William Bullokar

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]

Works[edit]

• Bullokar, William (1580). Booke at large, for the Amendment of Orthographie for English Speech. London: Henrie Denham.,
  • facsimile edition: Bullokar, William (1968). The Amendment of Orthographie for English Speech. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd.
  • facsimile in Bullokar (1977)
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 237-330
• Bullokar, William (1584). Æsops Fábĺz. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 1-212
• Bullokar, William (n.d.) [1585]. The short Sentences of the wýʒ Cato. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 213-235
• 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.
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 386-390

See also[edit]

• History of English grammars
• English-language spelling reform

Bibliography[edit]

• Bullokar, William (1977). Booke at Large for the Amendment of English Orthographie (1580) with A Bref Grammar for English (1586). Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints. ISBN 978-0-8201-1287-9.
• Plessow, Max (1906). Geschichte der Fabeldichtung in England bis zu John Gay (1726): Nebst Neudruck von Bullokars "Fables of Æsop" 1585, "Booke at Large" 1580, "Bref Grammar for English" 1586, und "Pamphlet for Grammar" 1586. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.

References[edit]

• Clair, Colin. History of Printing in Bri