Post on 25-Feb-2016
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THE RENAISSANCE
(Early Modern English)1500-1650
INTRODUCTIONIt was during the English Renaissance that most of the words from Greek and Latin entered English. This period in English cultural history (early 16th century to the early 17th century) is sometimes referred to as "the age of Shakespeare" or "the Elizabethan era", taking the name of the English Renaissance's most famous author and most important monarch, respectively. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I there was an explosion of culture in the form of support of the arts, popularization of the printing press, and massive amounts of sea travel.
CHANGING CONDITIONS IN THE MORDEN PERIOD.
.The invention of the printing press
Now the masses, not just nobility, have access to the printed word
with books in the hands of most everyone, Standard English is not only
promoted, it is spread throughout the populace . Standard English is
spread primarily because with mass production (of a sort), the same
"grammar" is read time and time again by all types of people
Education
Probably not less than a third and at least one half of the people could
read during Shakespeare's time, with the rise of a prosperous middle
class, there are demands and means for more people to be educated;
1.great increase in the number of schools
2.access to newspapers
3.rapid rise of the novel
increase in communication/means of communication
with the advent of tremendous & successful commerce comes
exposure to other countries/cultures/peoples--English spreads, the
urbanization of England gives rise to unification and the diffusion of
English through the populace.
growth of specialized knowledge
a. Latin is less and less the vehicle for learned discourse
b. new vocabulary
awareness of the language;
anytime a new social strata is established, language acquisition
flourishes, the new class needs ways of conforming and
belonging, hence furthering the study of English & English
grammar, a & b above give rise to "language policies“.
VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR
prior to the 16th and 17th centuries, the grammar was in a constant state of flux.
prior to the 16th and 17th centuries, (with the possible exception of the Norman Conquest), vocabulary changes were stable (words were borrowed, not "invented").
In EME (16th & 17th centuries), a & b above reverse themselves. Grammar is stable; vocabulary is changed extensively.
Vocabulary
a. English deficient to keep up with increased experiments and inventions
b. back to borrowing (from Latin, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish) called
Inkhorn terms
English deficient to keep up with increased experiments and inventions, back
to borrowing (from Latin, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish) called Inkhorn terms.
Great opposition to inkhorn terms and opposition at its height during the mid
16th century. Generally, borrowing continued, but with care and prudence
Borrowings include: atmosphere, autograph, disability, disrespect, expectation,
expensive, appropriate, external, impersonal,emancipate, erupt,exist, crisis,
critic,scheme,system, tactics,etc.,from Latin & Greek
adaptation of borrowed words;
a. by cutting off the Latin ending--consultare becomes consult
b. the Latin ending us in Latin adjectives changed to ous or replaced by al--conspicuous,
external
c. the Latin noun ending tas changed to ty --brevity
d. the Latin noun endings antia, entia changed to ance, ency, ancy, ency concurrence,
frequency
e. the Latin adjective ending bilis changed to ble—considerable
reintroduction of already-borrowed words and new meanings;
a. OE words like bishop and dish from Latin episcopus and discus
b. re-entered as episcopal and disc
rejects--sometimes words simply do not remain and sometimes for no discernible
reason.
THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT
the Great Vowel Shift and affected all long
vowels of English including those which became
long through ME lengthening. GVS took place in
the following stages:
1./i:/ became dipthongized to / / /u:/ became dipthongized to / U/ ex. time [ti:m ] > [t m] town [tu:n] > [t Un] 2./e:/ was raised to /i:/ /o:/ was raised to /u:/ ex. me [me:] > [mi:] fode [fo:d ] > [fu:d] 3./ :/ was fronted to /æ:/ ex. name [n :m] > [næ:m] 4./ :/ was raised to /e:/ / :/ was raised to /o:/ ex. clene [kl :n ] > [kle:n]
bon [b :n] > [bo:n] 5. /æ:/ was raised to / :/ ex. name [næ:m] > [n :m] 6. Step #2 repeated for front vowels ex. clene [kle:n] > [kli:n] 7. Step #4 repeated for front vowels name [n :m] > [ne:m] 8./ / was lowered to /ai/ / U/ was lowered to /au/ ex. time [t m] > [taim] town [t Un] > [taum]
LITERATURELiterature in Britain in the period beginning in around 1500 and lasting until the mid-1600s. Influenced by the artistic and cultural Renaissance, the transformation of both English language and literature in this period can be seen to move away from the medieval Middle English literature period and into the more recognizably modern Elizabethan literature. The period is characterized by the influence of the classics (in literature, language, and philosophy), as well as an optimistic forward-thinking approach to the potential of humans (known as Renaissance humanism.
EFFECT ON GRAMMAR & VOCABULARY.