When English Became Latin

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim William Machan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
English Language ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Gradual Change ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
The Third ◽  
Vowel Shift ◽  
Social Uses

The English language, at all grammatical levels, underwent a profound, albeit gradual, change between 1377 and 1642. These phonological changes include the Great Vowel Shift and the change in inflectional morphology. This article examines the transition from Middle English to Modern English and how English became Latin. It considers the retention of what might be called England’s sociolinguistic infrastructure, alongside a wide-ranging reconfiguration of English’s grammar and social uses. It discusses three unfamiliar constancies that characterize the decisive shift in the English language between the medieval and early modern epochs: the first involved the object of grammatical inquiry in early modern England, the second concerned the character of England’s linguistic repertoire of which diglossia was the notable organizing principle, and the third relates to the cultural significance that English was understood to project as an emerging High Language.

Extracurricular Economy

2019 ◽  
pp. 14-54
Author(s):  
John Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Educational Provision ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Language Teaching And Learning ◽  
Prestige Language

This chapter looks at the vibrant economy of language teaching and learning in early modern England. The period witnessed a boom in both autodidacticism and private educational provision. Language teaching was central to a vibrant urban ‘extracurricular economy’. New spaces, schools, and teachers reshaped the educational landscape. Working within an economy of reputation, skill, and prestige, language teachers advertised their services and attracted students through a mixture of their presence in print, networks of contacts, and claims of pedagogical skill and linguistic prestige. In doing so, these teachers—particularly teachers of French—contributed to new ways of thinking about the English language itself. New perspectives on the places, people, and practices of this extracurricular economy ultimately demand that we rethink the concept of an early modern ‘educational revolution’.

John Algeo (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 6: English in North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xxxii, 625. Hb. $120.00.

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 741-744
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
English Language ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
General Editor ◽  
Final Volume ◽  
History Of ◽  
Traditional Paradigm

This is the sixth and presumably final volume in an ambitious series. The first four volumes were distinguished chronologically according to the traditional paradigm for the history of English: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Present Day English. The other two volumes are organized geographically. Volume 5 examined English outside England in most of the expected places (e.g., Scotland, Ireland, Australia), with the exception of North America, to which the present volume is devoted. As the general editor, Richard Hogg, writes (p. xi), the series is designed to offer “a solid discussion of the full range of the history of English” to anglicists and general linguists alike. Readers of the latter category will certainly find this volume accessible. In fact, the inclusion of a glossary of terms extends that accessibility to readers outside linguistics as well. Specialists, however, are likely to be disappointed by the unevenness of the collection.

So Much at Stake: Martyrs and Martyrdom in Early Modern England The trail of martyrdom. Persecution and resistance in sixteenth-century England. By Sarah Covington. Pp. xii+289. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. $55 (cloth), $28 (paper). 0 268 04225 X; 0 268 04226 8 Making women martyrs in Tudor England. By Megan L. Hickerson. Pp. ix+239 incl. 2 figs. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. £50. 1 4039 3833 4 Martyrdom and literature in early modern England. By Susannah Brietz Monta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. viii+236. £55. 0 521 84498 3

2006 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-541
Author(s):  
THOMAS FREEMAN
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
The Third ◽  
Women Martyrs ◽  
University Of Notre Dame

In recent years, a number of works devoted solely or partly to martyrdom in early modern England – most notably Brad Gregory's seminal Salvation at stake and Anne Dillon's The construction of martyrdom in the English Catholic community – have helped to bring the study of this topic from the margins of scholarship into the academic mainstream. Two of the three works discussed here further develop this recent research by analysing representations of martyrdom in English martyrologies; the third work, Sarah Covington's survey on religious persecution in early modern England, is gravely impaired by its almost complete disregard of the complexities present in the narrative sources on martyrs and their persecutors.

scholarly journals Early Modern European Languages and Literature: A Short Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
David Porter
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Short Review ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
General Interest ◽  
The Third ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Language And Literature

This article engages with several recent books about language and literature, with a general focus on the early modern period in Europe. One of these books discusses language study in early modern England. Another examines the histories of words relating to ‘ingenuity’. The third provides a theoretical look at the aphorism with a wide historical scope but with some chapters relating to early modern literature. Each is of general interest for linguistic and literary scholars.

scholarly journals Moral marketplaces: regulating the food markets of late Elizabethan and early Stuart London

Urban History ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Charlie Taverner
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Food Marketing ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Market System ◽  
Food Markets ◽  
Fast Growing ◽  
The Third ◽  
Economic Culture

Abstract This article examines the economic culture of urban food markets in early modern England. It focuses on London between 1590 and 1640 to argue that market regulation, even in fast-growing, commercializing cities, was underpinned by moralized values. It also assesses a largely untapped citywide book of fines, containing payments for regulatory offences. The first section outlines London's market system and regulation, the second looks at enforcement in practice and the third discusses the underlying values. This contributes to our understanding of day-to-day food marketing and proposes that studies of ‘moral economy’ should examine everyday commerce and major cities.

An Ecological Account of the Emergence and Evolution of English

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salikoko S. Mufwene
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
English Language ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
The World ◽  
Population Structures ◽  
History Of

What follows is a contact-based account of the emergence of English. Though the role of language contact in the development of World Englishes is often addressed as a coda within History of the English Language (HEL) courses, this chapter presents an alternative story, highlighting contact situations in Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. The creolist perspective offered here suggests that History of English instructors should look closer at the received doctrine of HEL and consider whether an ecological model should not be used to make sense of the story of Englishes. A periodized history of colonization and of the ensuing population structures that influence language contact appears to explain a great deal about the differential evolution of English in various parts of the world, including what distinguishes colonial English dialects from their creole counterparts.

2. Origins

2018 ◽  
pp. 12-32
Author(s):  
Simon Horobin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Language ◽  
French Language ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Language Origins ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Late Modern

Where does the English language come from? While English is distantly related to both Latin and French, it is principally a Germanic language. ‘Origins’ provides a brief history of the English language, highlighting a number of substantial changes, which have radically altered its structure, vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling. It begins with Old English (AD 650–1100), then moves on to Middle English (1100–1500), which saw the impact of the French language after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Early Modern English period (1500–1750) witnessed the biggest impact of Latin upon English, while Late Modern English (1750–1900) resulted in an expansion of specialist vocabulary using Latin and Greek.

Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhodri Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
English Language ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
New Interpretation

This book is a radical new interpretation of the most famous play in the English language. By exploring Shakespeare's engagements with the humanist traditions of early modern England and Europe, the book reveals a Hamlet unseen for centuries: an innovative, coherent, and exhilaratingly bleak tragedy in which the governing ideologies of Shakespeare's age are scrupulously upended. The book establishes that life in Elsinore is measured not by virtue but by the deceptions and grim brutality of the hunt. It also shows that Shakespeare most vividly represents this reality in the character of Hamlet: his habits of thought and speech depend on the cultures of pretence that he affects to disdain, ensuring his alienation from both himself and the world around him. The book recovers a work of far greater magnitude than the tragedy of a young man who cannot make up his mind. It shows that in Hamlet, as in King Lear, Shakespeare confronts his audiences with a universe that received ideas are powerless to illuminate—and where everyone must find their own way through the dark. The book is required reading for all students of early modern literature, drama, culture, and history.

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