The focus of interest was vocabulary. There were no words in the language to talk accurately about the new concepts, techniques, and inventions which were emerging in Europe, and so writers began to borrow them. Most of the words which came into the language at the time were taken from Latin, and a goodly number from Greek, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. But the period of world-wide exploration was well under way, and words came into English from over fifty languages, including several American Indian languages and the languages of Africa and Asia. Some words came into English directly; others came by an intermediary language. Many words came indirectly from Latin or Italian by way of French.
Some writers went out of their way to find new words, in order (as they saw it) to ‘enrich’ the language. They saw their role as enabling the new learning – whether this was access to the old classical texts, or to the new fields of science, technology, and medicine – to be brought within the reach of the English public. There were many translations of classical works during the sixteenth century, and thousands of Latin or Greek terms were introduced, as translators searched for an English equivalent and could not find one. Often they would pause before a new word, and explain it, or apologize for it. ‘I am constrained to vsurpe a latine word,’ said Thomas Elyot in The Governour (1531), ‘… for the necessary augmentation of our langage’. He was talking about his intention to use the word maturity to apply to human behaviour:
whiche worde though it be strange and darke, yet by declaring the vertue in a fewe mo [more] wordes, the name ones [once] brought in custome shall be as facile to vnderstande as other wordes late commen out of Italy and France, and made denizins amonge vs.
Then, as now, the influx of foreign vocabulary caused hackles to rise. Purists objected to the way classical terms were pouring into the language. They called them ‘inkhorn’ terms, and condemned them for their obscurity and for the way they interfered with the development of native English vocabulary. Some writers (notably the poet Edmund Spenser) attempted instead to revive obsolete English words (what were sometimes called ‘Chaucerisms’), and to make use of little-known words from English dialects – such as algate (always), sicker (certainly), and yblent (confused). Some (notably the scholar John Cheke) used English equivalents for classical terms whenever he could: in his translation of St Matthew’s Gospel, we find byword for parable, hundreder for centurion, crossed for crucified, and gainrising for resurrection.
Some Renaissance foreign words
Latin and Greek
absurdity, adapt, agile, alienate, anachronism, anonymous, appropriate, assassinate, atmosphere, autograph, benefit, capsule, catastrophe, chaos, climax, conspicuous, contradictory, crisis, criterion, critic, disability, disrespect, emancipate, emphasis, encyclopedia, enthusiasm, epilepsy, eradicate, exact, exaggerate, excavate, excursion, exist, expectation, expensive, explain, external, extinguish, fact, glottis, habitual, halo, harass, idiosyncrasy, immaturity, impersonal, inclemency, jocular, larynx, lexicon, lunar, monopoly, monosyllable, necessitate, obstruction, pancreas, parenthesis, pathetic, pneumonia, relaxation, relevant, scheme, skeleton, soda, species, system, temperature, tendon, thermometer, tibia, transcribe, ulna, utopian, vacuum, virus
French
alloy, anatomy, battery, bayonet, bigot, bizarre, chocolate, colonel, comrade, detail, docility, duel, entrance, explore, grotesque, invite, moustache, muscle, passport, pioneer, probability, shock, ticket, vase, vogue, volunteer
Italian
balcony, ballot, cameo, carnival, concerto, cupola, design, fuse, giraffe, grotto, lottery, macaroni, opera, rocket, solo, sonata, sonnet, soprano, stanza, violin, volcano
Spanish and Portuguese
alligator, anchovy, apricot, armada, banana, barricade, bravado, cannibal, canoe, cockroach, cocoa, corral, embargo, guitar, hammock, hurricane, maize, mosquito, negro, potato, port (wine), rusk, sombrero, tank, tobacco, yam
Others
bazaar (Persian), caravan (Persian), coffee (Turkish), cruise (Dutch), easel (Dutch), harem (Arabic), keelhaul (Dutch), kiosk (Turkish), knapsack (Dutch), landscape (Dutch), pariah (Tamil), sago (Malay), shogun (Japanese), wampum (Algonquian), yacht (Dutch)
And some of the words that didn’t make it
cautionate (caution), deruncinate (weed), disacquaint (opposite of acquaint), emacerate (emaciate), expede (opposite of impede), man-suetude (mildness), uncounsellable
The rhetorician Thomas Wilson was one of the most ferocious critics of the new foreign words. In one of his works he cites a letter written, he claims, by a Lincolnshire gentleman asking for assistance in obtaining a vacant benefice (it is likely that the letter is Wilson’s own concoction, but the words he makes use of seem to be genuine):
... I obtestate [beseech] your clemencie, to inuigilate [take pains] thus muche for me, accordyng to my confidence, and as you know my condigne merites, for suche a compendious [profitable] liuyng. But now I relinquishe [cease] to fatigate [tire] your intelligence with any more friuolous verbositie, and therfore he that rules the climates be euermore your beautreux [? buttress], your fortresse, and your bulwarke. Amen.
Dated at my Dome, or rather Mansion place in Lincolneshire, the penulte of the moneth Sextile. Anno Millimo, quillimo, trillimo.
He comments:
Among all other lessons this should first be learned, that wee never affect any straunge ynkehorne termes, but to speake as is commonly received: neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet living over-carelesse, using our speeche as most men doe, and ordering our wittes as the fewest have done. Some seeke so far for outlandish English, that they forget altogether their mothers language. And I dare sweare this, if some of their mothers were alive, thei were not able to tell what they say; and yet these fine English clerkes will say, they speake in their mother tongue, if a man should charge them for counterfeiting the Kings English.
Some went to the opposite extreme, and objected to the use of any English at all in the expression of new learning. English, they argued, could never compare with the standards of Latin or Greek, especially in such fields as theology and medicine. Better to stick to the old and tested languages, and leave English for the gutter.
Then, as now, purist opinion had no general influence on what happened. And the merits of English were strongly defended by such writers as Richard Mulcaster:
For is it not in dede a mervellous bondage, to becom servants to one tung for learning sake, the most of our time, with losse of most time, whereas we maie have the verie same treasur in our own tung, with the gain of most time? our own bearing the joyfull title of our libertie and fredom, the Latin tung remembring us of our thraldom and bondage? I love Rome, but London better; I favor Italie, but England more; I honor the Latin, but I worship the English.
The Mulcaster view triumphed. Latin continued to be used by several scientists during the sixteenth century, but went out of general use during the seventeenth, apart from its continuing status in the Roman Catholic Church.
Nor did purist opinion stem the influx of new words. What is interesting, though, and little understood, is why some words survived whereas others died. Both impede and expede were introduced, but the latter disappeared, whereas the former did not. Similarly, demit (send away) was replaced by dismiss, but commit and transmit stayed. In the extract from Wilson’s letter, most of the new Latin words clemency, invigilate, confidence, compendious, relinquish, frivolous, and verbosity survived, but obtestate and fatigate for some reason died. It will probably never be possible to determine the reasons for such differences in the ‘natural history’ of these words.
The influx of foreign words was the most ‘noticeable’ aspect of the vocabulary growth in the Renaissance. At the same time, of course, the vocabulary was steadily expanding in other ways. In fact, far more new words came into English by adding prefixes and suffixes, or by forming new compounds. The following are examples of suffixes: straightness, delightfulness, frequenter, investment, relentless, laughable, anatomically, anathemize; of prefixes:
uncomfortable, uncivilized, bedaub, disabuse, forename, nonsense, underground, submarine; and of compounds: heaven-sent, chap-fallen, Frenchwoman, commander-in-chief. In addition, increasing use was made of the process of ‘conversion’ (p. 41) – turning one word class into another without adding a prefix or suffix. Some examples from Shakespeare are given below.
New verbs from old nouns in Shakespeare
Season your admiration for a while
It out-herods Herod
the hearts that spaniel’d me…
No more shall trenching war channel her fields
Uncle me no uncle
Shakespeare and the Bible
All textbooks on the history of English agree that the two influences which dominate the final decades of the Renaissance are the works of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and the King James Bible (the ‘Authorized Version’) of 1611. Dominate, that is, from a linguistic point of view. The question of their literary brilliance and significance is not an issue for this book. Our question is much simpler yet more far-reaching: what was their effect on the language?
This isn’t just a matter of the way these works use language in a memorable way – the ‘quotability’, as some say. Certainly, extracts from both sources predominate in any collection of quotations. But quotations are different. ‘To be or not to be’ is a quotation, but it had no subsequent influence on the development of the language’s grammar or vocabulary. On the other hand, Shakespeare’s use of obscene is not part of any especially memorable quotation, but it is the first recorded use in English of this word, and it stayed in the language thereafter.
Of course, to say that Shakespeare, or anyone, is ‘the first’ to use a word, or to use it in a particular way, does not mean that this person actually invented the word or usage. It may already have been present in the spoken language, but never written down. However, this is really beside the point. Whether Shakespeare was the first to use a word or not, the fact remains that his use of it put the word into circulation, in a way that had not happened before.
Not all the new words in Shakespeare were taken into the language as a whole. Some that stayed were accommodation, assassination, barefaced, countless, courtship, dislocate, dwindle, eventful, fancy-free, lack-lustre,
An extract from Shakespeare’s First Folio, published in 1623
laughable, premeditated and submerged. Some that disappeared were abruption, appertainments, cadent, conflux, protractive, questrist, tortive, ungenitured and vastidity. A large number of idiomatic phrases are also found for the first time in his writing.
Some Shakespearian expressions
beggars all description (Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii)
a foregone conclusion (Othello, III, iii)
hoist with his own petard (Hamlet, III, iv)
in my mind’s eye (Hamlet, I, ii)
it’s Greek to me (Julius Caesar, I, ii)
salad days (Antony and Cleopatra, I, v)
more in sorrow than in anger (Hamlet, I, ii)
play fast and loose (Antony and Cleopatra, IV, xii)
a tower of strength (Richard III, V, iii)
make a virtue of necessity (Pericles, I, iii)
dance attendance (Henry VIII, V, ii)
cold comfort (King John, V, vii)
at one fell swoop (Macbeth, IV, iii)
to the manner born (Hamlet I, iv)
there are more things in heaven and earth… (Hamlet, I, v)
brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet, II, ii)
hold the mirror up to nature (Hamlet, III, ii)
I must be cruel only to be kind (Hamlet, III, iv)
The Authorized Version of the Bible, similarly, introduced many idioms into the language. It is a more conservative language than is found in Shakespeare. The group of translators had been instructed to pay close attention to the English translations which had already appeared. As they say in their Preface, their aim was not to make a new translation, ‘but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not justly to be excepted against’. They aimed for a dignified, not a popular style, and often used older forms of the language, even when modern alternatives were available.
The Authorized Version of the Bible, then, does not contain large
William Shakespeare
numbers of new words, as Shakespeare’s plays did. The vocabulary looks backwards, rather than forwards. Compared with Shakespeare’s vocabulary of some 20,000 different words, this translation of the Bible is small, containing only about 8,000.
Similarly, the Authorized Version looks backwards in its grammar, and preserves many of the forms and constructions which were falling out of use elsewhere. Not that this period was one in which there was much basic change in grammar. The main developments – the loss of word
Some Biblical expressions
my brother’s keeper (Gn 4)
the apple of his eye (Dt 32)
the root of the matter (Jb 19)
the salt of the earth (Mt 5)
the strait and narrow (Mt 7)
whited sepulchre (Mt 23)
the signs of the times (Mt 16)
suffer fools gladly (2 Co 11)
rule with a rod of iron (Rv 2)
an eye for an eye (Ex 21)
the skin of my teeth (Jb 19)
eat sour grapes (Ezk 24)
cast pearls before swine (Mt 7)
in sheep’s clothing (Mt 7)
physician, heal thyself (Lk 4)
filthy lucre (1 Tm 3)
new wine into old bottles (Mt 9)
to kick against the pricks (Ac 9)
go from strength to strength (Ps 84)
heap coals of fire upon his head (Pr 25)
a lamb brought to the slaughter (Jr 11)
if the blind lead the blind (Mt 15)
out of the mouths of babes (Mt 21)
in the twinkling of an eye (I Co 15)
touch not, taste not, handle not (Col 2)
endings and the fixing of word order – had largely run their course in the medieval period (see Chapter 11). In Early Modern English, what we see is the ‘residue’ of this period of radical change. It is most noticeable in a conservative style, such as that of the Bible, or the Book of Common Prayer (originally compiled in 1549, in a style which was largely preserved in the 1662 version still used today). In Shakespeare, on the other hand, much greater use is made of the newer forms and constructions. The religious sources, therefore, are a good way of displaying the differences between sixteenth century and modern English grammar. They show the distance the language still had to travel to reach its present-day norms.
Many irregular verbs are found in their older forms: digged (dug), gat (got) and gotten, bare (bore), spake (spoke), forgat (forgot), sware (swore), tare (tore), clave (cleft), strake (struck) and holpen (helped).
Older word orders are still in use: follow thou me, speak ye unto, cakes unleavened, things eternal. In particular, the modern use of do with negatives and in questions is missing: we find they knew him not, instead of they did not know him. By contrast, both old and new constructions are used in Shakespeare, and the do construction became standard by about 1700.
The third person singular of the present tense of verbs is always -eth. Elsewhere, it is being replaced by -s – a northern form (p. 203) which was moving south in the sixteenth century. It is often found in Shakespeare along with the older ending: both comes and cometh are used, for example (the choice depending to some extent on the needs of the poetic metre).
The second person pronouns were changing during this period. Originally, ye was the subject form, and you was the form used as object or after a preposition. This distinction is preserved in the Bible, as can be seen in such examples as Ye cannot serue God and Mammon. Therfore I say vnto you… But in most other writing, by the end of the sixteenth century you was already being used for ye, and the latter form disappeared completely from standard English in the later seventeenth century.
Similarly, thou
was originally used for addressing one person, and ye/you for more than one. But during this period, usage changed: thou became intimate and informal, and ye/you polite and respectful (though the full account of the choice between thou and you is more complex, involving the subtle expression of varying interpersonal attitudes in conversation). The thou form ceased to be in general use at the end of the seventeenth century – though it continued in some regional dialects and religious styles, and notably in the language of the Quakers.
His is used for its, as in if the salt has lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? Although its is recorded as early as the end of the sixteenth century, it does not become general until 100 years later. (It may be some solace to those struggling with rules of punctuation to learn that its was spelled with an apostrophe until the end of the eighteenth century.) Similarly, in nouns, the modern use of the genitive was still not established, as is clear from such usages as for Jesus Christ his sake.
The auxiliary verb shall is used for all persons; will is sometimes found in the Authorized Version, and it is used in Shakespeare, but only in informal contexts.
The most noticeable difference in the use of adjectives is the way they can occur in a ‘double’ superlative: the most straitest sect, the most Highest.
The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language Page 22