Society because the service industries are more important than the manufacturing ones. These changes lead to the introduction of many new words. Medicine/health: appendicitis, clinic, radiotherapy, HIV, AIDS, aspirin, insulin, hormones. MRI, PET, vaccine, cholesterol, superbug, ADD, ADHD, OCD, holistic medicine Science: electrode, biochemical, DNA, relativity theory, radiation, fractals, atom bomb, UV rays, quark, bubble chamber, boson, lepton, Higgs particle, string theory, exoplanet, rogue planet, pulsar, sustainability Psychology: Freudian, Jungian, psychotherapy, shock therapy, multiple personality, behaviorism, closure, ego, fixation, gestalt, IQ, REM, Rorschach test, Type A personality, nerd, geek, narcotizing dysfunction Communication: TV, radio, gonzo journalism, computer, internet, google, facebook, mouse, chip, bookmark, commercial, CD, DVD, GPS, tweet, twitter, blog, admeister, air mouse, bloatware, Transport: locomotive, helicopter, train, automobile, shuttle, airplane, cruise control, garage, sunroof, SUV, ATV, public/mass transport Linguistics: nativism, phoneme, transformational grammar, polysynthetic, minimalism, optimality Military: blitzkrieg, tank, agent orange, WMD, embedded journalism Philosophy: existentialist, rationalist, postmodern Art/music/literature: impressionist, outsider art, disco, rap, hip-hop, extra-terrestrial, intersectionality Politics: emancipation, Watergate, human rights, Cold War, banana republic, junta, cold war, police state, chads Economics: creative book-keeping, demerger, buy-out, commodification, e-bubble, green-collar (various meanings), McMansion, upcycling Recreation: biathlon, clap scate, frisbee, hapkido, heli-skiing, hoolivan (to observe hooligans), eco-tourism, geocaching, galactico (soccer superstar), snowskate Food: functional food, virtual bar, wrap, soupie, smart drink, peanut-free zone, personal chef, energy drink, disco biscuit, McVegan Table 9: New words by specialization a. loans from other languages: angst, kitsch, zeitgeist, weltanschauung, zeitgeist, lebensraum, schadenfreude, wanderlust, kindergarden, jungle, pajamas/pyjamas, polo, pasta, broccoli, zucchini, mensch, bête noire, fait accompli, haboob (duststorm) b. new compounds or phrases: skydiving, acid rain, junkfood, green butcher (one that sells free range meat), a wedding wedding (a very extravagant wedding), bamboo ceiling c. new affixes: postmodern, prewoman, proto-Nostratic, counterrevolution, pseudo-metarule, ex-ex-husband (divorced and then remarried), super-awesome d. clippings, mergers, and inventions: decaf, motel, fridge(idaire), phys-ed, ad(vertisement), blog, dancercise, boycott, quizling, popemobile, bookmobile, camcorder, talkathon, smog, slumlord, simulcast, netspeak, netglish (internet English), veggie-burger, block-buster, crime-buster, bikaholic, chocaholic, workaholic, hacktivist, faction (blending fact and fiction) e. phrase words: hit-and-run drivers, a nobody-cares attitude, a larger-than-life problem, a so-not-cool situation, so-out-of-the-loop f. conversion: to impact (N to V), to fax (N to V), a show-off (V to N), play-off (N to V), to teach-in (N to V), the Ancients (Adj to N), to empty (Adj to V) g. slang: rip-off, pizzazz, crap, grody to the max (from the 1970s), depresso city h. acronyms and initialisms: laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation), SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle), ATM (Automatic Teller Machine), HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), VD (Venereal Disease), ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), LOL (Laughing out loud), FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) i. retronym: acoustic guitar, paper copy, landline phone, film camera j. onomatopoeia: tweet, twitter Table 10: New sources of vocabulary 1940: borscht belt, clochard, intercom, male chauvinist, Okinawan, panzer, paratroops, Picassian, Quisling, roadblock, sitzkrieg, superbomb, superconduction, West Nile virus 1950: apparat, bonsai, brainwashing, encrypt, fall-out, geekish, hi-fi, information theory, lateralization, LSD, McCarthyism, moving target, napalm(ing), open-heart, Orwellian, psychometrician, yellowcake, to zonk 1960: bionics, breathalyzer, Castroism, dullsville, dumbo, kook, to market test, minivan, nerdy, over-inhibition, reportability, software 1970: biofeedback, citizen advocacy, detox, herstory, humongous, minidisk, offroading, post- structural, yucky 1980: ecofeminism, to download, mega-rich, neohippie, neopunk, non-veg, power dressing, Reaganomics, waitperson, what's-her-face 1990: bi-curious, cringeworthy, DWEM (Dead White European Male), emoticon, feminazi, greenwashing, nanostructured, Nostraticist, soap-dodger 2000: blue state, chip and pin, geocach(er), hawaladar, machinima, metamaterial, Sudoku, to bling Table 11: New words for 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000
7. Conclusion How has English changed?
Figure 2: A linguistic Cycle
What does the future look like?