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What are the chronological boundaries of the Middle English period?
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Historical period. The chronological boundaries of the Middle English period are not easy to define, and scholarly opinions vary. The dates that OED3 has settled on are 1150-1500. (Before 1150 being the Old English period, and after 1500 being the early modern English period.)
- Great Vowel Shift
- The English Renaissance
- Printing Press and Standardization
- The Bible
- Dictionaries and Grammars
- Golden Age of English Literature
- William Shakespeare
- International Trade
A major factor separating Middle English from Modern English is known as the Great Vowel Shift, a radical change in pronunciation during the 15th, 16th and 17th Century, as a result of which long vowel sounds began to be made higher and further forward in the mouth (short vowel sounds were largely unchanged). In fact, the shift probably started ver...
The next wave of innovation in English vocabulary came with the revival of classical scholarship known as the Renaissance. The English Renaissance roughly covers the 16th and early 17th Century (the European Renaissance had begun in Italy as early as the 14th Century), and is often referred to as the “Elizabethan Era” or the “Age of Shakespeare” af...
The final major factor in the development of Modern English was the advent of the printing press, one of the world’s great technological innovations, introduced into England by William Caxton in 1476 (Johann Gutenberg had originally invented the printing press in Germany around 1450). The first book printed in the English language was Caxton’s own ...
Two particularly influential milestones in English literature were published in the 16th and early 17th Century. In 1549, the “Book of Common Prayer” (a translation of the Church liturgy in English, substantially revised in 1662) was introduced into English churches, followed in 1611 by the Authorized, or King James, Version of “The Bible”, the cul...
The first English dictionary, “A Table Alphabeticall”, was published by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604 (8 years before the first Italian dictionary, and 35 years before the first French dictionary, although admittedly some 800 years after the first Arabic dictionary and nearly 1,000 after the first Sanskrit dictionary). Cawdrey’s litt...
All languages tend to go through phases of intense generative activity, during which many new words are added to the language. One such peak for the English language was the Early Modern period of the 16th to 18th Century, a period sometimes referred to as the Golden Age of English Literature (other peaks include the Industrial Revolution of the la...
Whatever the merits of the other contributions to this golden age, though, it is clear that one man, William Shakespeare, single-handedly changed the English language to a significant extent in the late 16th and early 17th Century. Shakespeare took advantage of the relative freedom and flexibility and the protean nature of English at the time, and ...
While all these important developments were underway, British naval superiority was also growing. In the 16th and 17th centuries, international trade expanded immensely, and loanwords were absorbed from the languages of many other countries throughout the world, including those of other trading and imperial nations such as Spain, Portugal and the N...
riods: Old English (OE), Middle English (ME) and New English (NE). OE begins with the Germanic settlement of Britain (5th c.) and ends with the Norman Conquest (1066); ME begins with the Norman Conquest and ends on the introduction of printing (1475), which is the start of the New English period (NE) which lasts to the present day.
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Middle English (abbreviated to ME [1]) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but Oxford University Press specifies the period when Middle ...
Apr 5, 2024 · The history of Middle English is often divided into three periods: (1) Early Middle English, from about 1100 to about 1250, during which the Old English system of writing was still in use; (2) the Central Middle English period from about 1250 to about 1400, which was marked by the gradual formation of literary dialects, the use of an ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jan 20, 2024 · The Caroline Age refers to the era in English and Scottish history named after the 24-year reign of Charles I (1625-1649), with "Carolina" derived from the Latin for Charles. This period witnessed an uneasy peace in Britain, growing increasingly restless as the civil conflict between the King and Parliament supporters escalated.
History of literatureby era. The term Middle English literature refers to the literature written in the form of the English language known as Middle English, from the late 12th century until the 1470s. During this time the Chancery Standard, a form of London -based English, became widespread and the printing press regularized the language.
