Recovering the Past of the English Language Spontaneous Order

Language is a spontaneous order, a fact we forget, being embedded in it and often failing to note the changes which take place, so slow does language (often) change. However, it is noted in this piece that English language pronunciation was undergoing rather rapid change during the Renaissance. Both typically slow, but sometimes rapid, change is typical of transformative complex adaptive systems, among which are spontaneous orders. By remembering the fact that the system changes content, we can rediscover such things as Shakespeare's language -- and the puns and rhymes we have lost over the past 400 years.