This exciting invention helped to standardise English and propel it into the Late Modern age.ĭo you enjoy reading Shakespeare’s plays and poems? Do you know any other words or phrases invented by Shakespeare? Now explore one of the most important developments for the English language during the Early Modern period – the first English dictionary. Learn more about English idioms and slang, phrasal verbs, proverbs and other interesting phrases. ‘Truth will out’ (The Merchant of Venice) ‘ Set your teeth on edge‘ (Henry IV Part I) ‘Fair play’ (The Tempest and other plays) ‘Foul play’ (Love’s Labours Lost and other plays) ‘ Neither a borrower nor a lender be‘ (Hamlet) ‘To vanish into thin air’ (The Tempest and Othello) ‘All that glitters is not gold’ (The Merchant of Venice)

In contrast, Chaucer’s language would be pronounced so differently (as this was before the Great Vowel Shift) that it would be almost unintelligible to a present day listener. The language of this Elizabethan age is much more closely related to our modern English today than, say, the language of Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales.Īlthough Elizabethan English would be strange to the modern ear, we would understand it. A good example of Early Modern English is the language used in Shakespeare’s works.Įarly Modern English is said to span roughly the years from 1500 until 1800. This merging of lower class English and higher class Anglo-Norman combined to create a new Early Modern English.Īlthough difficult, this English is intelligible to English speakers today.

In just seven months, one fifth of the population of London was dead. This was because the plague wiped out a large portion of the aristocracy as well as the lower classes. The pronunciation changes that took place during the Great Vowel Shift evolved in part due to the greater social mobility which happened after The Great Plague. The Great Plague of 1665 – 1666 had a strong impact on the English language due to the cultural changes that resulted. The Great Vowel Shift saw a movement away from its old French-style pronunciation of vowels. The change in pronunciation can be seen even in the names of letters of the alphabet.įor example, the letter ‘a’ is pronounced with a long ‘a’ sound in modern English (‘ay’), while in French it is pronounced with the short ‘a’ sound (‘ah’), as it was in English before the Great Vowel Shift.

In addition to the change in pronunciation of vowels in English, the end letter ‘e’ on many words became voiceless.įor example, the word ‘name’ changed from using a short ‘a’ sound and a voiced ending ‘e’, pronounced as ‘a’ in Middle English (the word ‘name’ pronounced as ‘namay’), to how we say it today with a long ‘a’ and a voiceless ‘e’ (‘name pronounced as ‘naym’). Vowels started to be pronounced more towards the front of the mouth. The Great Vowel Shift saw a complete change in the way people pronounced English vowels. Between 14 there is a great event in the history of the English language which saw the change from Middle English to Early Modern English – the Great Vowel Shift.

Middle english time period