Early Modern English

Early Modern English
Shakespeare's English, King James English
English
William Shakespeare's Sonnet 132 in the 1609 Quarto
Region	England, Wales, Scottish Lowlands, Ireland and English overseas possessions
Era	developed into Modern English in the late 17th century
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic North Sea Germanic Anglo-Frisian Anglic Early Modern English
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Old English Middle English
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
ISO 639-6	emen
Glottolog	None
IETF	en-emodeng
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Early Modern English (EModE^[1] or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language in the 16th century from the Tudor period to the Restoration when both the written and the spoken English language begins to be familiar to English speakers today, or speakers of Modern English.^[2]

This is when the King James Bible was written and William Shakespeare wrote his plays. What sets Early Modern English apart from Middle English is the Great Vowel Shift, when all long vowel sounds changed to their current sounds.

Before and after the accession of James I to the English throne in 1603, the English standard began to influence the spoken and written Middle Scots of Scotland.

1. ↑ For example, Río-Rey, Carmen (9 October 2002). "Subject control and coreference in Early Modern English free adjuncts and absolutes". English Language and Linguistics. 6 (2). Cambridge University Press: 309–323. doi:10.1017/s1360674302000254. S2CID 122740133. Archived from the original on 21 February 2016. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
2. ↑ Nevalainen, Terttu (2006). An Introduction to Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.