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British English in the long Eighteenth century (1660-1830)

In the 1660s...

Little worries

No grammars or dictionaries

No one studied English in school

The language was only an oral phenomemon

...but by the early 19th century...

Correctness in speech

Pubblication of many grammars, dictionaries, magazines,...

The Restoration in England

Turbolent years:

1665, the bubonic plague

1666, the Great Fire of London

many wars

As far as the language is concerned...

Language of the court VS Language of the people

Royalists

Meanwhile...

Great control over publications (Licensing Act)

Percepts of the Academie Française

They denounced all "amplifications, digressions and swelling of style in order to return to the primitive purity"

Popular and cheap pubblications

1695, the Licensing Act expired

However cultured people...

Swift, "Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue"

1747, Samuel Johnson

In these 160 years there was an extraordinary growth of language consciousness

Changes in society = Changes in the language

Industrial Revolution = Standardization of English

Romanticism

Enlightenment

New words,

new technical terms

Love for order

Believed in minorities

Attracted by minority languages, dialects and exotic languages

Preference for the language of real people

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