Early modern English

Early Modern English
English
William Shakespeare's Sonnet 132 in the 1609 Quarto
Region	England, southern Scotland, Ireland, Wales and British colonies
Era	developed into Modern English, late 17th to 18th centuries
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic North Sea Germanic Anglo-Frisian Anglic Early Modern English
Early forms	Old English Middle English Early Modern English
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
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Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated to EModE,EMnE or ENE) is the stage of the English language used from the beginning of the Tudor period until the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English in the late 15th century to the transition to Modern English during the mid- to late 17th century.

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

Modern readers of English are generally able to understand texts written in the late phase of the Early Modern English period (e.g. the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare), while texts from the earlier phase (such as Le Morte d'Arthur) may present more difficulties (though the latter is often classified as late Middle English). The Early Modern English of the early 17th century forms the base of the grammatical and orthographical conventions that survive in Modern English.

The change from Middle English to Early Modern English was not just a matter of vocabulary or pronunciation changing; it was the beginning of a new era in the history of English. An era of linguistic change in a language with large variations in dialect was replaced by a new era of a more standardised language with a richer lexicon and an established (and lasting) literature.

The period of the English Civil War and the Interregnum was one of social and political upheaval and instability. The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention, and they differ markedly from genre to genre. Thus, the "Restoration" in drama may last until 1700, while in poetry it may last only until 1666, the annus mirabilis; and in prose it might end in 1688, with the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or not until 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilised.