Early changes of language

Essay by HellzAngelsCollege, UndergraduateB, October 2014

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Heloise Pearson-Child

Read through the text and analyse the way in which Language has changed over time.

During the 1600's many things where just simply spelt how they sounded, as there was no solid dictionary or rule to how things needed to be spelt. This means that Barlby and Tickhill where spelt "Balby" and "Tickill" which actually makes more sense than the current spelling, as that is how the place names would have been spoken. Lack of guide also means that many writers would place in double letters where they were not needed; as they were not sure which words did and didn't have them. This means that words like "wee" and "Mee" have double e's where as they wouldn't today. "hatt" "hitt" and "gott" also have double letter at the end; it seemed that on short words the writer decided to place double consonants at the end of them.

Even with plural words such as "leggs" he decided the double consonant was needed. Interestingly enough he then gets rid of the double letter on "caled" showing just how illogical these decisions where back then.

The great vowel shift had also left a lot of writers confused as to what words had an "e" at the end, and what words did not. This meant that for words such as "waite", "hurte", "Beate" "worde" and other short words which contain diphthongs they were not sure which still needed an 'E' upon the end, which in reality was very few. Even more interestingly is this writer even uses them on longer words such as "againe" "meetinge" and "cominge" which many authors of the time would have deemed unnecessary. The author seems to even change his mind upon when using the 'e', as at the start he writes "lorde" with an E on...