Early Modern English

{{more citations needed section|date=July 2024}}

{{See also|English Renaissance}}

{{further|Late Middle English}}

The change from Middle English to Early Modern English affected much more than just vocabulary and pronunciation.

Middle English underwent significant change over time and contained large dialectical variations. Early Modern English, on the other hand, became more standardised and developed an established canon of literature that survives today.

• 1476 – William Caxton started printing in Westminster; however, the language that he used reflected the variety of styles and dialects used by the authors who originally wrote the material.

• 1485 – Caxton published Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the first print bestseller in English. Malory's language, while archaic in some respects, was clearly Early Modern and was possibly a Yorkshire or Midlands dialect.
• 1491 or 1492 – Richard Pynson started printing in London; his style tended to prefer Chancery Standard, the form of English used by the government.

• {{c.}} 1509 – Pynson became the king's official printer.
• From 1525 – Publication of William Tyndale's Bible translation, which was initially banned.
• 1539 – Publication of the Great Bible, the first officially authorised Bible in English. Edited by Myles Coverdale, it was largely from the work of Tyndale. It was read to congregations regularly in churches, which familiarised much of the population of England with a standard form of the language.
• 1549 – Publication of the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer in English, under the supervision of Thomas Cranmer (revised in 1552, 1559, 1604, and 1662), which standardised much of the wording of church services. Some have argued that since attendance at prayer book services was required by law for many years, the repetitive use of its language helped to standardise Modern English even more than the King James Bible (1611) did.Stephen L. White, "The Book of Common Prayer and the Standardization of the English Language" The Anglican, 32:2(4-11), April 2003
• 1557 – Publication of Tottel's Miscellany.

File:Gorboduc TP 1565.jpg (printed 1565). The Tragedie of Gorbodvc, whereof three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the two laste by Thomas Sackuyle. Sett forthe as the same was shewed before the Qvenes most excellent Maiestie, in her highnes Court of Whitehall, the .xviii. day of January, Anno Domini .1561. By the Gentlemen of Thynner Temple in London.]]

;Elizabethan era (1558–1603)

• 1560 – The Geneva Bible was published. The New Testament was completed in 1557 by English Reformed exiles on the continent during the reign of Mary, and the complete Bible three years later, after Elizabeth succeeded the throne. This version was favoured by the Puritans and Pilgrims due to its more vigorous and forceful language. Its popularity and proliferation (due in large part to its copious notes) over the following decades sparked the production of the King James Bible to counter it.
• 1582 – The Rheims and Douai Bible was completed, and the New Testament was released in Rheims, France, in 1582. It was the first complete English translation of the Bible that was officially sponsored and carried out by the Catholic Church (earlier translations into English, especially of the Psalms and Gospels, existed as far back as the 9th century, but it was the first Catholic English translation of the full Bible). Though the Old Testament was already complete, it was not published until 1609–1610, when it was released in two volumes. While it did not make a large impact on the English language at large, it certainly played a role in the development of English, especially in heavily Catholic English-speaking areas.
• Christopher Marlowe, {{floruit|1586–1593}}
• 1592 – The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd
• {{Circa|1590|1612}} – Shakespeare's plays written {{see also|Chronology of Shakespeare's plays|Shakespeare's influence}}

{{further|Elizabethan literature|English Renaissance theatre}}

{{further|Jacobean era}}

• 1609 – Shakespeare's sonnets published
• Other playwrights:
• Ben Jonson
• Thomas Dekker
• Beaumont and Fletcher (Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher)
• John Webster
• 1607 – The first successful permanent English colony in the New World, Jamestown, is established in Virginia. Early vocabulary specific to American English comes from indigenous languages (such as moose, racoon).
• 1611 – The King James Version was published, largely based on Tyndale's translation. It remained the standard Bible in the Church of England into the latter half of the twentieth century.
• 1623 – Shakespeare's First Folio published

{{further|Caroline era|English Civil War}}

• 1630–1651 – William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony, wrote his journal. It will become Of Plymouth Plantation, one of the earliest texts written in the American Colonies.
• 1647 – Publication of the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio

The English Civil War and the Interregnum were times of social and political upheaval and instability.

The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention and differ markedly from genre to genre. In drama, the "Restoration" may last until 1700, but in poetry, it may last only until 1666, the annus mirabilis (year of wonders), and in prose lasts until 1688. With the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or until possibly 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilised.

• 1651 – Publication of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.
• 1660–1669 – Samuel Pepys wrote his diary, which will become an important eyewitness account of the Restoration Era.
• 1662 – New edition of the Book of Common Prayer, largely based on the 1549 and subsequent editions. It long remained a standard work in English.
• 1667 – Publication of Paradise Lost by John Milton and of Annus Mirabilis by John Dryden.

{{main|Modern English}}

The 17th-century port towns and their forms of speech gained influence over the old county towns. From around the 1690s onwards, England experienced a new period of internal peace and relative stability, which encouraged the arts including literature.

Modern English can be taken to have emerged fully by the beginning of the Georgian era in 1714, but English orthography remained somewhat fluid until the publication of Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, in 1755.

The towering importance of William Shakespeare over the other Elizabethan authors was the result of his reception during the 17th and the 18th centuries, which directly contributes to the development of Standard English.{{Citation needed|date=May 2018}} Shakespeare's plays are therefore still familiar and comprehensible 400 years after they were written,Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981. but the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland, which had been written only 200 years earlier, are considerably more difficult for the average modern reader.

File:William Shakespeare by John Taylor, edited.jpg's writings are universally associated with Early Modern English.]]

The orthography of Early Modern English is recognisably similar to that of today, but spelling was unstable. Early Modern and Modern English both retain various orthographical conventions that predate the Great Vowel Shift.

Early Modern English spelling was broadly similar to that encountered in Middle English. Some of the changes that occurred were based on etymology (as with the silent b that was added to words like {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|debt}}, {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|doubt}} and {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|subtle}}). Many spellings had still not been standardised. For example, he was spelled as both {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|he}} and {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|hee}} in the same sentence in Shakespeare's plays and elsewhere.

Certain key orthographic features of Early Modern English spelling have not been retained:

• The letter {{angle bracket|S}} had two distinct lowercase forms: {{angle bracket|s}} (short s), as is still used today, and {{angle bracket|ſ}} (long s). The short s was always used at the end of a word and often elsewhere. The long s, if used, could appear anywhere except at the end of a word. The double lowercase S was written variously {{angle bracket|ſſ}}, {{angle bracket|ſs}} or {{angle bracket|ß}} (the last ligature is still used in German ß).{{cite book|last=Burroughs|first=Jeremiah|author-link=Jeremiah Burroughs|author2=Greenhill, William|title=The Saints Happinesse|publisher=M.S.|url=https://archive.org/details/saintshappiness00greegoog|year=1660}} Introduction uses both {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|happineſs}} and {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|bleſſedneſs}}. That is similar to the alternation between medial (σ) and final lowercase sigma (ς) in Greek.
• U and V were not considered two distinct letters then but as still different forms of the same letter. Typographically, {{angle bracket|v}} was frequent at the start of a word and {{angle bracket|u}} elsewhere:{{Cite book|author=Sacks, David|title=The Alphabet|year=2004|publisher=Arrow|location=London|isbn=0-09-943682-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/alphabetunraveli0000sack/page/316 316]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/alphabetunraveli0000sack/page/316}} hence {{lang|en-emodeng|vnmoued}} (for modern unmoved) and {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|loue}} (for love). The modern convention of using {{vr|u}} for the vowel sounds and {{vr|v}} for the consonant appears to have been introduced in the 1630s.Salmon, V., (in) Lass, R. (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. III, CUP 2000, p. 39. Also, {{angle bracket|w}} was frequently represented by {{angle bracket|vv}}.
• Similarly, I and J were also still considered not as two distinct letters, but as different forms of the same letter: hence {{lang|en-emodeng|ioy}} for joy and {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|iust}} for just. Again, the custom of using {{vr|i}} as a vowel and {{vr|j}} as a consonant began in the 1630s.
• The letter {{angle bracket|þ}} (thorn) was still in use during the Early Modern English period but was increasingly limited to handwritten texts. In Early Modern English printing, {{angle bracket|þ}} was represented by the Latin {{angle bracket|Y}} (see Ye olde), which appeared similar to thorn in blackletter typeface {{angle bracket|𝖞}}. Thorn had become nearly totally disused by the late Early Modern English period, the last vestiges of the letter being its ligatures, {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|y^e}} (thee), {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|y^t}} (that), {{lang|italic=yes|en-emodeng|y^u}} (thou), which were still seen occasionally in the 1611 King James Version and in Shakespeare's Folios.{{Cite book|author=Sacks, David|title=Language Visible|year=2003|publisher=Knopf|location=Canada|isbn=0-676-97487-2|pages=356–57}}
• A silent e was often appended to words, as in {{lang|en-emodeng|ſpeake}} and {{lang|en-emodeng|cowarde}}. The last consonant was sometimes doubled when the {{angle bracket|e}} was added: hence {{lang|en-emodeng|manne}} (for man) and {{lang|en-emodeng|runne}} (for run).
• The sound {{IPA|/ʌ/}} was often written {{angle bracket|o}} (as in son): hence {{lang|en-emodeng|ſommer}}, {{lang|en-emodeng|plombe}} (for modern summer, plumb).W. W. Skeat, in Principles of English Etymology, claims that the substitution was encouraged by the ambiguity between u and n; if {{lang|en-emodeng|sunne}} could just as easily be misread as {{not a typo|sunue}} or {{not a typo|suvne}}, it made sense to write it as {{lang|en-emodeng|sonne}}. (Skeat, Principles of English Etymology, Second Series. Clarendon Press, 1891, [https://archive.org/details/principlesengli00skeagoog/page/n137 page 99].)
• The final syllable of words like public was variously spelt but came to be standardised as -ick. The modern spellings with -ic did not come into use until the mid-18th century.Fischer, A., Schneider, P., "The dramatick disappearance of the {{vr|-ick}} spelling", in Text Types and Corpora, Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002, pp. 139ff.
• {{angle bracket|y}} was often used instead of {{angle bracket|i}}.{{Cite web |url=https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-pronunciation-and-spelling/ |title=Early modern English pronunciation and spelling |access-date=26 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190626171245/https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-pronunciation-and-spelling/ |archive-date=26 June 2019 |url-status=dead }}
• The vowels represented by {{angle bracket|ee}} and {{angle bracket|e_e}} (for example in meet and {{lang|en-emodeng|mete}}) changed, and {{angle bracket|ea}} became an alternative.

{{Contains special characters|IPA|section}}

Most consonant sounds of Early Modern English have survived into present-day English; however, there are still a few notable differences in pronunciation:

• Today's "silent" consonants found in the consonant clusters of such words as knot, gnat, sword were still fully pronounced up until the mid-to-late 16th century and thus possibly by Shakespeare, though they were fully reduced by the early 17th century.
• The digraph {{angbr|gh}}, in words like night, thought and daughter, originally pronounced {{IPAblink|x}} in much older English, was probably reduced to nothing (as it is today) or at least heavily reduced in sound to something like {{IPA|[ht]}}, {{IPAblink|ç}}, {{IPAblink|h}}, or {{IPAblink|f}}. It seems likely that much variation existed for many of these words. Upon its disappearance, it lengthened the previous vowel.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
• The now-silent l of would and should may have persisted in being pronounced as late as 1700 in Britain and perhaps several decades longer in the British American colonies.The American Language 2nd ed. p. 71 The l in could, however, first appearing in the early 16th century, was presumably never pronounced.
• The modern phoneme {{IPA|/ʒ/}} was not documented as occurring until the second half of the 17th century. Likely, that phoneme in a word like vision was pronounced as {{IPA|/zj/}} and in measure as {{IPA|/z/}}.
• Most words with the spelling {{angbr|wh}}, such as what, where and whale, were still pronounced {{IPAblink|ʍ|audio=y}}, rather than {{IPAblink|w|audio=y}}. That means, for example, that wine and whine were still pronounced differently, unlike in most varieties of English today.
• Early Modern English was rhotic. In other words, the r was always pronounced,{{cite web|last=Crystal|first=David|title=David Crystal – Home |url=http://www.davidcrystal.com/?fileid=-4254|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020080412/http://www.davidcrystal.com/?fileid=-4254|archive-date=20 October 2017|quote="Hark, hark, what shout is that?" Around the Globe 31. [based on article written for the Troilus programme, Shakespeare's Globe, August 2005: 'Saying it like it was'}} but the precise nature of the typical rhotic consonant remains unclear. {{citation needed|date=December 2014}} It was, however, certainly one of the following:
• The "R" of most varieties of English today: {{IPAblink|ɹ̠|audio=y}} or a further forward sound {{IPAblink|ɹ|audio=y}}
• The "trilled or rolled R": {{IPAblink|r|audio=y}}, perhaps with one contact {{IPAblink|ɾ|audio=y}}, as in modern Scouse and Scottish English
• The "retroflex R": {{IPAblink|ɻ|audio=y}}.
• In Early Modern English, the precise nature of the light and dark variants of the l consonant, respectively {{IPAblink|l|audio=y}} and {{IPAblink|ɫ|audio=y}}, remains unclear.
• Word-final {{angbr|ng}}, as in sing, was still pronounced {{IPA|[ŋɡ]}} until the late 16th century, when it began to coalesce into the usual modern pronunciation, {{IPAblink|ŋ}}. The original pronunciation {{IPA|[ŋɡ]}} is preserved in parts of England, in dialects such as Brummie, Mancunian and Scouse.
• H-dropping at the start of words was common, as it still is in informal English throughout most of England. In loanwords taken from Latin, Greek, or any Romance language, a written h was usually mute well into modern English times, e.g. in heritage, history, hermit, hostage, and still today in heir, honor, hour etc.
• With words originating from or passed through ancient Greek, th was commonly pronounced as t, e.g. theme, theater, cathedral, anthem; this is still retained in some proper names as Thomas and a few common nouns like thyme.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The following information primarily comes from studies of the Great Vowel Shift;Stemmler, Theo. Die Entwicklung der englischen Haupttonvokale: eine Übersicht in Tabellenform [Trans: The development of the English primary-stressed-vowels: an overview in table form] (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965).{{cite web|first=William Elford|last=Rogers|publisher=Furman University|title=Early Modern English vowels|url=http://facweb.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/phone/eme/evowel.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150113011226/http://facweb.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/phone/eme/evowel.htm|archive-date=13 January 2015|url-status=dead|access-date=5 December 2014}} see the related chart.

• The modern English phoneme {{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-I.ogg|aɪ}}, as in glide, rhyme and eye, was {{IPA|en-emodeng|əi|}}, and was reduced word-finally. Early Modern rhymes indicate that {{IPA|en-emodeng|əi|}} was similar to the vowel that was used at the end of words like happy, melody and busy.
• {{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-ow.ogg|aʊ}}, as in now, out and ploughed, was {{IPA|en-emodeng|əu||audio=en-uk-oh.ogg}}.
• {{IPAc-en|audio=Open-mid front unrounded vowel.ogg|ɛ}}, as in fed, elm and hen, was more or less the same as the phoneme represents today, sometimes approaching {{IPAblink|ɪ|audio=y}} (which is still in the word pretty).
• {{IPAc-en|audio=en-uk-a.ogg|eɪ}}, as in name, case and sake, was a long monophthong. It shifted from {{IPAblink|æː|audio=y}} to {{IPAblink|ɛː|audio=y}} and finally to {{IPAblink|eː|audio=y}}. Earlier in Early Modern English, mat and mate were near-homophones, with a longer vowel in the second word. Thus, Shakespeare rhymed words like haste, taste and waste with last and shade with sad. The more open pronunciation remains in some Northern England English and rarely in Irish English. During the 17th century, the phoneme variably merged with the phoneme {{IPA|en-emodeng|ɛi||audio=Nl-ei.ogg}} as in day, weigh, and the merger survived into standard forms of Modern English, though a few dialects kept these vowels distinct at least to the 20th century (see pane–pain merger).
• {{IPAc-en|audio=Close front unrounded vowel.ogg|iː}} (typically spelled {{angbr|ee}} or {{angbr|ie}}) as in see, bee and meet, was more or less the same as the phoneme represents today, but it had not yet merged with the phoneme represented by the spellings {{angbr|ea}} or {{angbr|ei}} (and perhaps {{angbr|ie}}, particularly with fiend, field and friend), as in east, meal and feat, which were pronounced with {{IPAblink|eː|audio=y}} or {{IPAblink|ɛ̝ː}}.Cercignani, Fausto (1981), Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford: Clarendon Press. However, words like breath, dead and head may have already split off towards {{IPAc-en|audio=Open-mid front unrounded vowel.ogg|ɛ}}).
• {{IPAc-en|audio=Near-close_near-front_unrounded_vowel.ogg|ɪ}}, as in bib, pin and thick, was more or less the same as the phoneme represents today.
• {{IPAc-en|audio=en-us-o.ogg|oʊ}}, as in stone, bode and yolk, was {{IPAblink|oː|audio=y}} or {{IPAblink|o̞ː|audio=y}}. The phoneme was probably just beginning the process of merging with the phoneme {{IPA|en-emodeng|ow|}}, as in grow, know and mow, without yet achieving today's complete merger. The old pronunciation remains in some dialects, such as in Yorkshire, East Anglia, and Scotland.
• {{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-awe.ogg|ɒ}}, as in rod, top and pot, was {{IPAblink|ɒ}} or {{IPAblink|ɔ|audio=y}}, much like the corresponding RP sound.
• {{IPAc-en|audio=Open-mid back rounded vowel.ogg|ɔː}}, as in taut, taught and law was more open than in contemporary RP, being {{IPAblink|ɔː}} or {{IPAblink|ɑː|audio=y}} (and thus being closer to Welsh and General American {{IPA|/ɔː/}})
• {{IPAc-en|audio=en-uk-oi.ogg|ɔɪ}}, as in boy, choice and toy, is even less clear than other vowels. In the late 16th century, the similar but distinct phonemes {{IPA|/ɔi/}}, {{IPA|/ʊi/}} and {{IPA|/əi/}} all existed. By the late 17th century, they all merged.{{cite book|title=Early modern English|first=Charles Laurence|last=Barber|edition=second|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=1997|isbn=0-7486-0835-4|pages=108–116|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Iat4Bk_YeR4C|location=Edinburgh|access-date=31 August 2020|archive-date=9 November 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231109181145/https://books.google.com/books?id=Iat4Bk_YeR4C|url-status=live}} Because those phonemes were in such a state of flux during the whole Early Modern period (with evidence of rhyming occurring among them as well as with the precursor to {{IPA|/aɪ/}}), scholarsSee [http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_modern.html The History of English (online)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141209013306/http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_modern.html |date=9 December 2014 }} as well as David Crystal's [http://originalpronunciation.com/ Original Pronunciation (online).] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141209064651/http://originalpronunciation.com/ |date=9 December 2014 }} often assume only the most neutral possibility for the pronunciation of {{IPA|/ɔɪ/}} as well as its similar phonemes in Early Modern English: {{IPA|[əɪ]}} (which, if accurate, would constitute an early instance of the line–loin merger since {{IPA|/aɪ/}} had not yet fully developed in English).
• {{IPAc-en|audio=en-us-uh.ogg|ʌ}} (as in drum, enough and love) and {{IPAc-en|audio=Near-close near-back rounded vowel.ogg|ʊ}} (as in could, full, put) had not yet split and so were both pronounced in the vicinity of {{IPAblink|ʊ|audio=Near-close_near-back_rounded_vowel.ogg}}.
• {{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-ooh.ogg|uː}} occurred not only in words like food, moon and stool, but also all other words spelled with {{angbr|oo}} like blood, cook and foot. However, the vowel for some of those words was shortened at an early stage: either beginning or already in the process of approximating the Early Modern English {{IPAblink|ʊ|audio=y}}. That phonological split among the {{angbr|oo}} words was a catalyst for the later foot–strut split and is called "early shortening" by John C. Wells.{{cite book | author=Wells, John C. | author-link=John C. Wells | title=Accents of English | location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=1982 | isbn=0-521-22919-7 | id=(vol. 1). (vol. 2)., (vol. 3)| page=199}} The {{angbr|oo}} words that came to be pronounced with the shortened vowel {{IPAblink|ʊ|audio=y}} included, for example, good and blood. They, like other words with /ʊ/, were subsequently subject to the foot–strut split and many of them, like drum and love, came to be pronounced with the vowel {{IPAblink|ɤ|audio=y}} and eventually {{IPAc-en|audio=en-us-uh.ogg|ʌ}}. However, the words with a shortened vowel also seem to have included, at least in some pronunciations such as Shakespeare's and at certain stages, some words that are pronounced with the original non-shortened vowel {{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-ooh.ogg|uː}} in Present-Day English - e.g. brood, doom and noon. For example, doom and come rhyme in Shakespeare's writing for this reason.Crystal, David. "Sounding Out Shakespeare: Sonnet Rhymes in Original Pronunciation". In Vera Vasic (ed.), Jezik u upotrebi: primenjena lingvistikja u cast Ranku Bugarskom [Language in use: applied linguistics in honour of Ranko Bugarski] (Novi Sad and Belgrade: Philosophy Faculties, 2011), 295-306300. p. 300.
• {{IPA|/ɪw/}} or {{IPA|/iw/}}E. J. Dobson (English pronunciation, 1500–1700, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968, passim) and other scholars before him postulated the existence of a vowel /y/ beside /iu̯/ in early Modern English. But see Fausto Cercignani, On the alleged existence of a vowel /y:/ in early Modern English, in “English Language and Linguistics”, 26/2, 2022, pp. 263–277 [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/english-language-and-linguistics/article/on-the-alleged-existence-of-a-vowel-y-in-early-modern-english/AC739707E998A98AFFD515678D9B1E14] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231109181252/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/english-language-and-linguistics/article/abs/on-the-alleged-existence-of-a-vowel-y-in-early-modern-english/AC739707E998A98AFFD515678D9B1E14|date=9 November 2023}}. occurred in words spelled with ew or ue such as due and dew. In most dialects of Modern English, it became {{IPA|/juː/}} and {{IPA|/uː/}} by yod-dropping and so do, dew and due are now perfect homophones in most American pronunciations, but a distinction between the two phonemes remains in other versions of English. There is, however, an additional complication in dialects with yod-coalescence (such as Australian English and younger RP), in which dew and due {{IPA|/dʒuː/}} (homophonous with jew) are distinguished from do {{IPA|/duː/}} purely by the initial consonant, without any vowel distinction.

The difference between the transcription of the EME diphthong offsets with {{angbr IPA|j w}}, as opposed to the usual modern English transcription with {{angbr IPA|ɪ̯ ʊ̯}} is not meaningful in any way. The precise EME realizations are not known, and they vary even in modern English.

The r sound (the phoneme {{IPAc-en|r}}) was probably always pronounced following vowel sounds, like in modern General American, West Country English, Irish English, and Scottish English.

At the beginning of the Early Modern English period there were three non-open and non-schwa short vowels before {{IPA|/r/}} in the syllable coda: {{IPA|/e/}}, {{IPA|/i/}} and {{IPA|/u/}} (roughly equivalent to modern {{IPA|/ɛ/}}, {{IPA|/ɪ/}} and {{IPA|/ʊ/}}; {{IPA|/ʌ/}} had not yet developed). In London English they gradually merged into a phoneme that became modern {{IPAc-en|ɜr}}, known as the {{sc2|NURSE}} mergers. While {{angbr|ur}} spellings for {{angbr|ir}} words exist in the 1500s, these are descended from Old English words with the segments {{IPA|/yr/}} and {{IPA|/ri/}}suggesting that they may not be part of the merger. The earliest native speaker to comment on mergers between the classes is John Wallis in 1653, showing a near merger of {{IPA|/ur/}} and {{IPA|/ir/}}, with "turn" and "burn" having the vowel of "dull", and "virtue" with a slightly closer or unrounded vowel. However, a smaller number of speakers merge {{IPA|/ir/}} and {{IPA|/er/}} instead. The full three-way {{sc2|NURSE}} mergers only completed in England around 1800.{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999| publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|pp=112-113}}

Nature was pronounced approximately as {{IPA|[ˈnɛːtəɹ]}} and may have rhymed with letter or, early on, even latter. One may have been pronounced own, with both one and other using the era's long {{sc2|GOAT}} vowel, rather than today's {{sc2|STRUT}} vowels. Tongue derived from the sound of tong and rhymed with song.Crystal, David (2011). "[http://www.davidcrystal.com/?fileid=-4836 Sounding out Shakespeare: Sonnet Rhymes in Original Pronunciation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020080423/http://www.davidcrystal.com/?fileid=-4836 |date=20 October 2017 }}". In Vera Vasic (ed.) Jezik u Upotrebi: primenjena lingvsitikja u cast Ranku Bugarskom. Novi Sad and Belgrade: Philosophy faculties. P. 298-300.

Early Modern English had two second-person personal pronouns: thou, the informal singular pronoun, and ye, the plural (both formal and informal) pronoun and the formal singular pronoun.

"Thou" and "ye" were both common in the early 16th century (they can be seen, for example, in the disputes over Tyndale's translation of the Bible in the 1520s and the 1530s) but by 1650, "thou" seems old-fashioned or literary. It has effectively completely disappeared from Modern Standard English.

The translators of the King James Version of the Bible (begun 1604 and published 1611, while Shakespeare was at the height of his popularity) had a particular reason for keeping the informal "thou/thee/thy/thine/thyself" forms that were slowly beginning to fall out of spoken use, as it enabled them to match the Hebrew and Ancient Greek distinction between second person singular ("thou") and plural ("ye"). It was not to denote reverence (in the King James Version, God addresses individual people and even Satan as "thou") but only to denote the singular. Over the centuries, however, the very fact that "thou" was dropping out of normal use gave it a special aura and so it gradually and ironically came to be used to express reverence in hymns and in prayers.{{Citation needed|date=February 2012}}

Like other personal pronouns, thou and ye have different forms dependent on their grammatical case; specifically, the objective form of thou is thee, its possessive forms are thy and thine, and its reflexive or emphatic form is thyself.

The objective form of ye was you, its possessive forms are your and yours and its reflexive or emphatic forms are yourself and yourselves.

The older forms "mine" and "thine" had become "my" and "thy" before words beginning with a consonant other than h, and "mine" and "thine" were retained before words beginning with a vowel or an h, as in mine eyes or thine hand.

{{Early Modern English personal pronouns (table)}}

During the Early Modern period, the verb inflections became simplified as they evolved towards their modern forms:

• The third-person singular present lost its alternate inflections: -eth and -th became obsolete, and -s survived. (Both forms can be seen together in Shakespeare: "With her, that hateth thee and hates us all".){{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|page=163}}
• The plural present form became uninflected. Present plurals had been marked with -en and singulars with -th or -s (-th and -s survived the longest, especially with the singular use of is, hath and doth).{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|pages=165–66}} Marked present plurals were rare throughout the Early Modern period and -en was probably used only as a stylistic affectation to indicate rural or old-fashioned speech.{{Cite book|author=Charles Laurence Barber|title=Early Modern English|year=1997|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-0835-5|page=171}}
• The second-person singular indicative was marked in both the present and past tenses with -st or -est (for example, in the past tense, walkedst or gav'st).{{Cite book|author=Charles Laurence Barber|title=Early Modern English|year=1997|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-0835-5|page=165}} Since the indicative past was not and still is not otherwise marked for person or number,{{Cite book|author=Charles Laurence Barber|title=Early Modern English|year=1997|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-0835-5|page=172}} the loss of thou made the past subjunctive indistinguishable from the indicative past for all verbs except to be.

The modal auxiliaries cemented their distinctive syntactical characteristics during the Early Modern period. Thus, the use of modals without an infinitive became rare (as in "I must to Coventry"; "I'll none of that"). The use of modals' present participles to indicate aspect (as in "Maeyinge suffer no more the loue & deathe of Aurelio" from 1556), and of their preterite forms to indicate tense (as in "he follow'd Horace so very close, that of necessity he must fall with him") also became uncommon.{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge |location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|pages=231–35}}

Some verbs ceased to function as modals during the Early Modern period. The present form of must, mot, became obsolete. Dare also lost the syntactical characteristics of a modal auxiliary and evolved a new past form (dared), distinct from the modal durst.{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999| publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|page=232}}

The perfect of the verbs had not yet been standardised to use only the auxiliary verb "to have". Some took as their auxiliary verb "to be", such as this example from the King James Version: "But which of you... will say unto him... when he is come from the field, Go and sit down..." [Luke XVII:7]. The rules for the auxiliaries for different verbs were similar to those that are still observed in German and French (see unaccusative verb).

The modern syntax used for the progressive aspect ("I am walking") became dominant by the end of the Early Modern period, but other forms were also common such as the prefix a- ("I am a-walking") and the infinitive paired with "do" ("I do walk"). Moreover, the to be + -ing verb form could be used to express a passive meaning without any additional markers: "The house is building" could mean "The house is being built".{{Cite book|editor=Lass, Roger|title=The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-26476-1|pages=217–18}}

A number of words that are still in common use in Modern English have undergone semantic narrowing.

The use of the verb "to suffer" in the sense of "to allow" survived into Early Modern English, as in the phrase "suffer the little children" of the King James Version, but it has mostly been lost in Modern English.Doughlas Harper, https://www.etymonline.com/word/suffer#etymonline_v_22311 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181104010424/https://www.etymonline.com/word/suffer#etymonline_v_22311 |date=4 November 2018 }} This use still exists in the idiom "to suffer fools gladly".

Also, this period includes one of the earliest Russian borrowings to English (which is historically a rare occasion itselfMirosława Podhajecka Russian borrowings in English: A dictionary and corpus study, p.19); at least as early as 1600, the word "steppe" (rus. степьMax Vasmer, Etymological dictionary of the Russian language) first appeared in English in William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is believed that this is a possible indirect borrowing via either German or French.

The substantial borrowing of Latin and sometimes Greek words for abstract concepts, begun in Middle English, continued unabated, often terms for abstract concepts not available in English.{{cite journal |last1=Franklin |first1=James |date=1983 |title=Mental furniture from the philosophers |url=http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/mental.pdf |journal=Et Cetera |volume=40 |issue= |pages=177–191 |doi= |access-date=29 June 2021 |archive-date=23 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081123101442/http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/mental.pdf |url-status=live }}

• Early modern Britain
• English literature
• History of English
• Inkhorn term
• Elizabethan era, Jacobean era, Caroline era
• English Renaissance
• Shakespeare's influence
• Middle English, Modern English, Old English

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100616095827/http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/paleography.html English Paleography]: Examples for the study of English handwriting from the 16th–18th centuries from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University{{dead link|date=March 2019}}

Category:History of the English language

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