Early New English

Early New English
Period	approx. 1500 AD – 1700 AD
Formerly spoken in	England, Southern Scotland, Ireland, Wales, British Colonies
Linguistic ; classification	Indo-European languages Germanic languages West Germanic languages Early New English ;
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	en (for New English from 1500)
ISO 639 -2	narrow (for New English from 1500)
ISO 639-3	narrow (for New English from 1500)

Early Modern English (Frnengl., Frne., Eng. Early Modern English ) is a historical language level of the English language as it was about talking between the years 1500 and 1700 and is thus an intermediate stage between the medieval Middle English and Modern English . Early New English is the language of the playwright William Shakespeare and the King James Bible translation .

The Early New English Period is a transitional phase. Many developments that began during Middle English continue in Early New English, such as: B. the increasing preference for the sequence subject-verb-object (SVO) in sentence structure and the loss of inflections.

The most dramatic changes during the early New English period, however, took place in pronunciation and vocabulary: Due to the early New English vowel shift ( Great Vowel Shift ), English is largely approximating to today's pronunciation. While it would be difficult for a current speaker of English to understand the pronunciation of Geoffrey Chaucer's Middle English texts without further prior knowledge, William Shakespeare's early New English pronunciation is already close to today's English. Thousands of new words also found their way into English in the early modern English period.

The beginning of the early New English period is usually set around the year 1500, because on the one hand the early New English vowel shift began around this time, which was to fundamentally change the pronunciation of English. On the other hand, historical events occurred around this time, such as the establishment of the first printing press in England by William Caxton ( 1476 ), as a result of which the grammar and spelling of English became increasingly standardized. The end of the Early New English period is set around 1700 because many changes in the pronunciation and spelling of English were completed by that time.

Historical background

William Caxton shows King Edward IV a print

By around 1500, the end of the Middle English period, English had regained its place as the language of the upper classes, parliament and the judiciary, replacing the previously dominant French of the Norman upper class. However, Latin was still the language of scientists and scholars around 1500. From 1500, many scholars began to increasingly write their texts in English. They responded to the thirst for education of a growing middle class, who had literacy skills and a basic education through attending grammar schools . With the introduction of the printing press in England by William Caxton, books became affordable to larger parts of English society.

During the Middle English period, however, the English language was mainly a language of the common people and had large linguistic gaps, especially in the field of science: There were only Latin expressions for many expressions from medicine and natural science, but no English equivalents. In addition, there was the rediscovery of classical philosophers that went hand in hand with the Renaissance , as well as new inventions and discoveries, for which terms in English were also used.

Authors who wrote in English were usually aware of these deficits and tried to compensate for the gaps in the English language either by creating their own words or by borrowing from Latin and other European languages. The expansion of the English vocabulary, especially through borrowings from Latin, was controversial at the beginning of the early New English period ( inkhorn controversy ). While some authors advocated the adoption of Latin words to enrich English vocabulary, others criticized the overuse of Latin loanwords as a tendency to exaggerate one's scholarship. Terms that were only used for the sake of the visual effect were also referred to in this context as inkhorn terms . Despite this criticism, the extensive expansion of the English vocabulary through Latin loanwords could not be stopped. By 1600 the debate about inkhorn terms was largely over and loan words were accepted.

The introduction of letterpress printing in England also led to the development of standardized orthography. During the Middle English period there were regionally different variants of the spelling, because many documents were only used regionally; there was no need for a national standard. With the spread of printed works, a more uniform spelling slowly gained acceptance.

Phonetics and Phonology

Vowels

Early New English vowel shift

The most significant change in pronunciation is the Great Vowel Shift , the early New English vowel shift . The term Great Vowel Shift was coined by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen . With the vowel shift, all long vowels moved higher and took the place of the closest long vowel. So / e: / and / o: / were now realized as [i:] and [u:] through the vowel shift. This can still be seen in the spelling of meet and food , which have been pronounced since early New English [mi: t] and [fu: d], while the spelling with <ee> and <oo> still reflects the Middle English pronunciation. The high, closed vowels / i: / and / u: / became diphthongs / ai / and / au /. Middle English [hu: s] ( house ) becomes early New English [house].

The reasons for this change are not fully understood. A speculative thesis is that the upper class wanted to differentiate itself from the lower strata of the population through a different pronunciation, after French ceased to be the language of the upper class. The Great Vowel Shift , however, is not an England-wide change; especially in northern English dialects, only the diphthongization of the closed vowels took place.

Consonants

Around 1500, Early New English included all consonants that are also used in modern English today, with the exception of / ŋ / and / ʒ /. / ŋ / was an allophone of / n / up to 1600, which appeared in the position before / g / until the combination / ŋg / was simplified to 1600 to in word-final position as in words like sing to / ŋ /. The second new consonant phoneme, / ʒ /, developed around 1700 from the combination / zj / in words like vision .

Changes can also be seen in the pronunciation of consonants . During the early New English phase, initial consonant clusters were often simplified : For example, / kn / the / k / was dropped in the cluster. Furthermore, the phoneme / x / (with its allophone / ç /; German: <ch>) was dropped or, due to various developments, coincided with several other phonemes. The changes in phonetics can be clearly illustrated using the example of the word “knight” ( Eng . Knight , “servant”): from Middle English / knɪçt / became / nait / at the end of the early New English phase.

grammar

Early New English is a transition phase between Middle English and modern English (New English). Many developments in grammar that were already apparent during the Middle English period continued into the early New English period.

Flexion

The loss of inflections that had already begun in Middle English continued in Early New English: At the beginning of the Early New English phase, the English verb had the ending - (e) st for the second person singular: thou walk (e) st , thou sayest , thou hast instead New English you walk , you say , you have . At the end of the early New English period, the personal pronoun thou was hardly used anymore, with which - (e) st as a verb ending of the 2nd person singular present tense ( thou sayest ) disappeared.

At the beginning of the Early New English period, it was also possible to choose between the endings -s ( he says ) and -eth ( he sayeth ) in the 3rd person singular present tense . -eth became rarer in the course of Early New English until it was completely replaced by -s . The tendency to form - s preferable began in northern England and spread to the south.

There was even more variation in the adjectives in Early New English than is possible with adjectives in Modern English: In Early New English, different forms of the comparative and superlative are possible. bigger, more big or more bigger or the biggest , the most big or the most biggest .

pronoun

An important change is the development of the 2nd person personal pronoun , thou . In Middle English and at the beginning of the Early New English period, thou (dative / accusative: thee ) denoted the singular form (dt. Du ), ye (dated / akk. You ) the plural form (dt. You ). Around 1600, in the middle of the Early New English period, the usage changed so that you could be used in the singular as well as in the plural, but only as a form of politeness : you were used to address each other in the upper class, or people in the lower class spoke to higher-ups you at. Higher ones addressed lower ones with thou ; thou was also the usual form of address within the lower social classes. Furthermore, thou could also be used to express confidentiality, e.g. B. between lovers in Shakespeare's comedies. Around 1700, towards the end of the Early New English period, thou fell away. It was only preserved as a second person singular in religious contexts, for example in the Our Father and in English Bible versions, and as a deliberately archaic form as a stylistic device in literature.

syntax

The syntax in Early New English is essentially the same as the syntax of today's English, with the following differences:

Sentence structure : In contrast to today's English, the sentence structure at the beginning of the early New English phase was not as restrictive, but less flexible than the sentence structure in Old and Middle English. The order of subject-verb-object (SVO) was the most frequent sentence position in declarative sentences. Constructions such as verb-subject or adverb-verb-subject were still common in the 16th century, but became less common in the 17th century:

Now comes in the sweetest Morsell of the night (Shakespeare, Henry IV., Part 2)

Verb phrase : Most important is probably the introduction of do as an auxiliary verb ; initially only as an emphasis in positive sentence constructions, in the 17th century also in negative sentences. The use of do in questions then only followed in modern English in the 18th century.

Modal verbs : The following modal verbs were used in Early New English , each of which had a form in both the present and the past tense : can / could , dare / durst , may / might , shall / should , will / would . As individual forms without past tense there was must , need , ought and poetic list . The form mot (e) , originally the presence form of moste / must, disappeared in the early 16th century. Some of the modal verbs had a slightly different meaning in Early New English, so the modal verb can today can also be used for permission ( you can use my pen ), which was not possible in Early New English. In contrast to modern English, the modal verbs in Early New English could also be used without an accompanying verb, but this use was limited to the description of movement:

I must to Couentree (= I must go to Coventry ) (Shakespeare, Richard II.)

Noun phrase : The noun phrase essentially corresponds to today's noun phrase; At the beginning of Early New English it was possible to put two pronouns in front of a noun , ie a demonstrative pronoun and a possessive pronoun , e.g. B. this my father . However, this was soon abandoned in favor of of designs.

Negation : In Middle English and at the beginning of the Early New English period, double negations ( I will not give him no meat ) were common. Due to the influence of rationalism at the end of the 17th century, such constructions were outlawed as illogical.

Vocabulary and word formation

Expansion of the vocabulary

During the early New English period, English vocabulary changed dramatically. In order to meet the increased need for specialist terms for science, research, technology, art, culture and philosophy in the Renaissance , a large number of words were borrowed from other languages. Some estimates assume around 12,000 words that found their way into the English language in the early modern English period alone. The most important source of loanwords was Latin , but also classical Greek and European languages such as French , Spanish and Italian . Among the loanwords that are still in English in use today, including atmosphere , disability , experiment , insane , exist and meditate . Greek words that found their way into English either directly or through Latin are e.g. B. chaos , climax or lexicon . Examples of loan words from European languages are entrance , essay (from French), balcony , violin (from Italian) and tobacco (from Spanish).

Some words were taken over unchanged (e.g. climax ), with others the Latin ending was removed ( consult-are ) or changed (- tas becomes - ty ). In many cases, the Latin term has been adopted into the English language indirectly through French. It is not always possible to understand the path of borrowing today. While fact clearly derives from the Latin factum and not from the French fait , consist and explore could come from either the Latin or the French.

Not all of the words that were used as loanwords in Early New English stayed in the English language permanently. Words like uncounsellable disappeared again, other words like attemptate were given up in favor of competing forms ( attempt ).

Most of the words that supplemented the English vocabulary came from other languages. However, there were also attempts, among others by the purists who refused borrowings from other languages, to form new words with the means of the English language: Formation of new words with the help of the English word formation rules such as sunshiny (from sunshine + y ), new coining of their own (like blatant ), reviving outdated vocabulary (like doom ) or using dialect expressions. The English language owes many new forms to the poet Edmund Spenser . Examples of neologisms that are still used today are belt , glance , enshrine, and witless .

Word formation

The word formation process of Early New English essentially corresponds to the word formation in modern English:

Composition : New words are created by combining two existing words. Composition was already a frequently used word formation method in Old English, and it is also frequently used in Early New English (e.g. mouth-honor in Shakespeare's Macbeth, cf. German lip service ).
Conversion : Conversion, the formation of a new word by changing the word class ( invoice > to invoice ), already existed in earlier language levels. In Early New English it was used particularly frequently and with few restrictions. B. Edmund Spenser's nominalizations ( the adorn , the detain ) or Thomas Nashe's verb derivatives ( to exception , to remembrance ).
Affigation : In Early New English, a number of Latin and Greek suffixes and prefixes were incorporated into the language, e.g. B. - ize or - ate .

Change of meaning

The vocabulary of English has also changed in meaning :

Generalization: e.g. B. the use of the word humor was limited to Aristotle's theory of substance ; in early New English it was expanded to include today's concept of humor .
Specialization: e.g. B. The word meat in Middle English and at the beginning of Early New English meant any form of food; in the 17th century its use was restricted to the designation of meat.

Orthography and alphabet

Beginning of William Shakespeare's sonnet 132 from the 1609 fouro edition

orthography

At the beginning of the early New English period there was still great regional and individual variation in the spelling. B. New English enough written in early New English ynough (e), enoff, yenough, eno ', enouch, enufe,… . As a result of the early New English vowel shift, the pronunciation of English changed significantly, while the spelling remained on the level of Middle English. Additional confusion arose from the introduction of additional, silent letters such as B. in debt or doubt in analogy to the Latin debitum and dubitare .

There were various attempts in the early modern English period to standardize the spelling of English more strongly. In 1568, for example, Thomas Smith published a proposal for a spelling reform under the title Dialogue Concerning the Correct and Emdended Writing of the English Language , which would bring the spelling closer to the pronunciation of English, which, however, received little attention. Further proposals for a spelling reform came from John Hart (1570), William Bullokar (1580) and Richard Mulcaster (1582). Although none of the proposed new spellings could prevail, the spelling of English became increasingly uniform and was approaching its present form as early as 1650. A complete standardization of orthography and grammar was then reserved for the period of modern English, e.g. B. by Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755).

alphabet

The Early New English alphabet corresponded to the modern English alphabet, with the following differences:

In Early New English there were two possible letters ( allographs ) for s-sounds , which were used depending on their position in the word: Round s was used in the end of the word and at the beginning of the word if it was a capital letter. Long s (“ſ”) was used in all other positions, e.g. B. Speake ſirs (= "Speak, sirs").
In modern English, the letters <v> and stand for a consonant and a vowel. In Early New English the use of <v> and was determined by the position in the word: for example, <v> was used at the beginning of a word, in the middle. The first text example can be found in 1635 in which <v> was used for the consonant / v / and for the vowel.
The letter <j> was not used at the beginning of Early New English; it first appeared around 1630. Words like Jew or Jack were previously Iew or Jack wrote.

Text samples

The Lord's Prayer in early New English

Our father, which art in heaven. Hallowed be your name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, in Earth, as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that sin against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen

Excerpt from Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (ca.1470)

Thenne after the seruyse was done / the kyng Wold wete how many had vndertake the queste of the holy graylle / and to accompte them he prayed them all / Thenne fond they by the tale and honderd and fyfty / and alle were knygthes of the table round .

( Then after the service was done, the King wished to know how many had undertaken the quest of the holy grale, and to count them, he prayed them all, then found them by the count a hundred and fifty and all were knights of the round table. )

Excerpt from The Arte of Rhetorique by Thomas Wilson (1553)

The misticall wise menne, and Poeticall Clerkes, will speake nothyng but quaint proverbes, and blynd allegories, delityng muche in their awne darknesse, especially, when none can tell what thei dooe saie. The unlearned or foolishe phantasticall, that smelles but of learnyng (such felowes as have seen men in their daies) will so latine their tongues, that the simple cannot but wonder at their talke, and thynke surely thei speake by some Revelacion.

( The mystical wise men, and Poetical Clerks, will speak nothing but cunning proverbs, and blind allegories, delighting much in their own darkness, especially, when none can tell what they do say. The unlearned or foolish fantastic, that smells but of learning (such fellows as have seen men in their days) will so latinize their tongues, that one simply cannot but wonder at their talk and think surely they speak by some revelation. )