William Bullokar was a 16th-century printer who devised a 40-letter phonetic alphabet for the English language. Its characters were in the black-letter or "gothic" writing style commonly used at the time. Taking as his model a Latin grammar by William Lily,[1] Bullokar wrote the first published grammar of the English language, in a book titled Brief Grammar for English, which appeared in 1586.[2]

Bullokar's alphabet.

Works

  • Bullokar, William (1580). Booke at large, for the Amendment of Orthographie for English Speech. London: Henrie Denham.,
  • Bullokar, William (1584). Æsops Fábĺz. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • Bullokar, William (n.d.) [1585]. The short Sentences of the wýʒ Cato. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • Bullokar, William (1586). Bref Grammar for English. London: Edmund Bollifant.
    • facsimile in Bullokar (1977)
    • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 331-385
  • Bullokar, William (1586). Pamphlet for Grammar. London: Edmund Bollifant.

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. "The History of English Grammar". lawyerment.com. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  2. Valeika, Laimutis; Buitkiene, Janina (2003). An Introductory Course in Theoretical English Grammar (PDF). Vilnius Pedagogical University. p. 7. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  • Clair, Colin. History of Printing in Bri
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