Modern English Period

The  Modern English Period

The Modern English period covers roughly the period from about 1500 which marked the close of the Middle Ages and the full tide of the Renaissance in England, to the present day. The factors which contributed to the important developments in the period are the influence of Renaissance scholarship, the religious controversies of the Reformation, translations of the Bible, changes in the pronunciation of vowels (the Great Vowel Shift), introduction of the printing press, discoveries of new lands, a tremendous growth of vocabulary and semantic changes.

The Renaissance

The great tide of the Renaissance reached England about the year 1500 and it had a marked influence upon English language and literature. The influence is most clearly seen in the introduction of a large number of Greek and Latin words into English during the early Modern English period. The scholars of this period were proficient in the classical languages and they wanted to enrich the English language by borrowing a number of words from them. 

The term inkhorn terms refers to such words and expressions borrowed indiscriminately from the classical languages. There were people who strongly argued for and against the use of such terms. Many archaic terms were revived by writers like Spenser. Consequent on this influence, a number of works in Greek and Latin were translated into English. For eg., Chapman's Homer, North's translation of Plutarch's Lives etc.

There was an interesting development allied to such borrowings. viz, the rise of a number of synonyms which have made possible nice distinctions of meaning, especially in the case of adjectives. For example, the adjectives royal, regal and kingly are all connected with the word king, but they are slightly different from one another in meaning. The adjective royal (of French origin) is the least colourful and means that which pertains to a king. Regal (Latin) suggests the pomp and splendour of kingship, ie., the external trappings of majesty. Kingly, which is of native origin, refers to those gracious qualities of character which we associate with the ideal king. It can be seed from such sets of words that the commonplace one is of French origin, that which indicates formality and impressiveness is of Latin origin, and the one with an intimate and human signification is of native origin. Other examples are friendly (English), amicable (Latin), and infantile (French); fatherly (English), paternal (Latin).

When new synonyms were directly borrowed from Latin, sometimes the older ones changed meaning. For eg., the word caitiff which came through French from Latin captivus meant prisoner. But later a new word was formed directly from the Latin captivus and we have now captive synonymous with prisoner and the old synonym caitiff came to mean a scoundrel. Thus we have frail (through French) and fragile (from Latin), sure (through French) and secure (direct from Latin).

The Renaissance was also responsible for another feature of English viz. the habit of using an adjective of classical derivation to correspond to a native noun. eg.

Adjective (Latin)                                    Noun (Anglo-Saxon)

feminine                                                       woman                                                                                       nasal                                                            nose                                                                                           urban                                                            town                                                                                          masculine                                                     man

There are other Anglo-Saxon adjectives for the above nouns, but with different meanings. Thus, feminine is different from womanly and nasal is different from nosey. Such varieties have a certainly enriched the English language.

The fine flowering of literature during the Renaissance gave a distinct character to the language. Shakespeare's contribution towards the enrichment of English can never be exaggerated. His works and those of his contemporaries reflect the Renaissance culture, the Protestant Reformation, and growing national consciousness. Then there were the voyages of discovery which brought men into contact with foreign parts. The increased trade brought to England loan words along with the foreign products. 

The Reformation

The Reformation that followed the Renaissance gave rise to a number of terms as a result of the bitter political and religious controversies. Most of these words expressed the odium or disapproval of the Protestants against the Catholics. Eg: Papist, papistical, and monkish. The Catholics also had an equally fertile imagination, but their terms did not take root in the Protestant soil of England. The exception is the word heretic which came into general use after the middle of the 16th century. Puritan first appeared in 1567. The words contributed by the Puritans and their predecessors the Calvinists, reflected their sobriety of behaviour and exaggerated earnestness about their religion. The Puritans gave currency to words like saintly, reprobate, conscientious, conscience, selfish and self denial.

An important outcome of the Reformation was the various translations of the Bible. The translations, in general, adopted a vocabulary that was predominantly native in character and a style that was straightforward and simple, which exerted a great influence on the English language. 

Prepared by :

Dr. Susan Mathew

Dept. of English