CIENCIAS Y LETRAS

      The Early Modern English period is generally framed between 1500 and 1700, and consequently, it is attached, from the social and cultural point of view, to the Humanism, and also, from an artistic perspective, to the English Renaissance. This stage of the English history is characterized by deep changes in the social and political realms, which influenced thought and subsequently, language. The rupture with the medieval concepts developed in a search for national entity and personal individualism. This period is marked by social mobility and the development of industry and commerce, which brought inner migrations from rural to urban areas, and the increasing secularization of society, because of the individualistic trend. The Anglican Church was found and the confidence in the monarchy as an institution decreased significantly. In opposition to the doctrine of the Church of England, different Catholic cults rose, and were present in the English social life at the time, such as Puritans, Quakers and Presbyterians among others.

      From a linguistic point of view, there is an increasing interest in the English language itself, which implied the abandonment of Latin in written texts. There is an aim for standardization, which provokes despise for the regional dialects. It was the time for linguistic authorities to appear among learned scholars, who, for the first time, work in metalinguistic texts, such as dictionaries and grammars, and the text coming from outside the English boundaries are immediately translated into English. The printing press was introduced in the English society, which spread culture among the population, and the percentage of illiterate people decreased significantly. The innovation of the printing press also helped the process of standardization, imposing uniformity in the spelling of words. Functional varieties of English emerge, since people become aware of the usefulness of language as social and political weapon.

      Due to this exceptional linguistic situation, and to a more exhaustive study of the language itself, different attitudes towards language are present in the cultural and social fields. On one hand, there is a general feeling of self-confidence in their language and an aim for correctness. On the other hand, Latin had been imposing on English, and the language had acquired Latin terms which were being used instead of existing English terms, especially in those speeches aimed to sound literate. This vocabulary had brought obscurity to the expression of English, and in this moment there is a public debate about the use of Germanic or Non Germanic terms.

      All these circumstances make this period linguistically attractive, having the chance to observe from the text of the time this interest in language, differences between written genres, the use of Germanic and Non Germanic vocabulary depending on the purpose of the text, etc.

      The vocabulary of English experiments a considerable expansion during this period, deriving from several sources. There is a profusion of loans from Latin (e.g. skeleton) and Greek (e.g. cosmos), and also from other European vernacular languages like French (e.g. envelope), Italian (e.g. concert), Spanish (e.g. comrade), Portuguese (e.g. molasses) and German (e.g. quartz). Also the communication with the recently discovered New World, America, collaborates in the acquisition of new terms (belonging to products which didn�t exist in England before) like vanilla, and the other languages which were talked in the British Isles at the time, like Irish (e.g. tory), Scots Gaelic (e.g. whiskey) or Welsh (e.g. penguin). Another sources of new vocabulary are preffixation (e.g. crypto-), suffixation (e.g. �ism) -also called Latinate words-, compound within English language (e.g. Frenchwoman) and zero-morpheme derivation (e.g. from noun channel emerges verb to channel). There were other patterns of word formation, but the ones mentioned were the most common.

      The linguistic interest spread in the 16th Century was translated in several attempts to create the first dictionaries, but they were bilingual, especially English-Latin. It was the English printer William Bullokar, who devised a 40-letter phonetic alphabet for the English language, who first realized in 1580 that dictionaries should be part of a comprehensive description of language. Richard Mulcaster, considered to be an educational visionary, and who coined the rhetoric question �Why not all in English?� as a symbol of the aim to protect English language, thought in 1582 that it would be useful to compile a list of words. He did it himself and acquired a list of 8,000 words, but without definitions. Between 1594 and 1596 a glossary for scholarly text and a list of hard words were also written.

      In the 17th C., inspired by the previous century linguists, more bilingual dictionaries and lists of hard words were created, and later on the encyclopaedia was introduced. The conflict about the progressive latinization that English had been suffering was present during this century. Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, first printed in 1604, is generally regarded to be the first fully developed representative of the monolingual dictionary in English. The lexicographer, Henry Cockeram, added to his predecessors� work some anglizations of Latin words, increasing the number of entries, in his English Dictionary (1623). Other improved and enlarged dictionaries were printed along the century.

      It is also interesting to mention French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch dictionaries of English between 1530 and 1611, meant to add information on the usage of words in everyday life on a wide range of subjects, and also manifesting, not only the close relationship with those nationalities and its languages, but also the interest that was expanding among the population for words and its meanings.

      Mostly because of Humanist ideas, and vocabulary was then a matter of discuss. There were three main points of view from different schools of thought, Neologizers, Purists and Archaizers. Neologizers were in favour of loan words, especially from Latin. However, the problem with these loanwords was the fact that their meaning was not easily recognizable for those people who did not understand Latin. Purists believe in the use of English words, giving them new meaning or forming new compounds for those new terms, so that their meaning were recognizable, but, since there are, let us say, �more things than words�, there was a risk of poverty in the language. Archaizers thought that obsolete English words should be revived again, since some of them were still in use in some dialects, and also by a group of poets during the 17th Century, but those terms were considered too formal for colloquial purposes.

      Until the 17th people kept on coining words from French, Latin and Greek, and it was all due to necessity, because of new ideas and concept that were being imported from abroad at that time. Nowadays, some of those loans are obsolete in English, but others are still being used, but very differentiated in the kind of discourse they are included. We find those terms in specialized fields and formal language, while colloquial language applies more English-rooted words.

      Another interesting matter of discuss is the usage of those terms labelled as inkhorn terms. Inkhorn is a concept which arises from the intention to add magniloquence to discourse, which derived in abuse and excess, leading to obscurity and affectation. Inkhorn terms are French or Italian words included in English speeches, technical terms from different fields of work (law, science, etc.), the abuse of archaisms and Latinism without apparent reason, etc. Thomas Wilson�s Art of Rhetoric includes a very famous attack on this erratic usage of English. Shakespeare and Jonson also ridicule affected language, but still they are not attacking loanwords, but the eccentricity in their usage.

      Throughout this period, the gap between oral and written language grew considerably. Although there is lack of evidence nowadays, it is quite logical to think that people kept on using their regional varieties and speaking with different accents. Due to the fashionable care for standardization, high classes got rid of accents, and those who had an aim to climb through the social scale or sound socially acceptable, would disguise their accent as well. The only dialect which also reached a level of standardization, with literary language as well, was the Scots, spoken in Scotland. Its cultural centre, Edimburgh, competed with the other cultural centre in the island, London, during this period.

      Apart from that prestigious language talked by socially concerned people, there were also groups using a different language to deliberately distinguish themselves from the rest. Marginal groups like bums spoke their own jargons, and other kinds of associations, for example religious, like Puritans or Quakers gave different meanings to the words and used references only understood by members of those groups. For example, Quakers called themselves �Group of Friends�, and they would name friend only that person professing the same religion as them.

      In conclusion to the vocabulary issues mentioned so far, it is clear that, even when dictionaries and grammars were being printed and written language was approaching standardization, there still was some linguistic confusion. It was caused by the cohabitation of high and low words with different purposes, looking for affectation, reflecting creative or for merely stylistic reasons. During the Early Modern period, terms from Germanic origin are displaced in professional language in favour of term from Latin and Greek, which resulted obscure to the average audiences.

      In order to achieve conclusions about the vocabulary and the usage of language during the Early Modern period it is necessary to exemplify each kind of discourse. Sermons, essays, journals, plays and poetry are focused to diverse audiences, aimed to various purposes and, of course, uttered and written with different vocabulary and expressions.

      Sermons are peculiar texts in the sense that, even though they are written, they are meant to be articulated aloud, in front of a very specific audience which is expecting certain parameters of language. These two characteristics are shared by plays as well, but the aims are different. Sermons deal with moral or religious issues, while plays, even when they might have a moral background, are fundamentally aimed to entertain. As an example of sermon writer, Hugh Latimer, a famous preacher at the time, charged for heresy several times, and finally excommunicated and burnt in 1555. He wanted to convince his audience, his language is graphic, full of metaphors and anecdotes, engaging for those who were listening. Analysing a sermon, he addresses a second person, the hearer, creating an �I-you� link, also by posing rhetoric questions and using personalized and common expression. Plays also include common language in the dialogues between the characters, using sayings and rhythmic expressions. As an example of playwright, there could not be a better model than William Shakespeare, in this case, his famous play Richard II. The most universal playwright of all times uses strong metaphors as well in this play in which power and persuasion have an important role. Both Latimer and Shakespeare were conscious about the popular component of their writings.

      In a closer lexico-semantic approach, in both texts the percentage of Latin rooted terms is very low. As it has been mentioned before, Non-Germanic words were opaque for the English average speaker. Since those texts were meant to be understood by common people, both writers wanted to avoid that obscurity. The level of innovation is also low, and those examples of creativity in the expression are due to a clearer understanding of the meaning. Latimer innovates in the use of the nouns prelate and lord as verbs, to prelate and to lord, meaning, to act as a prelate or act as a lord, which were easy to understand even when nobody had heard it before. Shakespeare also introduces innovation in Richard II by the use of new participles out of nouns, like disgrac�d, impeach�d and baffled, uttered together by Mowbray. Nearly a century separates Latimer�s text from Shakespeare�s, marked the high percentage of obsolete terms in the first text and a more contemporary vocabulary in the second. The formerly mentioned term, to prelate, is obsolete nowadays, as well as seming, and other words that have not disappeared but have different meaning nowadays, like minister, which have suffered a change of meaning, from a general sense, servant, to an specific religious and political charge. The addressing terms are the old fashion component in Shakespeare�s text, there are two different forms of the pronoun referring the second person singular, you and thou. In Early Modern England, you was used to show respect and to refer to high class people, while thou was used in the lower classes to refer to each other, showing familiarity, and also it could be use to break the code of respect among high class people. We find an example of this in the text, when Mowbray, who had been addressing the King using you, changes to thou as a sign of despite. This usage of the pronouns, used since the 9th C., prevailed until the 18th C. The reasons for the �democratization� of the you that exists in English today is due to social factors, which made people stop using thou in order not to sound disrespectful to anybody, and the tendency to simplification in every grammatical field of English. Following this explanation, it is easy to understand why Latimer repeatedly uses thou, sometimes even we, to refer to his audience. It is another strategy to make people feel identified in his words and opinions. It is worth mentioning also the use of terms related to politics and law by Shakespeare, an interesting feature related to Renaissance and the wider view of the world they had in this period in comparison with previous centuries.

      In conclusion, both texts represent the new attitudes towards language experimented during the 16th and 17th centuries. Latimer and Shakespeare clearly know the power of language, and use it as a way of persuading, one in a religious sense, and the other within entertaining purposes. They symbolize the two sides of the evolution of the language, and its growing importance, in both centuries.

      If it is not clear whether sermons should be labelled as oral or writer language, journals entangle a similar dichotomy. However, journals are not public texts, they are private writings in which the ideas of the writer are shaped. The language used is colloquial, it is the language one would use talking to oneself, extremely familiar. And, radically different, the essays are public texts in which the author explains a certain subject, using a very formal language. Journals and essays are opposites, in aims, in expression and in audience. As an example of journal, the one written by George Fox, written in an intimate style, close to people, but not so linguistically well-built. Fox was a Quaker, one of the cults present in the Early Modern society of England. He was not an educated man. In his Journal he wrote the story of his spiritual search, narrated in first person with simplicity and very illustrated with examples and linguistic images. Like telling a story, paragraphs are joint with connectors (e.g. And when�/And then�). His language, like in sermons, is very close to spoken language. Thomas Elyot and Thomas Wilson exemplify how essays were written in this period. Elyot was a lexicographer who dedicated his essay The boke named the Governour to Henry VIII. The text is a plan for bringing up gentlemen�s sons, expressing humanist concern of education. Wilson wrote The Art of Retorique, in which he urges the use of English and discourages affectation of foreign phrases. Both essayists were educated men, translators, influenced by the Classics, and both reflect their credentials in their texts, using a high language, opposite to Fox.

      Like in Latimer�s sermons, Fox�s Journal presents a high majority of Germanic terms, for the same reason, the definite aim to be clearly understood. His Quaker background is present in the text. Apart from the example formerly given on how they directed they term friend, in the text Fox mentions how Quakers differentiated the terms steeple house and church, being the first the building in which the cult took place and the second, the people themselves. Two interesting expressions in the text are to yea and nea and to thou and thee, the first one meaning to say whether yes or no, and the second one meaning to be using thou and thee to address people, instead of polite you, as it has been explained above. Quakers would address everyone with thou, something particularly shocking and disrespectful at the time.

      Elyot and Wilson use a style in which the reader is far from the writer, the use of passives and formal structures and usual references to other authors like Chaucer. In Elyot�s text the percentage of Germanic and Non-Germanic terms are equal. Those Germanic words are mostly related to life, to the body and natural behaviour of human beings, for example nouns like strength, persone and horse. The Latin and French borrowings used had already been in the language for a long time before his text was written. For example if we take some French words in the text, like bataile, affairs or honourable, we find that these words had been used in English for two hundred years already before Elyot�s time. This means that he was not abusing new terms or inventing new words, probably because his main aim, even when he was educated and very differentiated from the religious texts dealt with before, was undoubtedly to be understood by his audience. About the degree of innovation found in the text, we should comment these double structures he uses to express the same meaning with two words, each word with a different origin. They are called �doublets� and they are used in order to introduce new words not known before, joining a Germanic word known by the audience with a new Latin or French word. They were common in the Early Modern period, especially in those texts written by translators and linguists, like Elyot was. Some examples from the text are suerly and clene and strong and hardy. Wilson�s vocabulary is related with the subject of his essay. Since he is pleading for the use of English with Germanic words, his percentages are 80% Germanic and 20% Non-Germanic terms. He explains his attitude towards language, criticizing the use of inkhorn terms and the affected language, progressively abuse, under his point of view. About the vocabulary itself, we find some semantic changes, like outlandish, which had a neutral meaning of somethingcoming from utside the English frontiers, and moved into a negative meaning in the 16th C., and the same process was suffered by the word italianate. The term professeth suffered a process of secularization, having a religious meaning before the 16th C. and used with a general one after that. Like Elyot, Wilson also inserts a doublet in the text, accompt and rekenying.

      To sum up, all of them, again, are aware of the importance of the material, the English language, they are working with. Fox is using language to distinct his friends and himself from the rest of the society, marking their personality and beliefs by giving different meanings to the same words. Apposite to him, deeply engaged with their contemporary society, Elyot and Wilson use their knowledge and talent to teach, to express their opinions, to convince and to, somehow, try to polish English people�s taste toward language.

      Poetry deserves a spare room in this analysis for its intrinsic relation to a very intimate link between the author and the reader. But of course it has common features with the texts already mentioned. The intimate side of poetry is related to sermons and journals, associated with the feelings, religious or pagan, of both hearer and speaker. John Donne�s poetry exemplifies all this theory. He was the precursor of the poetic movement called Metaphysic. Much of his poetry confronted not only love, but also death, energetic and highly rhetorical, using paradoxes and metaphors. His poems Song and The Good-morrow deal with deep and innovative concepts about love and personal feelings, using easy vocabulary for that expression.

      Analysing Song from a lexico-semantic point of view, it lacks words from a classical origin, which probably points to the fact that Donne�s aim was not obscurity in the vocabulary, but the usage of everyday words. Some interesting vocabulary in the poem is the use of the term mandrake, which refers to a plant whose root resembles the figure of a person and is poisonous and was very common in Renacentist writings. In The Good-morrow Donne uses also common language in a difficult syntactic structure. Some interesting vocabulary is that included in the metaphors, for example, the term hemispheres, used as a synonym for the eyes of his lover, and also that vocabulary related to different fields of study, like geography (maps, new worlds). Like in Shakespearean plays, the use of scientific terms is a Renacentist feature showing the interest and concern authors had about progress and development at the time. There is an interesting verse in which he refers to our waking soules, giving souls the same characteristics to those of a body, breaking medieval conventions. It recognizes the union of body and soul, personificating the later. It is also notable the use of thou to refer to the lover, like in previously analysed texts.

      Donne is writing with only an artistic aim. He uses metaphors and stylistic resources to shorten the distance between speaker and hearer, but in this case his wish is not to convince or persuade, but to create, to use language as the material to build beautiness which causes pleasure. He joints nature and progress in his words, raising his voice to express his feelings and aims to reach the reader�s feelings as well.

      The timeline of the texts and authors analysed goes from the decade of the 1550s and the decade of the 1670s. The wide range of genres, even when reflecting different characteristics, show several features representative of the Early Modern period.

      Latimer, Shakespeare, Elyot, Wilson, Fox and Donne share the privilege of having influenced the subsequent authors and texts. Their coinage of new words, expressions and metaphors has enriched the English language (patent in the OED, which names them as pioneers of certain terms).

      Evidences are shown about the influence of the cultural and historical moment England was going through. In the text there are defenders and detractors of classical borrowings in the middle of a debate in which every author reflects his attitude through his writings. The coexistence of both Germanic and Non Germanic terms mark the sound and aspect of the Early Modern vocabulary, and a certain scope of freedom to produce new words, an audience which actually accommodates those new words and information and a taste for innovation eased the extension and expansion of the vocabulary during these centuries.

• Barber, C., 1976, Early Modern English, London: Andre Deutsch.
• G�rlach, M., 1993, Introduction to Early Modern English, Cambridge: CPU.
• Kastovsky, D. (ed), 1994, Studies in Early Modern English, Berlin: de Gruyter.
• Strang, B., 1970, A history of English, Nueva York: Routledge.

Minerva Fraile Fresno