Early Modern English

1476 – 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.

William Caxton

The letter ⟨S⟩ had two distinct forms: ⟨s⟩ (short s), as is still used today, and ⟨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 ⟨ſſ⟩, ⟨ſs⟩ or ⟨ß⟩ (the last ligature is still used in German ß).^[5] That is similar to the alternation between medial (σ) and final lowercase sigma (ς) in Greek.

lowercase

and ⟨v⟩ were not considered two distinct letters then but as still different forms of the same letter. Typographically, ⟨v⟩ was frequent at the start of a word and ⟨u⟩ elsewhere:^[6] hence vnmoued (for modern unmoved) and loue (for love). The modern convention of using ⟨u⟩ for the vowel sounds and ⟨v⟩ for the consonant appears to have been introduced in the 1630s.^[7] Also, ⟨w⟩ was frequently represented by ⟨vv⟩.

⟨u⟩

Similarly, and ⟨j⟩ were also still considered not as two distinct letters, but as different forms of the same letter: hence ioy for joy and iust for just. Again, the custom of using ⟨i⟩ as a vowel and ⟨j⟩ as a consonant began in the 1630s.^[7]

⟨i⟩

The letter ⟨þ⟩ () was still in use during the Early Modern English period but was increasingly limited to handwritten texts. In Early Modern English printing, ⟨þ⟩ was represented by the Latin ⟨Y⟩ (see Ye olde), which appeared similar to thorn in blackletter typeface ⟨𝖞⟩. Thorn had become nearly totally disused by the late Early Modern English period, the last vestiges of the letter being its ligatures, y^e (thee), y^t (that), y^u (thou), which were still seen occasionally in the 1611 King James Version and in Shakespeare's Folios.^[8]

thorn

A was often appended to words, as in ſpeake and cowarde. The last consonant was sometimes doubled when the ⟨e⟩ was added: hence manne (for man) and runne (for run).

silent ⟨e⟩

The sound /ʌ/ was often written ⟨o⟩ (as in son): hence ſommer, plombe (for modern summer, plumb).

[9]

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.

[10]

⟨y⟩ was often used instead of ⟨i⟩.

[11]

The vowels represented by ⟨ee⟩ and ⟨e_e⟩ (for example in meet and mete) changed, and ⟨ea⟩ became an alternative.

[11]

Today's "silent" consonants found in the 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.^[12]

consonant clusters

The digraph ⟨⟩, in words like night, thought and daughter, originally pronounced [x] in much older English, was probably reduced to nothing (as it is today) or at least heavily reduced in sound to something like [ht], [ç], [h], or [f]. It seems likely that much variation existed for many of these words. Upon its disappearance, it lengthened the previous vowel.

gh

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 .^[13] The l in could, however, first appearing in the early 16th century, was presumably never pronounced.

British American colonies

The modern phoneme /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 /zj/ and in measure as /z/.

Most words with the spelling ⟨wh⟩, such as what, where and whale, were still pronounced [] ^ⓘ, rather than [w] ^ⓘ. That means, for example, that wine and whine were still pronounced differently, unlike in most varieties of English today.^[14]

ʍ

[14]

In Early Modern English, the precise nature of the light and dark of the l consonant, respectively [l] ^ⓘ and [ɫ] ^ⓘ, remains unclear.

variants

Word-final ⟨ng⟩, as in sing, was still pronounced [ŋɡ] until the late 16th century, when it began to into the usual modern pronunciation, [ŋ]. The original pronunciation [ŋɡ] is preserved in parts of England, in dialects such as Brummie, Mancunian and Scouse.

coalesce

at the start of words was common, as it still is in informal English throughout most of England.^[14] 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.

H-dropping

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.

Early modern Britain

English literature

History of English

Inkhorn term

Jacobean era, Caroline era

Elizabethan era

English Renaissance

Shakespeare's influence

Modern English, Old English

Middle English

: Examples for the study of English handwriting from the 16th–18th centuries from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University

English Paleography