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The growth of English
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GRAMMAR
During Early Modern English period, English language developed excellently. At that time, English has richer lexicon, less complicated grammar, monosyllabic characters, and euphonious pronunciation. Due to these developments, the influence of Latin is declining. English is made compulsory to learn in the school for its own language rather than a device to learn Latin, before. Regarding this situation, the demand for translated piece from Latin and Greek increased rapidly since reading become a trend at that time.
Still, some grammar notes about English are written in Latin in desire to spread the English grammar knowledge. The last English grammar written in Latin was in 1685. The writer described English grammar using Latin-derived categories but did not label some forms or structures as ‘correct’ and dismiss others as incorrect.
Vocabulary Expansion
Loanwords
During late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, borrowing from Latin reached its summit in terms of absolute numbers of new words recorded in a prodigious dictionary such as Oxford English Dictionary (OED), but new borrowing had nothing like the long-term effect on the high-frequency or basic vocabularies of English that earlier ones had. A lot of the new loanwords are circumscribed in register, since the formal and technical registers of English that ripen in this period are largely categorized by their use of Latinate vocabulary.
The emergence of the age of scientific discovery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries formed the need for new words to describe brand-new knowledge (science, medical, mathematics etc…). Many words were borrowed from Latin. Some of the Latin words that borrowed are : apparatus,...
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Analogy
In addition, analogy sometimes affected the form of a Latin loan. For example, delinquish which means ‘to fail in duty’ is actually a Latin délinquere but has been modelled on relinquish. The other example is latitudinarian is derived from Latin noun látitúdo, on the analogy of trinitarian.
Spelling
Spelling became fairly fixed during this period, with the increase in use of the printing press. Latin wielded its influence on the spelling of some words of Latin origin, further separating spelling from its phonetics origins. Words such as Middle English ‘isle’ (from Latin ‘insula’), influenced the spelling of Middle English ‘iland’, creating Early Modern English ‘island’. ‘Debt’, originally Middle English ‘dette’ (from Latin ‘debita’) added the current ‘-b’ despite the fact that is was never pronounced in English.
.... An Introduction to Vulgar Latin,. Boston: D.C. Heath &, 1907. Google Scholar. 21 Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Nov. 2015.
Landau, Sidney I., ed. The New International Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Naples: Trident International, 2002. Print.
On a Wednesday night I saw Texas State Theatre and Dance Department's performance of A Chorus Line. The main plot of the musical entails the audition of 17 dancers for several Broadway roles on the chorus line. However, during their auditions the director Zach asks for personal stories of each dancer's life. Though the plot of this musical is seemingly simple in its twist on the traditional audition, it explores themes that reveal the human experience, the search for individuality, and the sense of self.
One of the great difficulties in teaching ancient languages like Latin is the general lack of a spoken component. Whereas modern language students can reinforce the grammatical material they learn in a book through oral drills and conversational practice, students of Latin are faced with the prospect of studying a complex, inflected language entirely through the written word. While students still manage to learn the grammar and vocabulary, they often lack an appreciation for Latin as a living, breathing means of communication. A sensitivity to the oral aspect of the language not only reinforces material learned through traditional means, but also opens a window into the sublime quality of Latin which can serve as motivation for further study.
The Renaissance reached its fulfilment in the sixteenth century. English, long neglected by the humanists' preoccupation with Greek and Latin, rose to a wholly new and conscious dignity as a medium of serious literary expression. That English should rise and attain the status of national language is not surprising in view of the fact that the spread of literacy and the introduction of printing, along with the increasingly strong nationalist feeling, did account for its consolidation.1
Word order also changes, though this process is much slower. Old English word order was much more 'free' than that of Modern English.
In Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language, Johnson argues the importance of preserving language. Other dialects had a produced their own dictionaries, such as the French and Italians. Various writers of the eighteenth century were alarmed at the fact that there was no standard for the English language, since there was no standard it could easily become extinct. Johnson explored many points, such as how and why languages change as well as how many words are formed.
During the 16th century, developments in the arts, literature, medicine, science and renewed interest in classical languages, flooded the English language with new words. According to The British Library Board (2015), Cawdrey described that well-to-do gentleman decorated sentences with fancy phrases and complicated words from abroad. As a result, Cawdrey felt that by creating and publishing the ‘A Table Alphabeticall’, the English language would be better organised and help readers understand challenging
As Professor Sun discussed in lecture, Chinese writing system is useful for contemporary people to read and understand the ancient works as this writing system remain unchanged over the past two thousand years. A person who learned basic Chinese language is able to read the traditional writings. Obviously, Chinese characters are understood across time. However, English writings cannot be used to communicate over time as their words are always changing. Since pronunciation changes a whole lot over time, the spelling of recent English script has no relationship with how the word is actually spoken in the past. Without specialty training, a contemporary English native speaker cannot read Old and Middle English, like Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) works in four hundred years ago. This offers s...
10. Reddick , Allen. The Making of Johnson’s Dictionary 1746-1773 Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print.
The duration of Early Modern English took place during the English Renaissance, and hence the amazing evolutions that occurred within it (Myers 166). After the Renaissance came the Age of Reason, and it is during this time that the language becomes recognizable to today (Smith 9). The most common example of Early Modern English is the fact that Shakespeare wrote in it, and it poses the most similarities to Modern day; the language moved from a synthetic one to a more analytical one, and relied less on inflectional endings and more with word order to convey information (Durkin 1). Early Modern English is the premise for the ever-evolving language that millions speak
The settlement of the British Isles by north Europeans followed by Norman French paints the backdrop to this essay which will focus on the period between the early 15th and 17th centuries, when a 'standard' English evolved. It will show that modern-day English is very different to that first introduced to the British Isles, but by identifying changes through time, its continuity can be demonstrated. Finally, it will suggest that present day English is in a position analogous to that which existed before the Norman invasion, when there were many varieties and dialects, and that this may lead to its decline as a global language, due to decreasing intelligibility.
The 1400 mark date that English is used in writing will be, a seemingly small step, but one that impacted many people and began a legacy of record keeping in English. In 1450 English became the language used in writing town laws and finally 1489 saw all statutes written in English. But it was not until 1649 that English became the language of legal documents in place of Latin. The formal rules intended to keep the use of French in official capacities were not enough to combat the effects of the Black Death and the Hundred Years War between France and England, which both contributed greatly to the rise of English and fall of French. By the fourteenth century, English was again known by most people, although French was not forgotten, and the people who spoke French were generally bilingual.
The development of the English language was a combination of cultural, political, social and religious events that each playing their own part shaping the modern English language spoken today as a first language by 400 million people . As Baugh and Cable convey to us in A History of the English Language; ‘It understates matters to say that political, economic, and social forces influence a language’. Although it cannot be identified exactly when the inhabitants of Britain began to speak English, there are some sources that give an insight into the nature of the forces that played a role in its foundation such as: the four medieval manuscripts;
Old English (450-1100 AD), which is also referred to as Anglo-Saxon, is thought historically to be the earliest form of the English language. Originating with the arrival of three West Germanic tribes, who encroached