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Early Modern English

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Sherilyn Apostol
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26 views2 pages

Early Modern English

Uploaded by

Sherilyn Apostol
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Early Modern English

Main article: Early Modern English

Graphic representation of the Great Vowel Shift showing how the


pronunciation of the long vowels gradually shifted with the high vowels i: and u: breaking into
diphthongs and the lower vowels each shifting their pronunciation up one level

The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English
was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic
standardisation.

The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift, meaning
that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised,
and close vowels were broken into diphthongs. For example, the word bite was originally pronounced as
the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is
today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings
from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations
from the same letters in other languages.[53][54]

English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of Henry V. Around 1430,
the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents, and a new standard
form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard, developed from the dialects of London and
the East Midlands. In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began
publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. [55] Literature
from the Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the
Bible commissioned by King James I. Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from
Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight, gnat, and sword were still
pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint
or archaic represent the distinct characteristics of Early Modern English.[56]

In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The
Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests."[44] This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects
on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of
the non-possessive genitive), and the introduction of loanwords from French (ayre) and word
replacements (bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol).[44]

Spread of Modern English

By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical
dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to
English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international
communication.[26][4] English was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many
other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that
had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the
political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. [57][58]
[59]
In the 20th century the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as
a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by
the BBC[60] and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster.[61][62] In
the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been.[63]

As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through
official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755 Samuel
Johnson published his A Dictionary of the English Language, which introduced standard spellings of
words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English
language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of
the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly
stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of the prestige varieties among the middle classes.[64]

In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns,
such as he and him, she and her, who and whom), and SVO word order is mostly fixed.[64] Some changes,
such as the use of do-support, have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a
general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it was only used in question constructions, and even
then was not obligatory.[65] Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.)
The use of progressive forms in -ing, appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such
as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly
continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are
becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer). British English is also undergoing change
under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the
media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power.[66][67][68]

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