Saturday, August 13, 2011

Early Modern English

Early Modern English
Main article: Early Modern English

Modern English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shift, which took place mainly during the 15th century. English was further transformed by the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardising effect of printing. By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 15th - early 16th century),[9] the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published, the Table Alphabeticall.

English has continuously adopted foreign words, especially from Latin and Greek, since the Renaissance. (In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with the original inflections, but these eventually disappeared). As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country.

1 comment:

  1. For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_language

    ReplyDelete

Early Modern English

Early Modern English
Main article: Early Modern English

Modern English is often dated from the Great Vowel Shift, which took place mainly during the 15th century. English was further transformed by the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration and by the standardising effect of printing. By the time of William Shakespeare (mid 15th - early 16th century),[9] the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published, the Table Alphabeticall.

English has continuously adopted foreign words, especially from Latin and Greek, since the Renaissance. (In the 17th century, Latin words were often used with the original inflections, but these eventually disappeared). As there are many words from different languages and English spelling is variable, the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, most notably in the West Country.