What is the approximate time period of Old English?
100
1100-1500
What is the approximate time period of Middle English?
100
The inventor of the printing press in 1476.
Who is William Caxton?
100
1800- onwards
What is the approximate time period of Modern English?
100
The idea that the rules of a language always need to be followed and that language should not change, nor be used incorrectly.
What is prescriptivism?
200
Beowulf
What is the famous Old English poem?
200
The author of the Canterbury tales.
Who is Geoffrey Chaucer?
200
1500-1800
What is the approximate time period of Early Modern English?
200
A newly coined term that has entered the English language.
What is neologism?
200
The belief that language everyone uses language differently and that we should adapt to new trends, as language is constantly changing.
What is descriptivism?
300
French became the language of the elite after this event in history.
What was the impact of the Norman Invasion in 1066?
300
-e, -est, -eth
What are the verb endings for the first, second and third person singular in Middle English?
300
Over the course of a few centuries, the vowels in English gradually began to change. Before this change, life was pronounced as "leef".
What is the Great Vowel Shift?
300
The process of establishing a writing system, publishing dictionaries and grammar books and settling on official pronunciation and grammar.
What is codification?
300
A variety of language that encompasses a set of norms generally adopted by educated speakers; the language used in dictionaries, schools, literature.
What is Standard English/language?
400
Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive
What are the cases used in Old English?
400
After the hundred years war, it was now the language used by the enemy.
Why did the French influence decline during Middle English?
400
It impacted on the English language by making books more easily accessible, literacy increased and book prices decreased. It played a part in the standardisation of English.
What was the effect of the printing press?
400
The invention of technology has caused this kind of language to enter English. Examples include "LOL", "rofl" and "c u l8r"
What is textspeak?
400
The contraction of two existing words to create a new word, e.g. web + log= blog
What is blending?
500
Three: Masculine, feminine, neutral.
What are the three genders in Old English?
500
A language that relies more on word order than inflectional endings.
What is an analytic language?
500
/kniçt/
What was the pronunciation of knight /naɪt/ before the Great Vowel Shift?
500
A non-standard second person plural pronoun that is slowly entering common usage in Modern English.
What is "youse"?
500
When a word comes to mean only a part of what it originally meant.