Language Over Time

Language Over Time

1. EARLY MODERN ENGLISH 1500-1700

   • 1525 Tyndale Bible
     • First published
     • Credited as the first English bible
     • Wycliffe bible 1382
   • 1582 Mulcaster's Elementarie
   • 1604 Cawdry's Table Alphatbetical
     • Dictionary of 'hard words'
     • Low frequency latinate/inkhorn lexemes
   • 1611 King James Bible
     • First offically authorised
     • Deliberately archaic
   • 1558- 1603 Reign of Elizabeth I
     • Increase in global trade and discovery
       • Loan words
     • Shakespeare 1564- 1616
       • 1594-1611 at his height
       • 3,000 new words
         • 'assassination'
       • Phrases and idioms
         • 'naked truth'
         • 'green eyed monster
   • The Renassiance
     • Influence of Greek and Latin
       • Affixiation
         • 'ism'- both greek and latin
         • -ology- Greek
         • -anti- Latin
   • The Reformation (break from catholic church) 1534

2. 1476 Caxton's Printing Press

3. MODERN ENGLISH 1700-1900

   • 'An age of rules, grammar, dictionaries and definitions'
   • 1755 Publishing of Samuel Johnson's dictionary
     • First 'modern' dictionary
   • 1762 Robert Lowth's Intro to English Grammar
     • First Prescriptivist commentator
   • 1806 Noah Websters American English Dictionary
     • 1776 American Declaration of Independence
   • 1760- 1800 Industrial Revolution
     • New words and lanaguage to accomodate new ideas
       • Inventions and Contraptions
       • Science and Technology
       • Expansion of cities and factories
   • British Empire under Queen Victoria
     • Borrowings and loan words
       • Inkhorn controversy
     • India, Singapore, Canada, South Africa, New Guinea, etc
     • Increase in word stock
   • Jane Austen 1775-1817
   • Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism
     • Prescriptivism: An approach to the study of language that favours the use of a strict set of rules that must be obeyed in speech and writing identifying incorrect and correct useage
       • Grammar books
     • Descriptivism: An approach to the study of language describes language but does not judge if language is incorrect or correct and says that variation should be described rather than corrected
   • Charles Dickens 1812- 1870

4. LATE MODERN ENGLISH 1900- Present day

   • Developing and emerging technologies
     • World Wide Web (Web 2.0 in 2004)
       • Net speak
       • Text talk
   • English as a global language
     • Global English
       • Mass global communication
     • American English
       • Americanisms
       • American orthography: 'color' 'meter'
     • Range of speakers and varieties of World English, e.g. 'Black English'
   • Oxford English Dictionary
   • Political correctness

5. Great Vowel Shift 1350-1700

   • Serves to explain some of the differences in pronunciation and spelling of some words, especially as standardisation was happening at the same time,
   • long vowels: i to ae e.g. teem to time

6. The Age of Enlightenment 1650- 1800

   • developments in scientific reason
     • impact on religion and religious language