What ushered in the age of Modern English?
2.7182818284590...
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Was it Shakespeare or something pivotal which occurred in the 1500s?
Such designations are arbitrary, A benchmark often used is 1477, when
Caxton introduced printing to England (or 1475, when he printed the
first book in English, but in Bruges).
Before Shakespeare and KJV (up to Spenser) can be "Early Modern
English."
Craoi...@gmail.com
wrote:
> Was it Shakespeare or something pivotal which occurred in the 1500s?
No. Language change is usually a slow, gradual process.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
> On May 13, 2:54 am, "2.7182818284590..." <tangent1...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Was it Shakespeare or something pivotal which occurred in the 1500s?
The influence of Shakespeare on the language tends to be exaggerated.
>
> Such designations are arbitrary, A benchmark often used is 1477, when
> Caxton introduced printing to England (or 1475, when he printed the
> first book in English, but in Bruges).
>
> Before Shakespeare and KJV (up to Spenser) can be "Early Modern
> English."
In my experience, Shakes and the KJV are normally included in Early
Mod Eng. (Maybe "Late Early Mod Eng" ;-))
I like to use the round date of 1500 AD just to emphasize the
arbitrariness of these periodizations.
However, one change that was getting underway at that date was the
Great Vowel Shift, which certainly made a difference in the sound of
the language.
As for external changes, in addition to printing which you've
mentioned, there was the beginning of expansion of English from just
England to its present global distribution.
Ross Clark
2.7182818284590...
Your answers was very interesting.
Trond Engen
> How did KJV change English?
It didn't. It's an attestation of a random stage in the development of
English.
I don't know how this fits for English but, generally, a Bible
translation might lead to a standard written language. This defines a
prestige language and a center of gravity and will thus often effect the
further development of the spoken language, but the writing
(translation) of the book per se don't change anything. When
established, literary works of major religious significance tend to have
a conserving effect on the language, since they serve to define a ritual
register long after they were written. Perhaps more as a source of
archaisms and scholarly loans, though, than as an actual asset to the
living language.
--
Trond Engen
- of religious insignificance and with no effect at all
Peter T. Daniels
> > On May 13, 2:54 am, "2.7182818284590..." <tangent1...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > > Was it Shakespeare or something pivotal which occurred in the 1500s?
>
> The influence of Shakespeare on the language tends to be exaggerated.
Partly because if the OED found a word in Shakespeare, they didn't
look too hard for anticipations in 16th-century writers.
One of the several recent volumes on the OED has a chart of the
quality of coverage by century.
> > Such designations are arbitrary, A benchmark often used is 1477, when
> > Caxton introduced printing to England (or 1475, when he printed the
> > first book in English, but in Bruges).
>
> > Before Shakespeare and KJV (up to Spenser) can be "Early Modern
> > English."
>
> In my experience, Shakes and the KJV are normally included in Early
> Mod Eng. (Maybe "Late Early Mod Eng" ;-))
There's a real line between Spenser (who archaized) and Shakespeare
(who innovated). KJV is archaizing, to a considerable extent because
it's a revision of a nid-16th-century version.
> I like to use the round date of 1500 AD just to emphasize the
> arbitrariness of these periodizations.
> However, one change that was getting underway at that date was the
> Great Vowel Shift, which certainly made a difference in the sound of
> the language.
> As for external changes, in addition to printing which you've
> mentioned, there was the beginning of expansion of English from just
> England to its present global distribution.
Which, as we recently established, didn't start until 1588 ,,,
Peter T. Daniels
C. S. Lewis argued that KJV had no actual influence on the language,
because its phraseology is so familiar that anything based on it is
immediately recognized as an allusion or a quote -- it could never
step out of the quotation marks, as it were, to become an
unidentifiable bit of linguistic resource (compare any number of
common phrases that you're surprised to find come from Shakespeare,
like "one fell swoop").
benl...@ihug.co.nz
wrote:
> How did KJV change English?
KJV (and Shakespeare) contributed thousands of phrases and sayings
which are widely known by speakers of English, who may sometimes be
unaware of their origin. That's all. They did not (contrary to some
wild statements) invent or create more than a small fraction of the
modern English vocabulary, and they had no effect on the grammar or
sound structure (or even the spelling) of the language.
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Both Shakespeare and KJV have appeared in multitudinous editions over
the centuries with modernized spellings.
Facsimiles of the First Folio aren't that hard to find, but I was
delighted to discover that Nelson (the Bible publisher) not long ago
issued an imitation of the 1611 Bible that duplicates the typographic
features presumably exactly (I haven't come across a facsimile page
since then so I could check that all the linebreaks are in the same
place) but in an ordinary-sized book on Bible paper with a very
readable typeface.
Unlike a Hebrew Scripture, the spelling -- of either classic -- isn't
considered sacrosanct.
As for sound structure, lots of pairs that Shakespeare rhymed in 1600
do not rhyme today.