The Astonishing Evolution of the English Language-from Peasant’s Revolt to Shakespeare

First triggered by Biblical translations, folk tales, and restive peasants rebelling against established Church and State (later by increasingly sophisticated English business, religious, and entertainment classes), the English language blossomed between 1377 (the time of the Peasant’s Rebellion and the Wycliffe Bible) and 1623 (Publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio, the Colonization of the New World). There were notable contributions from the English Reformation, William Caxton’s Printing Press, the Great Vowel Shift, the Chancery Standard, and Elizabethan Inkhorn writers.

It is interesting to ponder the transition of the English language from a rather limited, 3,000 word, “backwater” language (once called “vulgar” by the Catholic hierarchy, meaning “used by the common people”) to the robust, 60,000 word language of 1721, to the 170,000 word, quasi-international language of today. This transition reflects a rise of the English middle class, the Renaissance, and the emergence of England as a World Power. Here are some of the origins:

The Times just after the Black Plague, Middle English: As of the English Black Plague, around 1350, “Middle English” was spoken, itself a large departure from “Old English”. These changes began first by the English conversion to Roman Catholic Christianity, which began in 601 AD with the conversion of King Aethelberht of Kent. This brought Latin as the language of the church (a Latin somewhat changed from…