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Language Differences Between Late Middle And Modern English

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As English language has gone through various stages of development, differences between different stages were produced. In this paper, two texts will be analysed and compared, in order to give a clearer picture of how English variates over time.

To have a rather full picture of the variation, he following discussions will base on text one and text three provided in aspects of vocabulary, spelling, grammar, syntax and morphology as they are texts from Middle English and Modern English. By analysing the texts, this paper will discuss the findings in two aspects: what extent does language and its use of language indicates the variation and the language variation effects in written form instead of spoken form.

Analysis

Text one is a letter written in 1477, which is in the period of Late Middle English . Firstly, some spelling features can be found in the letter while comparing it with the modern translation provided. In the letter, readers would find that [y] is used in spelling instead of [i] should be used in spelling in present days, for example, “yf”, “lyfe”, “thys”, “tyme” and “ryght” which are written as “if”, “life”, “this”, “time” and “right” in present days. Nonetheless, spelling in Middle English is not as regularised as nowadays as readers could find inconsistency in the letter. For instance, both “mor” and “more” could be found as they share the same meaning. Secondly, [e] was added as suffix in words, such as “recommande”, “sende”, “thanke”, “knowe” and
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