modern english period presentation

Words and phrases

Personal account.

Access or purchase personal subscriptions
Get our newsletter
Save searches
Set display preferences

Institutional access

Recommend to your librarian

Institutional account management

Early Modern English – an overview

Boundaries of time and place, variations in english, attitudes to english, vocabulary expansion, ‘inkhorn’ versus purism, archaism and rhetoric, regulation and spelling reform, fresh perspectives: old english and new science.

The early modern English period follows the Middle English period towards the end of the fifteenth century and coincides closely with the Tudor (1485–1603) and Stuart (1603-1714) dynasties. The battle of Bosworth (1485) marked the end of the long period of civil war known as the Wars of the Roses and the establishment of the Tudor dynasty under Henry VII (1485–1509), which brought a greater degree of stable centralized government to England. Not long before, the introduction of the craft of printing in 1476 by William Caxton marked a new departure in the dissemination of the written word.

The end of the period is marked by the religious and political settlement of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ (1688), the transition to the Augustan age during the reign of Queen Anne (1702–14), and the achievement of political unity within the British Isles through the Act of Union between England and Scotland (1707).

The defining events of the sixteenth century were those of the Reformation , initiated under Henry VIII in the 1530s, which severed both religious and political links with Catholic Europe. During the seventeenth century the new science gradually achieved prominence, beginning with the writings of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and issuing in the foundation of the Royal Society (chartered in 1662).

At the start of our period English was spoken throughout England except in western Cornwall, where it was rapidly replacing Cornish.

The English speach doth still encroche vpon it [Cornish], and hath driuen the same into the vttermost skirts of the shire. Most of the Inhabitants can no word of Cornish; but very few are ignorant of the English. Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall (1602)

Wales was integrated administratively and legally into England by parliamentary acts of 1536 and 1543; the former made English the only language of the law courts and excluded those who used Welsh from any public office in Wales. However, apart from the ruling gentry, the inhabitants remained Welsh-speaking throughout the period. In Scotland, Scots (see below) was spoken in most of the Lowlands, Gaelic (called Erse in this period) in the Highlands and Galloway, and the Scandinavian language Norn in Shetland and Orkney.

The Tudor monarchs asserted their claim to the lordship of Ireland. Hitherto the English speaking presence had been small, restricted to the English pale . A series of military conflicts and plantations under Elizabeth, James I, and Oliver Cromwell led to the political domination of the country by English-speakers.

The era of overseas commercial venture and colonization was initiated in 1496–7 by the visit to Newfoundland (compare new-found adj. 2) of the Italian explorer John Cabot, commissioned by Henry VII. Newfoundland was subsequently claimed for England in 1583. Settlement on the mainland of North America began with Jamestown (1607); the mainly Puritan Pilgrims [ pilgrim n. 4a] or ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ founded the Plymouth Colony (1620). During the last part of the seventeenth century economic hardship led to large-scale Scottish emigration to Ireland and North America.

Bermuda was colonized in 1612, followed by St Kitts (1623) and Barbados (1627) in the West Indies. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) English merchant voyages to the Indian Ocean began. The East India Company established its first trading factory in India in 1612 and took possession of Bombay in 1668.

During the Middle English period numerous regional dialects existed in England and Scotland. Middle English manuscripts, even copies of the same work, differ linguistically from one another to a greater or lesser degree. In the later Middle Ages London gradually emerged as the seat of administration and the court. The speech of the capital acquired social prestige and written forms of it became usual in official documents and literature, though it could only loosely be called a ‘standard’. Since printing was based in London this form of English was adopted by the early printers. But Caxton himself was acutely aware of variation and change within English.

Certaynly our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that which was vsed and spoken whan I was borne. William Caxton, Prologue to Eneydos (1490).

Nevertheless, compared with Middle English texts, early modern texts seem much more uniform. It was recommended that literary English should be based on the speech of the London area.

Ye shall therfore take the vsual speach of the Court, and that of London and the shires lying about London within lx. myles, and not much aboue. George Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie (1589).

A high degree of spoken regional variety still existed and was generally recognized. Although regional dialects were scarcely recorded, their extent can be deduced from dialect study undertaken from the eighteenth century onwards. Within England, northern and western dialects were generally known to be markedly different from written English. Evidently (as today) particular differences were specially prominent.

Pronouncing according as one would say at London I would eat more cheese if I had it, the Northern man saith Ay suld eat mare cheese gin ay hadet, and the Westerne man saith Chud eat more cheese an chad it. Richard Verstegan, A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1605).

There was a stylized stage version of western speech, as, for example, used by Edgar when posing as a countryman in King Lear .

Good Gentleman goe your gate, let poore volke passe: and chud haue been zwaggar’d out of my life, it would not haue bene zo long by a vortnight: nay come not neere the olde man, keepe out cheuore ye, or ile try whether your costard or my bat be the harder, chill be plaine with you. Shakespeare, King Lear, IV. vi (2nd Quarto, 1619).

Scots was a special case. In 1500 Scotland and England were separate countries and during the sixteenth century Scots can be regarded as a language distinct from the English spoken south of the border. In Scotland under James IV (1488–1512) there was a cultural flourishing, with the beginnings of Renaissance influence from the continent. After the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603 the status of Scots declined. The court moved to London with the king, so that Scots lost its social prestige. Moreover, writers like John Knox, who were in the forefront of the Scottish Reformation (1560) and greatly influenced Scottish literary culture, wrote mainly in southern English. Already, around 1590, the number of books printed in Edinburgh in English had overtaken those printed in Scots and after 1603 Scots ceased to be a book language.

Gif ȝe, throw curiositie of nouationis, hes forȝet our auld plane Scottis quhilk ȝour mother lerit ȝou, in tymes cuming I sall wryte to ȝou my mynd in Latin, for I am nocht acquyntit with ȝour Southeroun. Ninian Winȝet, Letter to John Knox (1563).

Social dialects (essentially those used by people regarded as inferiors) were also widely recognized by contemporaries, but we can make only very partial reconstructions from the surviving evidence, such as comments by grammarians and the dialogue in stage plays. A particular, though perhaps somewhat artificial, social dialect that received special attention was the canting slang of rogues and vagabonds.

Early in the period, English was frequently compared unfavourably as a literary language with Latin. It was also initially seen as not possessing advantages over other European languages, as this dialogue shows.

‘What thinke you of this English, tel me I pray you.’ ‘It is a language that wyl do you good in England but passe Dover, it is woorth nothing.’ ‘Is it not used then in other countreyes?’ ‘No sir, with whom wyl you that they speake?’ ‘With English marchants.’ ‘English marchantes, when they are out of England, it liketh hem not, and they doo not speake it.’ John Florio, Florio his firste fruites (1578), ch. 27.

The inferiority of English was often explained in terms of the mixed origin of its vocabulary.

It is a language confused, bepeesed with many tongues: it taketh many words of the latine, and mo from the French, and mo from the Italian, and many mo from the Duitch, some also from the Greeke, and from the Britaine, so that if every language had his owne wordes againe, there woulde but a fewe remaine for English men, and yet every day they adde. Florio, Florio his firste fruites, ch. 27.

English was also criticized for being inelegant and uneloquent. But there was a sudden change between 1570 and 1580. English began to be praised, in contrast with other languages, for its copious vocabulary, linguistic economy (in using words of mainly one or two syllables), and simple grammar. For example, a lengthy and spirited defence of English, as compared with Latin, is given by the educationist Richard Mulcaster .

The English tung cannot proue fairer, then it is at this daie. Richard Mulcaster, The First Part of the Elementarie (1582).

During the seventeenth century the status of Latin rapidly declined and by the end of the century even works of science were being written in English.

The vocabulary of English expanded greatly during the early modern period. Writers were well aware of this and argued about it. Some were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. Others advocated the use of existing English words, or new compounds of them, for this purpose. Others advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialect.

A notable supporter of the introduction of new words was the humanist and diplomat Sir Thomas Elyot (c.1490–1546). Among now common words, he introduced participate v. in five of the senses given in OED and persist v. in three. Among less popular words, he introduced obtestation n. and pristinate adj. Elyot frequently explained his coinages: for example his use of the words maturity (maturity n. 3: he was unaware that the word had already been used in other senses in English) and modesty (modesty n. 1) in The Boke Named the Gouernour (1531).

Yet of these two [sc. celeritie and slownesse] springeth an excellent vertue, whervnto we lacke a name in englishe. Wherfore I am constrained to vsurpe a latine worde, callyng it Maturitie. Sir Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Gouernour (1531)

Many early modern writers criticized the use of Latinate expressions (usually loanwords from Latin, sometimes words modelled on Latin) in order to elevate the style of writing, especially in inappropriate contexts or for concepts which had ordinary English equivalents. These were known as inkhorn terms (an inkhorn being ‘a small portable vessel, originally made of horn, for holding writing-ink’). A notable critic was Thomas Wilson , writing on the important art of rhetoric.

This should first be learned, that we neuer affect any straunge ynkehorne termes, but so speake as is commonly receiued. Sir Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique (1553).

Further on Wilson holds up to ridicule an example of a (probably fictitious) ‘ynkehorne letter’. A typical clause from this runs ‘I obtestate your clemencie , to inuigilate thus muche for me’: all three italicized words were quite new in 1553; two of them have survived. It is notable that many of the words that were objected to then as unnecessary were soon accepted into the language. Such controversy waned after about 1600, partly because so many Latinate words had been accepted and were now regarded as an enrichment.

By contrast the royal tutor Sir John Cheke translated part of the New Testament avoiding loanwords wherever possible. (This translation was not, however, published until 1843.) For example, he uses moond for ‘lunatic’, onwriting for ‘inscription’, and tabler for ‘banker’.

Our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, vnmixt and vnmangeled with borowing of other tunges. Sir John Cheke, in his letter to Thomas Hoby, printed at the end of Hoby’s translation of Castiglione’s Courtier (1561).

Ralph Lever , in his Arte of Reason, rightly termed, Witcraft (1573), attempted to render Latin logic terms with English compounds such as nay-say ‘negation’, but none caught on. Nathaniel Fairfax , a Baconian scientist, managed to write a book devoid of obviously learned loanwords, called A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvage of the World (1674), ‘bulk and selvedge’ here meaning ‘volume and boundary’; other terms include bodysome ‘corporeal’, nowness ‘the quality of being always present’, and onefoldness ‘singleness’. However, Fairfax’s language is often misleading and sometimes incomprehensible.

The poet Edmund Spenser was the leading proponent of the use of archaic and dialectal words, especially in The Shepheardes Calender (1579) and The Faerie Queene (1590). The former has a preface defending the practice, written by Spenser’s friend ‘E.K.’

And firste of the wordes to speake, I graunt that they be something hard, and of most men vnused, yet both English, and also vsed of most excellent Authours and most famous Poetes. ‘E.K.’, preface to Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender (1579).

Examples of Spenser’s archaisms include nempt ‘named’ ( nemn v.), prow adj. ‘worthy, valiant’, and queme ‘please’ ( queem v.). A number of seventeenth-century poets imitated Spenser, although they did not always use his archaic and dialectal words correctly. Even errors, however, played a part in the formation of poetic vocabulary: derring do n. was adopted from the phrase derrynge do ‘the daring to do’, ‘the courage to venture’ in sixteenth-century editions of Lydgate’s History of Troy (itself imitating a passage in Chaucer), which was misunderstood by Spenser, and explained in the Glossary to the Shepheardes Calender as ‘manhood and chevalrie’.

An eloquent language was one which made use of the devices of classical rhetoric. Rhetoric, originally referring to the art of public speaking, had come to be applied to literature in general. It was a normal part of the study of Latin and was carried over by educated writers into their use of English. From the mid-sixteenth century onwards books on rhetoric began to appear in English, such as Thomas Wilson’s The Arte of Rhetorique (1553) referred to above. The figures of rhetoric covered a wide range of literary devices and their presence in a work was noticed and praised. They would have been immediately spotted, for example, in Mark Antony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, III. ii .

‘I am no Orator, as Brutus is; But..a plaine blunt man [topos of modesty]…I..Shew you sweet Cæsars wounds, poor poor [epizeuxis] dum mouths [oxymoron and metaphor] And bid them speak [prosopopoeia] for me: But were I Brutus, and Brutus Antony [synoeciosis]…’

The classical languages, not being current spoken languages, do not change, and can therefore be described by a set of fixed grammatical rules. This was frequently regarded as the ideal condition of a language. From about 1660 there were proposals for an academy similar to the Académie Française which would regularize and purify the language: supporters included John Dryden and later Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift . Dryden’s Defence of the Epilogue (1672) marks the beginning of the tradition of criticizing supposed grammatical errors in English.

From Jonsons time to ours, it [English] has been in a continual declination. John Dryden Defence of the Epilogue (1672).

Dryden criticizes Ben Jonson himself for such mistakes as placing a preposition at the end of a sentence and using the plural ones . This desire for regulation was to some extent met by the expansion of the number and coverage of dictionaries and by the development of English grammars, most of which, however, were modelled on grammars of Latin and had very little to say about sentence structure. (For more on this see the related article on grammar in early modern English .)

The Restoration period also saw the beginnings of criticism of affected vocabulary, focusing initially on the adoption of French expressions.

We meet daily with those Fopps, who value themselves on their Travelling, and pretend they cannot express their meaning in English, because they would put off to us some French Phrase of the last Edition. Dryden, Defence (1672).

But this by no means implies the rejection of all foreign loanwords: John Evelyn in his Letter to Sir Peter Wyche (20 June 1665; published in 1908) suggested for adoption a number of French and Italian words which ‘we have hardly any words that do so fully expresse’: a number of these did indeed become current at around this time, including bizarre , chicanery , concert , and naiveté .

Between about 1540 and 1640 there was a movement for spelling reform in England. Early advocates were Sir John Cheke (see above) and Sir Thomas Smith , who as classical philologists were conscious of the disparity in spelling between English and Latin. John Hart produced three works on the subject between 1551 and 1570 and proposed a phonetic spelling system using a number of additional symbols. In opposition to this approach, Richard Mulcaster (see above) advocated only mild reform, and there are very few improvements in his word-lists when compared with modern spelling. (For more, see our article on early modern English pronunciation and spelling .)

Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) began to be studied during this period. Manuscripts were collected and Old English texts published. The first Old English dictionary (edited by William Somner ) appeared in 1659 and the first grammar of the language (edited by George Hickes ) in 1689. The original motivations for the undertaking were mixed: either to demonstrate the continuity of the Church of England, to show that the English legal system descended from Anglo-Saxon law, or to support the cause of biblical translation. Nevertheless, it had the effect of introducing a historical understanding of the English language and paved the way for later etymological and philological investigation.

At the same time the seventeenth-century scientific movement, heralded pre-eminently by Francis Bacon , had the effect of establishing English finally as an adequate medium of technical writing in place of Latin. It also led to the cultivation of a plain style of writing, without the use of the devices of rhetoric. Bacon, who wrote in both English and Latin, himself criticized the valuing of style above matter. His followers carried the attack much further. The Royal Society, according to its historian, Bishop Thomas Sprat, was to be praised for correcting stylistic excesses in writing.

They have therefore been most rigorous in putting in execution, the only Remedy, that can be found for this Extravagance, and that has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style; to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver’d so many things, almost in an equal number of words. Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal-Society of London (1667).

About the OED

More about the OED
More about the history of English
What’s new? Recent updates

Author: Edmund Weiner, OED Deputy Chief Editor

A close-up of a pile of paper on a table.

Old English – an overview

Old English refers to the language as it was used in the long period of time from the coming of Germanic invaders and settlers to Britain up to the Norman Conquest of 1066, and beyond into the first century of Norman rule in England.

Old English in the OED

Old English is the term used to refer to the oldest recorded stage of the English language, i.e. from the earliest evidence in the seventh century to the period of transition with Middle English in the mid-twelfth century.

Middle English – an overview

Middle English is framed at its beginning by the after-effects of the Norman Conquest, and at its end by the arrival in Britain of printing, the important impacts of the English Reformation, and the ideas of the continental Renaissance.

Dating Middle English evidence in the OED

These notes explain some of the principles and procedures involved in the dating of Middle English sources in the OED.

The Open University
Guest user / Sign out
Study with The Open University

My OpenLearn Profile

Personalise your OpenLearn profile, save your favourite content and get recognition for your learning

From old English to modern English

This page was published over 5 years ago. Please be aware that due to the passage of time, the information provided on this page may be out of date or otherwise inaccurate, and any views or opinions expressed may no longer be relevant. Some technical elements such as audio-visual and interactive media may no longer work. For more detail, see how we deal with older content .

Find out more about The Open University’s Language Studies qualification.

How and why has English changed over time?

In this brief introduction to the subject, I will show how we can look at the history of a language in two main ways: externally – where, why and by whom the language was used; the political and social factors causing change – and internally – the pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and written appearance of the language; the motivations for change arising from the structure of the language itself.

I will structure my discussion around the conventional division of the history of English into three main periods: Old, Middle and Modern English.

The Old English (OE) period can be regarded as starting around AD 450, with the arrival of West Germanic settlers (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) in southern Britain. They brought with them dialects closely related to the continental language varieties which would produce modern German, Dutch and Frisian.

This Germanic basis for English can be seen in much of our everyday vocabulary – compare heart (OE heorte ), come (OE cuman ) and old (OE eald ) with German Herz , kommen and alt .

Many grammatical features also date back to this time: irregular verbs such as drink ~ drank ~ drunk (OE drincan ~ dranc ~ (ge)druncen ) parallel German trinken ~ trank ~ getrunken . Similarly, many OE pronunciations are preserved in modern spellings e.g. knight (OE cniht , German Knecht ), in which k would have been pronounced and gh sounded like ch in Scots loch .

Anglo-Saxon Church carving St. Mary and St. Hardulph Church. Breedon on the Hill [Image: Walwyn under CC-BY-NC licence]

OE, also called Anglo-Saxon, was not heavily influenced by the Celtic languages spoken by the native inhabitants of the British Isles, borrowing only a few words (e.g. brock , tor ) associated with local wildlife and geography (but many place and river names e.g. Dover , Avon ). However, Latin, introduced to Britain by the Romans, and reinforced in its influence by the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity during the 7 th century, had a significant impact, providing both vocabulary (e.g. master , mass , school ) and the basis for the writing system.

OE was mostly written using the Latin alphabet, supplemented by a few Germanic runic letters to represent sounds not found in Latin e.g. þ , which represented the th sounds in thin or this . (A relic of þ survives as y in modern signs like Ye Olde Tea Shoppe .)

British Isles also resulted in substantial borrowing of basic vocabulary: sky , get and they derive from Old Norse.

An example of Old English text can be seen in the Start of Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf (manuscript c.1000 AD)

Norse influence may also have contributed to an important grammatical change, which mainly occurred in English between the 11 th and 14 th centuries, and which marked the transition to Middle English (ME) (conventionally dated c.1100-1500). OE had indicated many grammatical categories and relationships by attaching inflections (endings) to word roots, in a similar way to Latin or German.

Thus, in the OE clause wolde guman findan ‘he wanted to find the man’, the – e on wolde indicates a 3 rd person singular subject: ‘ he wanted’; the – n on guman indicates that ‘the man’ is the object, not the subject of the verb; and the – an on findan indicates an infinitive: ‘ to find’.

In ME, changes in the pronunciation of unstressed syllables, mainly occurring at the ends of words, caused most inflections to merge indistinguishably, or be dropped altogether. This inflectional breakdown could have created ambiguity (e.g. wanted man find ), but speakers compensated by using more rigid word order (subject – verb – object, usually), among other strategies.

Another important feature of the early ME period was the influence of Norman (and later, central) French, following the Norman conquest of 1066. French dominance and prestige in such contexts as the royal court, law, the church and education encouraged extensive borrowing of vocabulary e.g. French words for farmed animals pork , beef and mutton (modern French porc , bœuf and mouton ) were adopted alongside native words swine , cow and sheep .

A pig feeding in the New Forest [Image: BinaryApe under CC-BY licence]

The borrowed words came to signify only the meat of these animals, mainly eaten by wealthier French speakers, whereas the words inherited from OE came to refer only to the living animals. Norman scribes also influenced the way English was written, respelling words using conventions from French; thus OE îs became ice, cwçn became queen . However, by the 14 th and 15 th centuries, French influence in Britain had begun to wane, being replaced for many purposes by English.

An example of Middle English text can be seen in the start of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (manuscript early 15 th century)

Modern English (ModE) can be regarded externally as starting with the introduction of printing. Caxton’s selection of an East Midlands/London variety of English for the first printed books at the end of the 15 th century contributed to the development of a standardised variety of the language, with fixed spelling and punctuation conventions and accepted vocabulary and grammatical forms.

The perception of this standard variety as correct, ‘good’ English was also supported by attempts at codification, notably Johnson’s dictionary and many prescriptive grammars of the 18 th century. The vocabulary of English was consciously elaborated as it came to be used for an increasing variety of purposes, including translations of classical works rediscovered in the Renaissance, a burgeoning creative literature, and the description of new scientific activities. Thousands of words were borrowed from Latin and Greek in this period e.g. education , metamorphosis , critic , conscious .

An internal feature which characterised the movement towards ModE was the Great Vowel Shift – an important series of linked pronunciation changes which mainly took place between the 15 th and 17 th centuries. In ME, the sound system had contained broadly corresponding series of long and short vowels, represented in writing by the same letters.

For instance, the vowel in caas ‘case’ was simply a longer version of the vowel in blak ‘black’; similarly mete ‘meat’ (long vowel) and hell (short vowel), or fine (long) and pit (short). In early ModE, people began to pronounce the long vowels differently from the corresponding short vowels: long e ended up sounding like long i , leaving a gap in the sound system; this was filled by shifting the pronunciation of long a to sound like long e , and so on.

These changes were not reflected in ModE spelling, already largely fixed by standardisation, adding to the disparity between pronunciation and writing which differentiates English today from most other European languages.

An example of early Modern English can be seen at the start of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, First Folio (printed 1623)

In the present day, English is used in many parts of the world, as a first, second or foreign language, having been carried from its country of origin by former colonial and imperial activity, the slave trade, and recently, economic, cultural and educational prestige.

It continues to change at all linguistic levels, in both standard and non-standard varieties, in response to external influences (e.g. modern communications technologies; contact with other world languages) and pressures internal to the language system (e.g. the continuing impulse towards an efficient, symmetrical sound-system; the avoidance of grammatical ambiguity).

We need not fear or resist such change, though many people do, since the processes operating now are comparable to those which have operated throughout the observable and reconstructable history of English, and indeed of all other languages.

More free resources on the English Language

English Loanwords – Interactive World Map

Explore the fascinating origins of some words in the English language with this interactive world map. Simply select the book items to uncover the word and its history.

The evolution of English: From Romans to Shakespeare

Part one: The history of colonialism was a major factor in the development of English. Follow the global spread of English starting with the Roman invasion.

Exploring the English language

How has the English language changed over the course of the last 500 years? What are the social and political contexts that have affected how these changes have come about? This free course, Exploring the English language, will consider the development of the English language from the 15th to the 19th century.

A brief history of communication: hieroglyphics to emojis

This free course, A brief history of communication: hieroglyphics to emojis, is an introduction to the history of writing, and the key role it plays in human communication. It tracks this history from the invention of writing around 5500 years ago to the mass popularity of emojis today.

English in the world today

How did English become the global force it is today? This free course, English in the world today, explores the status of the language and its worldwide diversity. It looks at how social and political factors influence people's attitudes towards it, and at the relationship between one's linguistic heritage and sense of identity.

Become an OU student

Ratings & comments, share this free course, copyright information, publication details.

Originally published: Sunday, 4 July 2010
Body text - Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 : The Open University
Image 'Anglo-Saxon Church carving St. Mary and St. Hardulph Church. Breedon on the Hill [Image: Walwyn under CC-BY-NC licence]' - Walwyn via Flickr under Creative-Commons license
Image 'A pig feeding in the New Forest [Image: BinaryApe under CC-BY licence]' - BinaryApe via Flickr under Creative-Commons license
Image 'Exploring the English language' - Copyright: Used with permission
Image 'A brief history of communication: hieroglyphics to emojis' - under Creative-Commons license
Image 'English Loanwords – Interactive World Map' - Copyright free
Image 'English in the world today' - Used with permission under Creative-Commons license
Image 'The evolution of English: From Romans to Shakespeare' - Steve Johnson under CC BY 2.0 licence under Creative-Commons license

Rate and Review

Rate this article, review this article.

Log into OpenLearn to leave reviews and join in the conversation.

Article reviews

For further information, take a look at our frequently asked questions which may give you the support you need.

Modern Period in English Literature

The Modern Period in English literature marks a significant transition in terms of aesthetic expression and cultural responses. It came into being as a direct reaction to the profound socio economic upheavals that followed World War I . This period was marked by the impact of technical developments, such as rapid industrialization and the emergence of mass media, which altered how people understood the world. This period was also marked by the disillusionment and anguish of the war. Literary conventions were abandoned during the transition from the Edwardian Era to the Modern Period, and there was a strong feeling of fragmentation that reflected the shattered post-war world . The literature of this time period is distinguished by its examination of issues like alienation, existentialism, and the quest for purpose in a world that is becoming more and more confusing and complicated.

Table of Contents

Historical and Cultural Background

The Modern Period’s cultural and historical context offers a vibrant tapestry against which its literature developed. Since so many authors, painters, and musicians were dealing with the tragic effects of the war on people and society, World War I had a lasting impression on both art and literature. The Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties created an atmosphere of hedonism and excess that was in stark contrast to the war’s enduring effects. An atmosphere of ambiguity and social upheaval was generated by economic and political changes, notably the Great Depression , and it was reflected in the literature of the time. The artistic manifestations of the time were enriched by the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance , which celebrated African American contributions to literature and art. Furthermore, the impact of existential philosophy and Freudian psychology encouraged authors to dive into the human psyche and the search for meaning, producing works that explored the depths of the human experience and identity. Together, these cultural and historical influences produced the modern period’s literary atmosphere, which was vibrant and frequently turbulent, making it an intriguing and influential period in English literary history.

Read More: Death of a Salesman as a modern tragedy

Literature of the Modern Period

The Modern Period brought a shift in the novel-writing tradition, exemplified by the emergence of the Modernist Novel. Innovative storytelling techniques were established by this literary movement, most notably the “stream of consciousness” technique. This technique, which tried to dive deeply into the inner workings of the human mind, was pioneered by authors like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story lines in their works, such as Joyce’s “ Ulysses ,” Woolf’s “ Mrs. Dalloway ,” and Fitzgerald’s “ The Great Gatsby ,” frequently transitioned smoothly from one idea or impression to another, reflecting the fluid and jumbled nature of human cognition. This narrative experimentation marked a significant break from conventional linear storytelling by allowing readers to dive into the inner lives and intricacies of the characters. The Modernist Novel , which became an embodiment of the era’s literary innovation, disrupted traditions and provided a fresh approach to dealing with the human mind.

Read More: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a Stream of Consciousness novel

Poetry and Imagism

The Imagism movement, which emerged during the Modern Period, marked a shift in poetry. This movement placed a lot of focus on using clear, vivid language to communicate ideas that are immediate and potent. T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were two well-known individuals affiliated with Imagism who both made significant contributions to contemporary poetry. In poems like Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and Pound’s “ In a Station of the Metro, ” poets tried to condense complex feelings and concepts into brief, sometimes cryptic verses. The emphasis on concise language and clear imagery marked a change from the extravagant and flowery vocabulary of earlier times. Imagism significantly altered the literary landscape by promoting concision, clarity, and a strong emphasis on the senses—elements that would continue to shape poetry long into the 20th century.

Drama and the Absurdist Movement

The rise of the Absurdist Movement , a genre that explored complex existential concepts and the intrinsic absurdity of human life, defined the dramatic terrain of the Modern Period. This theatrical movement questioned traditional storytelling and frequently featured characters debating life’s pointlessness and futility. Famous playwrights who have made important contributions to this genre include Samuel Beckett and Jean-Paul Sartre. The characters Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s famous drama “Waiting for Godot” exemplified the Absurdist ethos by waiting indefinitely for someone who might never arrive, reflecting the human propensity to look for meaning in an apparently meaningless world. The existentialist works of Sartre, such as “No Exit,” questioned the basic nature of human life by examining issues of free will, accountability, and the inescapable gaze of others. The Absurdist Movement had a lasting impression on the theater of the time by compelling audiences to face the absurdity of human nature and existential problems of the modern world.

Political and Dystopian Novels

The modern period encompassed the rise of incisive political and dystopian literature that functioned as sharp criticisms of dictatorship and societal control. Thought-provoking works by authors like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley have had a lasting influence on literature and society. Orwell’s “1984” depicted as a clear warning about the risks of dictatorship by presenting a dystopian society marked by excessive government monitoring and mind control. Huxley’s “Brave New World” examined a different kind of dystopia, one in which an apparently ideal society operated through the repression of individuality and emotion. Both novels offered significant observations on the nature of power and control in the contemporary world as they analyzed the effects of repressive regimes and the erosion of individual liberties. These novels continue to serve as cautionary tales, provoking readers to consider the constant dangers to personal freedom and the possibility for dystopian realities to emerge in the face of unrestrained power.

Read More: Waiting for Godot as an absurd play

Key Themes and Characteristics

The feeling of disintegration and disillusionment, both on an individual and social level, is a recurring theme throughout the Modern Period. This theme illustrates the profound disappointment that World War I caused after it ended. The chaos of the post-war world was often depicted using non-linear storytelling techniques, stream-of-consciousness narration, and fragmented stories. Authors like James Joyce used similar tactics in his masterwork “Ulysses” to convey the fragmented thoughts and experiences of his characters, underlining the confusion and turmoil of the era. The vast societal changes and the broken worldviews of individuals during this volatile period were reflected by the theme of fragmentation and disillusionment. It serves as a moving reminder of the war’s lasting effects and the difficulties involved in finding purpose in a fragmented world.

Alienation and Existentialism

Alienation and existentialism emerged as prominent themes in the literature of the Modern Period. The profound sense of loneliness and the search for purpose in a world that is becoming more complicated and fragmented were themes that authors struggled with. This theme has its origins in the work of existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, who proposed that human life is fundamentally meaningless and that people must face this emptiness and construct their own purposes. Literary works like Sartre’s “Nausea” and Camus’s “The Stranger” delved deep into the minds of individuals who struggled with the pointlessness of life and the alienation that frequently accompanied it. By forcing readers to confront the existential abyss and make their own decisions about how to live in what appears to be an absurd world, these works challenged conventional values and belief systems. The examination of the human condition and the quest for meaning in the midst of chaos and uncertainty throughout the Modern Period were fundamentally influenced by alienation and existentialism .

Read More: Seamus Heaney as a modern poet

Cultural Diversity and Identity

The exploration of identity and multiculturalism were two major themes in modernist literature. During this time, there was a growing understanding of the value of honoring cultural diversity and the distinctive experiences of other communities. The Harlem Renaissance , for instance, created a vast body of literature, music, and artwork that praised African American identity and culture. Authors like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay contributed to this cultural movement by examining the difficulties of racial identity and the quest for self-expression in a community characterized by prejudice and discrimination.

Notable Figures of the Modern Period

The Modern Period in English literature was characterized by a group of renowned authors who altered the literary landscape and forever changed the direction of literary history.

In works like “Ulysses,” which examined the complex inner workings of the human mind, James Joyce , a forerunner of Modernist writing, questioned traditional storytelling conventions.

Virginia Woolf , the pioneer of the stream-of-consciousness narrative style, delves into the inner lives of individuals in her novels like “Mrs. Dalloway” and “To the Lighthouse,”.

T.S. Eliot , well known for poems like “The Waste Land,” contributed significantly to poetry with his contemplative and intricate rhymes that captured the era’s disillusionment.

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is regarded as a classic American novel that analyses the decadence and moral emptiness of the Jazz Age.

Late Modern English (c. 1800 – Present)

The Industrial and Scientific Revolution

The dates may be rather arbitrary, but the main distinction between Early Modern and Late Modern English (or just Modern English as it is sometimes referred to) lies in its vocabulary – pronunciation, grammar and spelling remained largely unchanged. Late Modern English accumulated many more words as a result of two main historical factors: the Industrial Revolution, which necessitated new words for things and ideas that had not previously existed; and the rise of the British Empire, during which time English adopted many foreign words and made them its own. No single one of the socio-cultural developments of the 19th Century could have established English as a world language, but together they did just that.

Most of the innovations of the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th Century were of British origin, including the harnessing of steam to drive heavy machinery, the development of new materials, techniques and equipment in a range of manufacturing industries, and the emergence of new means of transportation (e.g. steamships, railways). At least half of the influential scientific and technological output between 1750 and 1900 was written in English. Another English speaking country, the USA, continued the English language dominance of new technology and innovation with inventions like electricity, the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the sewing machine, the computer, etc.

The industrial and scientific advances of the Industrial Revolution created a need for neologisms to describe the new creations and discoveries. To a large extent, this relied on the classical languages, Latin and Greek, in which scholars and scientists of the period were usually well versed. Although words like oxygen , protein , nuclear and vaccine did not exist in the classical languages, they could be (and were) created from Latin and Greek roots. Lens , refraction , electron , chromosome , chloroform , caffeine , centigrade , bacteria , chronometer and claustrophobia are just a few of the other science-based words that were created during this period of scientific innovation, along with a whole host of “-ologies” and “-onomies”, like biology , petrology , morphology , histology , palaeontology , ethnology , entomology , taxonomy , etc.

Many more new words were coined for the new products, machines and processes that were developed at this time (e.g. train , engine , reservoir , pulley , combustion , piston , hydraulic , condenser , electricity , telephone , telegraph , lithograph , camera , etc). In some cases, old words were given entirely new meanings and connotation (e.g. vacuum , cylinder , apparatus , pump , syphon , locomotive , factory , etc), and new words created by amalgamating and fusing existing English words into a descriptive combination were particularly popular (e.g. railway , horsepower , typewriter , cityscape , airplane , etc).

Colonialism and the British Empire

British colonialism had begun as early as the 16th Century, but gathered speed and momentum between the 18th and 20th Century. At the end of the 16th Century, mother-tongue English speakers numbered just 5-7 million, almost all of them in the British Isles; over the next 350 years, this increased almost 50-fold, 80% of them living outside of Britain. At the height of the British Empire (in the late 19th and early 20th Century), Britain ruled almost one quarter of the earth’s surface, from Canada to Australia to India to the Caribbean to Egypt to South Africa to Singapore.

Although the English language had barely penetrated into Wales, Ireland and the Scottish Highlands by the time of Shakespeare, just two hundred years later, in 1780, John Adams was confident enough to be able to claim (with a certain amount of foresight, but quite reasonably) that English was “destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age”. In 1852, the German linguist, Jacob Grimm, called English “the language of the world”, and predicted it was “destined to reign in future with still more extensive sway over all parts of the globe”.

It was taken very much for granted by the British colonial mentality of the time that extending the English language and culture to the undeveloped and backward countries of Africa and Asia was a desirable thing. The profit motive may have been foremost, but there was a certain amount of altruistic motivation as well, and many saw it as a way of bringing order and political unity to these chaotic and internecine regions (as well as binding them ever more strongly to the Empire). To some extent, it is true that the colonies were happy to learn the language in order to profit from British industrial and technological advances.

But colonialism was a two-way phenomenon, and Britain’s dealings with these exotic countries, as well as the increase in world trade in general during this time, led to the introduction of many foreign loanwords into English. For instance, Australia gave us a set of words (not particularly useful outside the context of Australia itself) like boomerang , kangaroo , budgerigar , etc. But India gave us such everyday words as pyjamas , thug , bungalow , cot , jungle , loot , bangle , shampoo , candy , tank and many others.

The rise of so-called “New Englishes” (modern variants or dialects of the language, such as Australian English, South African English, Caribbean English, South Asian English, etc) raised, for some, the spectre of the possible fragmentation of the English language into mutually unintelligible languages, much as occurred when Latin gave rise to the various Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc) centuries ago. As early as 1789, for example, Noah Webster had predicted “a language in North America as different from the future language of England as the modern Dutch, Danish and Swedish are from the German or from one another”. However, in retrospect, this does not seem to have happened and, in the age of instantaneous global communication, it now seems ever less likely to occur in the future.

The New World

It was largely during the Late Modern period that the United States, newly independent from Britain as of 1783, established its pervasive influence on the world. The English colonization of North America had begun as early as 1600. Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607, and the Pilgrim Fathers settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. The first settlers were, then, contemporaries of Shakespeare (1564-1616), Bacon (1561-1626) and Donne (1572-1631), and would have spoken a similar dialect. The new land was described by one settler as “a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men”, and half of the settlers were dead within weeks of their arrival, unaccustomed to the harsh winter. In fact, the colony would probably have gone the way of the earlier ill-fated Roanoke Island settlement attempt of 1584 were it not for the help of an American native called Squanto, who had learned English from English sailors.

Parts of the New World had already been long colonized by the French, Spanish and Dutch, but English settlers like the Pilgrim Fathers (and those who soon followed them) went there to stay, not just to search for riches or trading opportunities. They wanted to establish themselves permanently, to work the land, and to preserve their culture, religion and language, and this was a crucial factor in the survival and development of English in North America. The German “Iron Chancellor” Otto van Bismarck would later ruefully remark that “the most significant event of the 20th Century will be the fact that the North Americans speak English”.

Interestingly, some English pronunciations and usages “froze” when they arrived in America while they continued to evolve in Britain itself (sometimes referred to as “colonial lag”), so that, in some respects, American English is closer to the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is. Perhaps the best-known example is the American use of gotten which has long since faded from use in Britain (even though forgotten has survived). But the American use of words like fall for the British autumn , trash for rubbish , hog for pig , sick for ill , guess for think , and loan for lend are all examples of this kind of anachronistic British word usage. America kept several words (such as burly , greenhorn , talented and scant ) that had been largely dropped in Britain (although some have since been recovered), and words like lumber and lot soon acquired their specific American meanings. Something approaching Shakespearean speech can sometimes be encountered in isolated valleys in the Appalachian or Ozarks, where words like afeard , yourn , sassy and consarn , and old pronunciations like “jine” for join , can still sometimes be heard.

The settlement of America served as the route of introduction for many Native American words into the English language. Most of the early settlers were austere Puritans and they were quite conservative in their adoption of native words, which were largely restricted to terms for native animals and foods (e.g. raccoon , opossum , moose , chipmunk , skunk , tomato , squash , hickory , etc). In many cases, the original indigenous words were very difficult to render in English, and have often been mangled almost beyond recognition (e.g. squash is from the native quonterquash or asquutasquash , depending on the region; racoon is from raugraughcun or rahaugcum ; hickory is from pawcohiccora ; etc). Some words needed to describe the Native American lifestyle were also accepted (e.g. canoe , squaw , papoose , wigwam , moccasin , tomahawk ), although many other supposedly Native-derived words and phrases (such as brave , peace-pipe , pale-face , war-path , etc) were actually spurious and a product of the fertile imaginations of 19th Century American romantic novelists. New words were also needed for some geographical features which had no obvious English parallel in the limited experience of the settlers (e.g. foothill , notch , bluff , gap , divide , watershed , clearing , etc).

Immigration into America was not limited to English speakers, though. In the second half of the 19th Century, in particular, over 30 million poured into the country from all parts of the world. At the peak of immigration, from 1901 to 1905, America absorbed a million Italians, a million Austro-Hungarians, half a million Russians and tens of thousands each from many other countries. Many nationalities established their own centres: the Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch (actually Germans, as in Deutsch) tended to stay in their isolated communities, and developed a distinctive English with a strong German accent and an idiosyncratic syntax; many Germans also settled in Wisconsin and Indiana; Norwegians settled in Minnesota and the Dakotas; Swedes in Nebraska; etc.

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Dialect of Tidewater Community of Tangier Island, Virginia (17 sec) (from The Story of English PBS series (Ep. 3) ).

Often foreigners were despised or laughed at, and the newcomers found it in their best interests to integrate well and to observe as much uniformity of speech and language as possible. This, as well as the improvements in transportation and communication, led to fewer, and less distinct, dialects than in the much smaller area of Britain, although there are some noticeable (and apparently quite arbitrary) regional differences, even within some states. A few isolated communities, like the so-called “Tidewater” communities around Chesapeake Bay in Virginia (who were mainly descended from settlers from Somerset and Gloucestershire in the West Country of England, unlike the Massachusetts settlers who were largely from the eastern counties of England), have managed to retain the distinctive burring West Country accent of their forebears. But, by the 19th Century, a standard variety of American English had developed in most of the country, based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states with its characteristic flat “a” and strong final “r”. Today, Standard American English, also known as General American, is based on a generalized Midwestern accent, and is familiar to us from American films, radio and newscasters.

American language zealots like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Noah Webster revelled in the prospect of a plain English, free of the regional dialects and class distinctions of Britain. Long before the Declaration of Independence, British visitors to America often remarked that the average American spoke much better English than the average Englishman. After the American War of Independence of 1775 – 1783, there was some discussion about whether English should remain the national language, but it was never really in any doubt, and was not even mentioned in the new Constitution (even today, the USA does not have an “official language”, as indeed neither does Australia or Britain itself).

The colonization of Canada proceeded quite separately from that of America. There had been British, French and Portuguese expeditions to the east coast of Canada even before the end of the 15th Century, but the first permanent European settlement was by France in 1608. British interests in Canada did not coalesce until the early 18th Century but, after the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Britain wrested control of most of eastern Canada from the French, and it became an important British colony. It was the War of 1812 against the Americans, as much as Confederation and independence from Britain in 1867, that definitively cemented the separate identity of English Canada.

English in Canada has also been influenced by successive waves of immigration, from the influx of Loyalists from the south fleeing the American Revolution, to the British and Irish who were encouraged to settle the land in the early 19th Century to the huge immigration from all over the world during the 20th Century. But, more than anything, the speech of the Loyalists arriving in southern Ontario from states like Pennsylvania and New York, formed the basis of Canadian speech and its accent (including the distinctive pronunciation of the “ou” in words like house and out , and the “i” in words like light ). Modern Canadian English tends to show very little regional diversity in pronunciation, even compared to the United States, the Irish-tinged dialect of Newfoundland being far and away the most distinctive dialect.

Canadian English today contains elements of British English and American English in its vocabulary (it also uses a kind of hybrid of American and British spelling), as well several distinctive “Canadianisms” (like hoser , hydro , chesterfield , etc, and the ubiquitous eh? at the end of many sentences). Its vocabulary has been influenced by loanwords from the native peoples of the north (e.g. igloo , anorak , toboggan , canoe , kayak , parka , muskeg , caribou , moose , etc), as well as the French influence (e.g. serviette , tuque ) from Lower Canada/Quebec.

American Dialect

In 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter: “The new circumstances under which we are placed call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects. An American dialect will therefore be formed”. As the settlers (including a good proportion of Irish and Scots, with their own distinctive accents and usages of English) pushed westward, new terms were indeed introduced, and these pioneers were much less reticent to adopt native words or, indeed, to make up their own. The journals of Lewis and Clark, written as they explored routes to the west coast in 1804-6, contain over 500 native words (mainly animals, plants and food). The wild “outlands” west of the Mississippi River gave us the word outlandish to describe its idiosyncratic characters.

John Adams’ much-vaunted “plain English” took a back seat in the hands of colourful characters like Davy Crockett (who was himself of Scots-Irish decent) and others, who saw western expansion as an excuse to expand the language with new words and quirky Americanisms like skedaddle , bamboozle , shebang , riff-raff , hunky-dory , lickety-split , rambunctious , ripsnorter , humdinger , doozy , shenanigan , discombobulate , absquatulate , splendiferous , etc, not to mention evocative phrases like fly off the handle , a chip on the shoulder , no axe to grind , sitting on the fence , dodge the issue , knuckle down , make the fur fly , go the whole hog , kick the bucket , face the music , bite the dust , barking up the wrong tree , pass the buck , stack the deck , poker face , in cahoots , pull up stakes , horse sense , two cents’ worth , stake a claim , strike it rich , the real McCo y and even the phrase stiff upper lip (in regard to their more hidebound British cousins). From the deliberately misspelled and dialectical works of Artemus Ward and Josh Billings to popular novels like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852) and Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” (1884), this American vernacular spread rapidly, and became in the process more publicly acceptable both in everyday speech and in literature.

Many Spanish words also made their way into American English during the expansion and settlement of the Spanish-influenced American West, including words like armadillo , alligator , canyon , cannibal , guitar , mosquito , mustang , ranch , rodeo , stampede , tobacco , tornado and vigilante (some of which were also originally derived from native languages). To a lesser extent, French words, from the French presence in the Louisiana area and in Canada, contributed loanwords like gopher , prairie , depot , cache , cent and dime , as well as French-derived place names like Detroit , Baton Rouge , Des Moines , etc.

Thomas Edison talks about electricity in 1908 (example of General American accent of the time) (29 sec) (from Internet Archive ).

The number of American coinings later exported back to the mother country should not be underestimated. They include commonly used word like commuter , bedrock , sag , snag , soggy , belittle , lengthy , striptease , gimmick , jeans , teenager , hangover , teetotal , fudge , publicity , joyride , blizzard , showdown , uplift , movie , obligate , stunt , notify , redneck , businessman , cocktail , skyscraper , bootleg , highfalutin , guesstimate , raincoat , cloudburst , nearby , worthwhile , smooch , genocide , hindsight and graveyard among many others. Even the word roundabout originally came from America, even though traffic circles hardly exist there. Perhaps the quintessential Americanism is OK ( okay ), which has become one of the best known and most widespread terms throughout the whole world. Its origins are somewhat obscure and still hotly debated, but it seems to have come into common usage in America during the 1830s. Many of these Americanisms were met with a certain amount of snobbery in Britain, and many words thought to be American in origin were vilified as uncouth and inferior by the British intelligentsia (even though many of those denigrated actually turned out to be of older English provenance in the first place).

Today, some 4,000 words are used differently in the USA and Britain ( lift / elevator , tap / faucet , bath / tub , curtains / drapes , biscuit / cookie and boot / trunk are just some of the better known ones) and, increasingly, American usage is driving out traditional words and phrases back in Britain (e.g. truck for lorry , airplane for aeroplane , etc). American spelling is also becoming more commonplace in Britain (e.g. jail for gaol , wagon for waggon , reflection for reflexion , etc), although some Americanized spelling changes actually go back centuries (e.g. words like horror , terror , superior , emperor and governor were originally spelled as horrour , terrour , superiour , emperour and governour in Britain according to Johnson’s 1755 “Dictionary” , even if other words like colour , humour and honour had resisted such changes).

Black English

The practice of transporting cheap black labour from western Africa to the New World was begun by the Spaniards in the 16th Century, and it had been also used by the Portuguese, Dutch and French, but it was adopted in earnest by the British in the early 17th Century. The British had established numerous outposts in the Caribbean (dubbed the “West Indies” by Columbus out of the conviction that he had reached the spice islands of the Indies, or Asia, by a western route), and had developed a whole trading empire to take advantage of the tropical climate of the region. The labour-intensive work on tobacco, cocoa, cotton and particularly sugar plantations required large numbers of cheap workers, and the Atlantic slave trade triangle (Britain – West Africa – Americas) was developed to supply it, although soon a demand also grew for household servants.

The numbers of African slaves in the America alone grew from just twenty in 1619 to over 4 million at the time of the American abolition of slavery after the Civil War in 1865 (the British had abolished the slave trade earlier, in 1807). The slaves transported by the British to work in the plantations of the American south and the islands of the West Indies were mainly from a region of West Africa rich in hundreds of different languages, and most were superb natural linguists, often speaking anywhere between three and six African languages fluently. Due to the deliberate practice of shipping slaves of different language backgrounds together (in an attempt to avoid plots and rebellions), the captives developed their own English-based pidgin language, which they used to communicate with the largely English-speaking sailors and landowners, and also between themselves.

A pidgin is a reduced language that results from extended contact between people with no language in common. Verb forms in particular are simplified (e.g. “me go run school”, “him done go”, etc), but adjectives are also often used instead of adverbs, verbs instead of prepositions, pronouns are no inflected, etc. The resulting stripped-down language may be crude but it is usually serviceable and efficient.

Gullah is a patois dating back to the days of slavery (17 sec) (from The Story of English PBS series (Ep. 5) ).

Once established in the Americas, these pidgins developed into stable creoles, forms of simplified English combined with many words from a variety of African languages. Most of the African slaves made landfall at Sullivan Island, near Charleston, South Carolina, and even today Gullah can be heard in many of the Sea Islands off the coast of the Carolinas and Georgia. Gullah is an English-African patois (the name is possibly derived from the word Angola ), thought to be remarkably unchanged from that spoken by African slaves two or three centuries ago. Gullah and similar “plantation creoles” provided the basis of much of modern Black American English, street slang and hip-hop, but interestingly it also significantly influenced the language and accent of the aristocratic white owners, and the modern English of the southern states.

The popular Uncle Remus stories of the late 19th Century (many of them based around the trickster character of Brer Rabbit and others like Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, etc) are probably based on this kind of creole, mixed with native Cherokee origins (although they were actually collections made by white Americans like Joel Chandler Harris). The following passage is from Charles Colcock Jones Jr.’s 1888 story “Brer Lion an Brer Goat” :

Brer Lion bin a hunt, an eh spy Brer Goat duh leddown topper er big rock duh wuk eh mout an der chaw. Eh creep up fuh ketch um. Wen eh git close ter um eh notus um good. Brer Goat keep on chaw. Brer Lion try fuh fine out wuh Brer Goat duh eat. Eh yent see nuttne nigh um ceptin de nekked rock wuh eh duh leddown on. Brer Lion stonish. Eh wait topper Brer Goat. Brer Goat keep on chaw, an chaw, an chaw. Brer Lion cant mek de ting out, an eh come close, an eh say: “Hay! Brer Goat, wuh you duh eat?” Brer Goat skade wen Brer Lion rise up befo um, but eh keep er bole harte, an eh mek ansur: “Me duh chaw dis rock, an ef you dont leff, wen me done long um me guine eat you.” Dis big wud sabe Brer Goat. Bole man git outer diffikelty way coward man lose eh life.

Many of the words may look strange at first, but the meanings become quite clear when spoken aloud, and the spellings give a good approximation of a black/Caribbean accent (e.g. notus for notice , bole for bold , ansur for answer , skade for scared , etc). Dis / dem / dey are used for this / them / they in order to avoid the difficult English “th” sound, and many other usages are familiar from modern Caribbean accents (e.g. mout for mouth , ting for thing , gwine for going , etc). For simplicity, adjectives often stand in for adverbs (e.g. coward man ) and verbs may be simplified (e.g. Brer Lion bin a hunt ) or left out completely (e.g. Brer Lion stonish ). Double adjectives (e.g. big big ) are often used as intensifiers, although not in this particular passage.

Jamaican creole (known locally as “Patwa”, for patois) was one of the deepest in the Caribbean, partly because of the sheer numbers transported there, and the accent there is still so thick as to be almost undecipherable. Variations of English creoles gradually mixed with other creole forms based on French, Spanish and Portuguese, leading to a diverse range of English varieties throughout the Caribbean islands, as well as adjacent areas of Central and South America. Familiar words like buddy for brother , palaver for trouble , and pikni for child , arose out of these creoles, and words like barbecue , savvy , nitty-gritty , hammock , hurricane , savannah , canoe , cannibal , potato , tobacco and maize were also early introductions into English from the Caribbean, often via Spanish or Portuguese.

Britain’s Other Colonies

But North America was not the only “New World”. In 1788, less than twenty years after James Cook’s initial landing, Britain established its first penal colony in Sydney, Australia (once labelled merely as Terra Australis Incognita, the Unknown Southern Land). About 130,000 prisoners were transported there over the next 50 years, followed by other “free” settlers. Most of the settlers were from London and Ireland, resulting in a very distinctive and egalitarian accent and a basic English vocabulary supplemented by some Aboriginal words and expressions (e.g. boomerang , kangaroo , koala , wallaby , budgerigar , etc). The Australian Aborigines were nomadic and reclusive, and their numbers relatively small (perhaps 200,000, speaking over 200 separate languages), so the loanwords they contributed to English were few and mainly limited to local plant and animal names.

Over time, the convicts who had served out their time became citizens of the emerging country, and became euphemistically known as “government men”, “legitimates”, “exiles” or “empire builders”. Some British slang words, especially Cockney terms and words from the underground “Flash” language of the criminal classes, became more commonly used in Australia than in Britain (e.g. chum , swag , bash , cadge , grub , dollop , lark , crack , etc), and some distinctively Australian terms were originally old English words which largely died out outside of Australia (e.g. cobber , digger , pom , dinkum , walkabout , tucker , dunny ).

New Zealand began to be settled by European whalers and missionaries in the 1790s, although an official colony was not established there until 1840. New Zealand was keen to emphasize its national identity (and particularly its differences from neighbouring Australia), and this influenced its own version of English, as did the incorporation of native Maori words into the language.

British settlement in South Africa began in earnest in 1820, and nearly half a million English-speaking immigrants moved there during the last quarter of the 19th Century, eager to take advantage of the discoveries of gold and diamonds. The Dutch had been in South Africa since the 1650s, but the wave of British settlers soon began to anglicize the Afrikaans (Dutch) and black population. English was made the official language in 1822 and, as in Australia, a distinctive homogeneous accent developed over time, drawing from the various different groups of settlers. Although English was always – and remains – a minority language, spoken by less than 10% of South Africans, Afrikaans was seen by the 80% black majority as the language of authority and repression (the word apartheid , in addition to trek , remains South Africa’s best known contribution to the English lexicon), and English represented for them a means of achieving an international voice. In 1961, South Africa became the only country ever to set up an official Academy to promote the English language. The 1993 South African constitution named no less than eleven official languages, of which English and Afrikaans are but two, but English is increasingly recognized as the lingua franca.

Nigerian pidgin English (21 sec) (from Matador Network ).

In West Africa, the English trading influence began as early as the end of the 15th Century. In this language-rich and highly multilingual region, several English-based pidgins and creoles arose, many of which (like Krio, the de facto national language of Sierra Leone) still exist today. Sierra Leone, Ghana, Gambia, Nigeria and Cameroon were all run as British Crown Colonies in the 19th Century, and the influence of the English language remains of prime importance in the region. Liberia, founded in 1822 as a homeland for former American slaves (similar to the way in which Sierra Leone had been established by the British in the 1780s), is the only African country with an American influence.

In East Africa, British trade began around the end of the 16th Century, although systematic interest only started in the 1850s. Six modern East African states with a history of 19th Century British imperial rule (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe), gave English official language status on achieving independence in the 1960s. English is widely used in government, civil service, courts, schools, media, road signs, stores and business correspondence in these countries, and, because more British emigrants settled there than in the more difficult climate of West Africa, a more educated and standard English-speaking population grew up there, and there was less need for the development of pidgin languages.

The British East India Company established its first trading station in India in 1612, and it expanded rapidly. At first, the British traders had to learn the various languages of India in order to do business (Hindi, Bengali, Gujurati and others). But soon, schools and Christian missions were set up, and British officials began to impose English on the local populace. During the period of British sovereignty in India (the “Raj”), from 1765 until partition and independence in 1947, English became the medium of administration and education throughout the Indian sub-continent, particularly following Thomas Macaulay’s famous (or infamous) “Minutes” of 1835. This was welcomed by some (particularly in the Dravidian speaking areas of southern India, who preferred English as a lingua franca to the Hindi alternative), but opposed and derided by others. A particularly florid and ornate version of English, incorporating an extreme formality and politeness, sometimes referred to as Babu English, grew up among Indian administrators, clerks and lawyers.

Although now just a “subsidiary official language” (one of 15 official languages in a country which boasts 1,652 languages and dialects), and much less important than Hindi, English continues to be used as the lingua franca in the legal system, government administration, the army, business, media and tourism. In addition to Britain’s contribution to the Indian language, though, India’s many languages (particularly Hindi) gave back many words such as pyjamas , bandanna , pundit , bungalow , veranda , dinghy , cot , divan , ghoul , jungle , loot , cash , toddy , curry , candy , chit , thug , punch (the drink), cushy , yoga , bangle , shampoo , khaki , turban , tank , juggernaut , etc.

English also became the language of power and elite education in South-East Asia, initially though its trading territories in Penang, Singapore, Malacca and Hong Kong. Papua New Guinea developed differently, developing a pervasive English-based pidgin language known as Tok Pisin (“Talk Pidgin”) which is now its official language. The Philippines was an American colony for the first half of the 20th Century and the influence of American English remains strong there.

Language Reform

George Bernard Shaw (or possibly Oscar Wilde or Dylan Thomas or even Winston Churchill, the attribution is unclear) once quipped that “England and America are two countries separated by a common language”, and part of the reason for the differences between the two versions of English lies in the American proclivity for reform and simplification of the language. In the 1760s, Benjamin Franklin campaigned vigorously for the reform of spelling (he advocated the discontinuation of the “unnecessary letters “c”, “w”, “y” and “j” and the addition of six new letters), as later did Noah Webster and Mark Twain. To be fair, there were also calls for reform in Britain, including from such literary luminaries as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Bernard Shaw and even Charles Darwin, although the British efforts generally had little or no effect.

Both Thomas Jefferson and Noah Webster were totally convinced that American English would evolve into a completely separate language. Towards the end of the 19th Century, the English linguist Henry Sweet predicted that, within a century, “England, America and Australia will be speaking mutually unintelligible languages, owing to their independent changes of pronunciation” (as it has turned out, with the development of instantaneous global communications, the different dialects seem likely to converge rather than diverge, and American economic and cultural dominance is increasingly apparent in both British and, particularly. Australian speech and usage).

Noah Webster is often credited with single-handedly changing American spelling, particularly through his dictionaries: “The American Spelling Book” (first published in 1788, although it ran to at least 300 editions over the period between 1788 and 1829, and became probably the best selling book in American history after “The Bible” ), “The Compendious Dictionary of the English Language” (1806), and “The American Dictionary of the English Language” (1828). In fact, many of the changes he put forward in his dictionaries were already underway in America (e.g. the spelling of theater and center instead of theatre and centre ) and many others may well have happened anyway. But he was largely responsible for the revised spelling of words like color and honor (instead of the British colour and honour ), traveler and jeweler (for traveller and jeweller ), check and mask (for cheque and masque ), defense and offense (for defence and offence ), plow for plough , as well as the rather illogical adoption of aluminum instead of aluminium .

Many of Webster’s more radical spelling recommendations (e.g. soop , groop , bred , wimmen , fether , fugitiv , tuf , thum , hed , bilt , tung , fantom , croud , ile , definit , examin , medicin , etc) were largely ignored, as were most of his suggested pronunciation suggestions (e.g. “deef” for deaf , “booty” for beauty , “nater” for nature , etc), although he was responsible for the current American pronunciations of words like schedule and lieutenant . Webster also claimed to have invented words such as demoralize , appreciation , accompaniment , ascertainable and expenditure , even though these words had actually been in use for some centuries.

For many Americans, like Webster, taking ownership of the language and developing what would become known as American Standard English was seen as a matter of honour (honor) for the newly independent nation. But such reforms were fiercely criticized in Britain, and even in America a so-called “Dictionary War” ensued between supporters of Webster’s Americanism and the more conservative British-influenced approach of Joseph Worcester and others. When the Merriam brothers bought the rights to Webster’s dictionaries and produced the first Merriam-Webster dictionary in 1847, they actually expunged most of Webster’s more radical spelling and pronunciation ideas, and the work (and its subsequent versions) became an instant success. In 1906, the American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie tried to resurrect some of Webster’s reforms. He contributed large sums of money towards the Simplified Spelling Board, which resulted in the American adoption of the simpler spellings of words such as ax , judgment , catalog , program , etc. President Theodore Roosevelt agreed to use these spellings for all federal publications and they quickly caught on, although there was still stiff resistance to such recommended changes as tuf , def , troble , yu , filosofy , etc.

Literary Developments

A vast number of novels (of varying quality and literary value) were published in the 19th Century to satisfy the apparently insatiable appetite of Victorian Britain for romantic stories, ranging from the sublimity of Jane Austen’s works to the florid excesses and hackneyed phrasing typified by Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s famous opening lines “It was a dark and stormy night…” Due to the strictures of prudish Victorian society, an inventive list of euphemisms were popularized for body parts and other unmentionable concepts, a prudery perhaps epitomized by Thomas Bowdler’s “bowdlerization” of the works of Shakespeare in which offending words like strumpet , whore , devil , etc, were removed or toned down.

The early 19th century language of Jane Austen appears to all intents and purposes to be quite modern in vocabulary, grammar and style, but it hides some subtle distinctions in meaning which have since been lost (e.g. compliment usually meant merely polite or conventional praise; inmate connoted an inhabitant of any sort rather than a prisoner; genius was a general word for intelligence, and did not suggest exceptional prowess; regard encompassed a feeling of genuine affection; irritation did not carry its modern negative connotation, merely excitement; grateful could also mean gratifying; to lounge meant to stroll rather than to sit or slouch; to essay mean to attempt something; etc). To Austen, and other writers of her generation, correct grammar and style (i.e. “correct” according to the dictates of Robert Lowth’s “Grammar” ) were important social markers, and the use of non-standard vocabulary or grammar would have been seen as a mark of vulgarity to be avoided at all costs.

New ideas, new concepts and new words were introduced in the early science fiction and speculative fiction novels of Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Lewis Carroll began to experiment with invented words (particularly blended or “portmanteau” words) in poems like “Jabberwocky” (1872). Chortle and galumph are two words from the poem that made the jump to everyday English, but the work is jam-packed with nonsense words as may be seen from its first few lines: “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: / All mimsy were the borogoves, / And the mome raths outgrabe” ).

But some truly revolutionary works were just around the corner in the early 20th Century, from Virginia Woolf to T.S. Eliot to William Faulkner to Samuel Beckett and, perhaps most emphatically, the innovations of the Irishman, James Joyce, in “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake” (although, of the hundreds of new words in these works, only monomyth and quark have enjoyed any currency, and that rather limited). A single sentence from “Finnegan’s Wake” (1939) may suffice to give a taste of the extent of Joyce’s neologistic rampage:

The allwhite poors guardiant, pulpably of balltossic stummung, was literally astundished over the painful sake, how he burstteself, which he was gone to, where he intent to did he, whether you think will, wherend the whole current of the afternoon whats the souch of a surch hads of hits of hims, urged and staggered thereto in his countryports at the caledosian capacity for Lieutuvisky of the caftan’s wineskin and even more so, during, looking his bigmost astonishments, it was said him, aschu, fun the concerned outgift of the dead med dirt, how that, arrahbejibbers, conspuent to the dominical order and exking noblish permish, he was namely coon at bringer at home two gallonts, as per royal, full poultry till his murder.

James Joyce reads an excerpt from “Finnegan’s Wake” (Book I Ch. 8) (72 sec) (from The Floating Library ).

Clearly, this is English taken to a whole new level, pushing the boundaries of the language, and it is considered one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Although the basic English grammar and syntax is more or less intact, it is written in an experimental stream-of-consciousness style, and contains masses of literary allusions, puns and dream-like word associations. Almost half of the vocabulary consists of neologisms (particularly compound words like allwhite , bigmost , countryports , outgift , etc, and portmanteau, or blended words, like guardiant , wherend , conspuent , etc), and many of the words that are recognizable are used in an idiosyncratic and non-standard way. Some of Joyce’s word inventions (not in this sample) are 100 letters long. Initial reception of the work lurched between rabid praise and expressions of absolute incomprehension and disdain, and even today it remains a polarizing issue. The book continues to be more written about than read.

In the late 19th Century, the Scottish lexicographer James Murray was given the job of compiling a “New English Dictionary on Historical Principles” . He worked on this project for 36 years from 1879 until his death in 1915, and his results were completed by others and published in 1928 as the “Oxford English Dictionary” . It contained 415,000 entries supported by nearly 2 million citations, and ran to over 15,000 pages in 12 volumes, and was immediately accepted as the definitive guide to the English language. Interestingly, this version used the American “-ize” ending for words such as characterize , itemize , etc, rather than the British practice (both then and now) of spelling them characterise , itemise , etc. Although supplements were issued in 1933 and 1972-6, it was not revised or added to until 1989, when the current (second) edition was published, listing over 615,000 words in 20 huge volumes, officially the world’s largest dictionary.

20th Century

By the end of the 19th Century, the USA had overtaken the UK as the world’s fastest growing economy, and America’s “economic imperialism” continued the momentum of the British Industrial Revolution into the 20th Century. The American dominance in economic and military power, as well as its overwhelming influence in the media and popular culture has ensured that English has remained the single most important language in the world and the closest thing to a global language the world has ever seen.

Perhaps in reaction to the perceived appropriation or co-option of English by the United States, a certain amount of language snobbery continued to grow in England. In 1917, Daniel Jones introduced the concept of Received Pronunciation (sometimes called the Queen’s English, BBC English or Public School English) to describe the variety of Standard English spoken by the educated middle and upper classes, irrespective of what part of England they may live in. The invention of radio in the 1920s, and then television in the 1930s, disseminated this archetypal English accent to the masses and further entrenched its position, despite the fact that it was only spoken by about 1 in 50 in the general population. At the same time, regional accents were further denigrated and marginalized. However, since the Second World War, a greater permissiveness towards regional English varieties has taken hold in England, both in education and in the media.

There was a mid-century reaction within Britain against what George Orwell described as the “ugly and inaccurate” contemporary English of the time. In Orwell’s dystopic novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” , words like doublethink , thoughtcrime , newspeak and blackwhite give a nightmarish vision of where he saw the language going. The “Plain English” movement, which emphased clarity, brevity and the avoidance of technical language, was bolstered by Sir Ernest Gowers’ “The Complete Plain Words” , published in the early 1950s, and the trend towards plainer language, appropriate to the target audience, continued in official and legal communications, and was followed by a similar movement in the United Sates during the 1970s. Gowers himself thought that legal language was a case apart, being more of a science than an art, and could not be subject to Plain English rules, but in more recent years there has been a trend toward plainer language in legal documents too.

The 20th Century was, among other things, a century of world wars, technological transformation, and globalization, and each has provided a source of new additions to the lexicon. For example, words like blockbuster , nose-dive , shell-shocked , camouflage , radar , barrage , boondocks , roadblock , snafu , boffin , brainwashing , spearhead , etc, are all military terms which have made their way into standard English during the World Wars. As an interesting aside, in 1941, when Sir Winston Churchill wanted to plumb the depths of the English soul at a particularly crucial and difficult time in the Second World War, almost all of the words in the main part of his famous speech ( “we shall fight on the beaches… we shall never surrender” ) were of Anglo-Saxon origin, with the significant exception of surrender (a French loanword). The speech is also a good example of what was considered Received Pronunciation at the time.

Winston Churchill’s 1941 War Speech (32 sec) .

The push for political correctness and inclusiveness in the last third of the 20th Century, particularly by homosexuals, feminists and visible minority groups, led to a reassessment of the popular usage of many words. Feminists called into question the underlying sexism in language (e.g. mankind , chairman , mailman , etc) and some have even gone to the lengths of positing herstory as an alternative to history . For a time, stong objections were voiced at the inherent racism underlying words like blacklist , blackguard , blackmail , even blackboard , and at the supposedly disparaging and dismissive nature of terms like mentally handicapped , disabled , Third World , etc. But there has also been a certain amount of positive re-branding and reclamation (also known as reappropriation) of many pejorative words, such as gay , queer , queen , dyke , bitch , nigger , etc, by those very same marginalized segments of society.

The explosion in electronic and computer terminology in the latter part of the 20th Century (e.g. byte , cyberspace , software , hacker , laptop , hard-drive , database , online , hi-tech , microchip , etc) was just one element driving the dramatic increase in new English terms, particularly due to the dominance of the USA in the development of computer technology, from IBM to Apple to Microsoft. Parallel to this, science fiction literature has contributed it own vocabulary to the common word-stock, including terms such as robotics , hyperspace , warp-speed , cyberpunk , droid , nanotech , nanobot , etc.

Later, the Internet it gave rise to (the word Internet itself is derived form Latin, as are audio , video , quantum , etc) generated its own set of neologisms (e.g. online , noob , flamer , spam , phishing , larping , whitelist , download , blog , vblog , blogosphere , emoticon , podcast , warez , trolling , hashtag , wifi , bitcoin , selfie , etc). In addition, a whole body of acronyms, contractions and shorthands for use in email, social networking and cellphone texting has grown up, particularly among the young, including the relatively well-known lol , ttfn , btw , omg , wtf , plz , thx , ur , l8ter , etc. The debate ( db8 ) continues as to whether texting is killing or enriching the English language.

Present Day

The language continues to change and develop and to grow apace, expanding to incorporate new jargons, slangs, technologies, toys, foods and gadgets. In the current digital age, English is going though a new linguistic peak in terms of word acquisition, as it peaked before during Shakespeare’s time, and then again during the Industrial Revolution, and at the height of the British Empire. According to one recent estimate, it is expanding by over 8,500 words a year (other estimates are significantly higher), compared to an estimated annual increase of around 1,000 words at the beginning of the 20th Century, and has almost doubled in size in the last century.

Neologisms are being added all the time, including recent inclusions such as fashionista , metrosexual , McJob , McMansion , wussy , bling , nerd , pear-shaped , unplugged , fracking , truthiness , locavore , parkour , sexting , crowdsourcing , regift , meme , selfie , earworm , meh , diss , suss , emo , twerk , schmeat , chav , ladette , punked , vaping , etc, etc.

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend towards using an existing words as a different part of speech, especially the “verbification” of nouns (e.g. the word verbify is itself a prime example; others include to thumb , to parrot , to email , to text , to google , to medal , to critique , to leverage , to sequence , to interface , to tase , to speechify , to incentivize , etc), although some modern-sounding verbs have surprisingly been in the language for centuries (e.g. to author , to impact , to message , to parent , to channel , to monetize , to mentor , etc). “Nounification” also occurs, particularly in business contexts (e.g. an ask , a build , a solve , a fail , etc).

Compound or portmanteau words are an increasingly common source of new vocabulary (e.g. stagflation , edutainment , flexitarian , Disneyfication , frenemy , confuzzle , gastropub , bromance , hacktivist , chillax , infomercial , shareware , dramedy , gaydar , wellderly , techlash , etc).

The meanings of words also continue to change, part of a process that has been going on almost as long as the language itself. For instance, to the disgust of many, alternate is now almost universally accepted in North America as a replacement for alternative ; momentarily has come to mean “very soon” and not (or as well as) “for a very short period of time”; and the use of the modifier literally to mean its exact opposite has recently found it way into the Oxford English Dictionary (where one of its meanings is shown as “used for emphasis rather than being actually true”). In some walks of life, bad , sick , dope and wicked are all now different varieties of good.

In our faddy, disposable, Internet-informed, digital age, there are even word trends that appear to be custom-designed to be short-lived and epehemeral, words and phrases that are considered no longer trendy once they reach anything close to mainstream usage. Examples might be bae , on fleek , YOLO (you only live once), fanute , etc. Resources like the Urban Dictionary exist for the rest of us to keep track of such fleeting phenomena.

Richard is an English teacher with over 25 years of experience. He has dedicated his life and career to his passion for English, literature, and pedagogy, guiding multiple generations of students on their journey to discovery.

My presentations

Auth with social network:

Download presentation

We think you have liked this presentation. If you wish to download it, please recommend it to your friends in any social system. Share buttons are a little bit lower. Thank you!

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Late Modern English period

Published by Claire Patterson Modified over 8 years ago

Presentation on theme: "Late Modern English period"— Presentation transcript:

States and Regions Chapter 1, Lesson 1.

Ch. 5 Language Key Issue 1: Where are English-Language Speakers Distributed? Origin and diffusion of English Dialects of English.

WESTWARD EXPANSION The original territory of the United States as acknowledged by the treaty with Great Britain, in 1783, consisted of the following thirteen.

The 13 Original Colonies By Cielo Peralta.

History of the English Language

May 7, 2015S. Mathews1 Human Geography By James Rubenstein Chapter 5 Key Issue 1 Where Are English-Language Speakers Distributed?

Happy New Year! On your desks: Textbook Pen Highlighter

Geography Flipbook.

5 EVENTS THAT SHAPED THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH According to Philip Durkin, Principal Etymologist at the Oxford English Dictionary.

Polo Vergara Ernesto & Colin Juan

General Overview of History of English

States and Cities SOL US II 2c A state is an example of a political region. States may be grouped as part of different regions, depending upon the criteria.

Earth is Our Home Earth is Our Home Antarctica North America South America Asia Australia There are 7 continents Africa Europe There are 4 Oceans.

Regions By Katelyn Ebenkamp Picture background with textured caption

Subregions of the United States and Canada

Distribution of Ethnicities in the US

Regions of the United States

1.Name two European countries that had colonies in what is now the United States. 2.What was the 1 st permanent English colony in North America? 3.How.

Fasten your seatbelts we’re off on a cross country road trip!

Geography of America Part 1. US Population 314 Million (2012 Estimated) Top 5 Cities (2010 Census, within city limits) Growth Since 2000 New York8,175,133.

About project

The Early Modern English Period

Dec 19, 2019

270 likes | 456 Views

The Early Modern English Period. End of the: 1500’s – 1800’s. War of the Roses. Fought between 1455 and 1485. Houses of York and Lancaster (Red and White Roses) For rights of succession on the English Throne. King Henry V (Lancaster) was defeated in 1470

Share Presentation

Presentation Transcript

The Early Modern English Period End of the: 1500’s – 1800’s

War of the Roses • Fought between 1455 and 1485. • Houses of York and Lancaster (Red and White Roses) • For rights of succession on the English Throne. • King Henry V (Lancaster) was defeated in 1470 • A later marriage union between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York joined the two parties to create the line of Tudors (Tudor Rose symbol)

Tudor Dynasty http://www.britroyals.com/images/tudor.jpg • From 1485-1603. • Included Elizabeth I, one of the more stable Monarchs in the long line of the English crown. • Began the English reformation with Henry VIII. • A bloody period, due to religious differences.

Key Historical Developments: The Protestant Reformation (16th c) • Henry VIII • 1534 Act of Supremacy • Split with the Catholic Church • Protestants believed that you should read the Bible yourself • Married 6 times- Bore Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Edward VI

Protestant Reformation • Henry VIII wanted a divorce because of his wife’s inability to produce a male heir. This was not granted by the Pope, so Henry appointed himself the head of the Church of England. • Initiated Reformation by separating the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Empire. England had turned Protestant.

Queen Mary I • Took over after her half brother died. Tried to take her out of succession with Jane Grey • Queen of Scotland, by marriage to King Phillip, before gaining the English crown. • Was a Devoted Catholic and attempted to restore the kingdom to Catholicism, mostly through executions, hence her nickname, Bloody Mary.

Queen Elizabeth I • The virgin queen, which Virginia was named after. • Imprisoned for a year by her half sister for secretly supporting Protestants • Queen for 45 years: 1558-1603 • Defeated the Spanish Armada- Fleet of 130 • Well liked by her constituents

Key Historical Developments: The Protestant Reformation (16th c) • Education • Most educators were clergymen who taught in Latin • New schools set up by merchants and the gentry staffed by laymen who taught in English

Key Historical Developments: Elizabethan Era (Golden Age) • Pride in the English language • Desire to produce national literature in English • Theatre was the number one entertainment for High Culture. • Included people such as: William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlow

William Shakespeare • Born April 23, 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon • Died April 23, 1616 • Father (John) was a glove maker and somewhat of a Mayor (if thought of in our time period) • Went to Stratford Grammar School and learned Latin • Married Anne Hathaway and had 3 children

William Shakespeare • The theaters of London were closed between the years of 1592 and 1594 because of the bubonic plague. Shakespeare wrote his first poem “Venus and Adonis” continued to write sonnets. • Later, he became a part owner of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which was the most successful theater company in London, and built the first theatre • Performed most of his plays in “The Globe” or as he called, “The wooden O”

Queen Elizabeth’s Protection • the Puritans were trying to shut down the theaters for being sinful and attracting the wrong sorts of people. • Riot outside the theater. • Queen Elizabeth allowed Shakespeare to produce plays for 17 long years before her death.

Interesting Theatre Facts The Globe Theatre Women were not allowed to act until after 1660.Teenage boys who hadn't gone through puberty would play the roles of women. The most expensive seats in a theater were the in the top row of the theater, farthest from the audience. Poor people called the groundlings, or penny knaves, would pay one penny to stand in the open yard (front row) Actors were seen as vagrant troublemakers. Not respected. Theatre competed with entertainment such as Bear Baiting

Continued facts… • No one went to the theater at night. There were no electric stage lights, and the stage was in the middle of the audience, lighted by the sun. There was no scenery and very few props. There were no costumes except for any which the actors acquired • Groundlings/Penny Knaves were extremely rambunctious and in constant movement: walking, talking, yelling, throwing things • In 1613 the old Globe Theater burned to the ground after being set on fire by a spark from a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII

William Shakespeare • Never published any of his works. • 1632 was the first Folio published after his death, containing 36 out of the 37 plays. • Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets and 3 longer poems. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geev441vbMI

William’s 6 different Signatures (4) William Shakspere (5) Willm Shakspere (6) By me William Shakspeare (1) Willm Shakp (2) William Shaksper (3) Wm Shakspe

Christopher Marlowe • Well known for his playwrights and poetry • Huge conspiracy with Marlowe and Shakespeare • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CbWeIkgF-g • Hero and Leander and The Passionate Shepherd to his Love = best poems ever

Vowel Shift and Spelling

Early Modern English Pronouns

EME Word Order: InterrogativesWH- Questions • Inversion of Auxiliary verb • Why do you look on me? • What do you see? • How hast thou offended? • How should I your true love know? • Inversion of verb • Why look you upon me? • What sayde he?

EME Borrowings: French

EME Borrowings: Romance languages

EME Borrowings: Germanic, Celtic

EME Borrowings: Non-European

EME Interjections

More by User

The Early Modern Period

Period of Revolution (Change) and Reform. This period of culture and literature may be described as one of revolution and reform: religious, philosophical, and political. Until the year 1200 C. E., almost all of the world's literature was composed in the elite languages, employing literary devices

489 views • 18 slides

Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview

Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview. INTRODUCTION EUROPE The English Sweats Typhus Syphilis AMERICAS Yellow Fever Malaria. The English Sweats. Epidemics in 1485, 1506, 1517, 1528, 1551 and 1571.

351 views • 15 slides

PART III (Early Modern English)

PART III (Early Modern English). Factors affecting the development of Early Modern English: printing (1476) spread of popular education improved means of communication growth of specialized knowledge (Latin became less and less the vehicle for learned discourse)

642 views • 28 slides

The Early Modern Period 1450-1750 CE

The Early Modern Period 1450-1750 CE. UNIT 4 APWH EXAM REVIEW. MAJOR CHANGES. World becomes global - exploration; technological innovations; political organizations; trade Domination of Maritime trade - shift from land based trade in Classical and Post-Classical Periods

462 views • 24 slides

Mughal Empire in the Early Modern Period

Mughal Empire in the Early Modern Period. Devin,Dan,and Patrick. Important Points to Be Covered. Who: Who were the Mughals? Where: Where did they reside? When: When were they prominent? What: What did they accomplish? What were their relations? How: How did it rise and subsequently fall?

143 views • 0 slides

Unit 4: Early Modern Period

Unit 4: Early Modern Period . 1450-1750. Tabs. 4.1 Globalizing Networks of Comm. & Exchange 4.2 Social Organization & Production 4.3 State Consolidation & Imperialism. 4.1 Globalizing Networks of Comm. & Exchange. Intensification of existing trade networks

214 views • 8 slides

The Early Modern Period. Part IV 1450-1750. Remember the Periods. 8,000 B.C.E.-600 B.C.E 600 B.C.E.-600 C.E. 600 C.E.-1450 1450-1750 1750-1914 1914-Present (Though in the future, they will, I predict, have a period 1914-2001). 1450: A Turning Point.

709 views • 43 slides

Welcome to the early modern period

Welcome to the early modern period. Literary Division Anglo-Saxon or Old English Literature Middle English Literature The Early Modern Period, aka The Renaissance The Elizabethan Age: reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) Jacobean Age: Reign of James I (1603-25)

689 views • 25 slides

Early Modern English 1500-1800

Early Modern English 1500-1800. Introduction of the Printing Press. First printing press in England 1476. Consequences of the printing press. Freezing of English spelling Books in English are more available Strengthening of the London dialect. Middle English Dialects.

1.29k views • 104 slides

The Early Modern English

The Early Modern English. Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period (the latter half of the 15th century) to 1650.

1.72k views • 17 slides

leaving the early modern period…

leaving the early modern period…. Dynasties founded by virtuous rulers; corrupt heirs lose Mandate of Heaven; conquered by foreign invaders or peasant rebels

579 views • 39 slides

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD. “Renaissance” 1500-1700. Contents. Related and alternative designations Changing conditions Chronology Important Dates Outstanding Persons Major Atributes of the Language. RELATED AND ALTERNATIVE DESIGNATIONS. EARLY MODERN ENGLISH ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

2.05k views • 136 slides

Russia During the Early-Modern Period

Russia During the Early-Modern Period. Review of Russian History. Kievan Rus Dominated by Kiev, but various other principalities throughout Ties with Byzantine Empire Adopted Orthodox Christianity in 900’s Fell under Mongol rule in the 1220’s Remained under Mongol rule until late-1400’s.

423 views • 25 slides

Early Modern English

Early Modern English. The language of the REnaissance. So, what now?. Renaissance Shakespeare Queen Elizabeth I King James I Great Vowel Shift a /a/ > /e/ nam > name e /e/ > / i / fet > feet i / i / > / ai / riden > ride o /o/ > /u/ rote > root u /u/ > / ou / hus > house

314 views • 4 slides

The Early Modern English Period. C.M. Millward: A Biography of the English Language John Algeo: Origins and Development of the English Langauge Michael Cheng National Chengchi University. Key Historical Developments. The Printing Press The English Renaissance The Protestant Reformation

1.36k views • 73 slides

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH (1500-1800)

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH (1500-1800). After the decline of French in the Middle English period, a new English standard began to develop. Two factors where highly influential in this process: 1. economic and cultural centre within the East- Midlands triangle of Oxford-Cambridge- London.

1.01k views • 63 slides

Introduction to the Early Modern Period

Introduction to the Early Modern Period. English Renaissance 1550s –1660. From Tudor England under Elizabeth I  to Stuart England under James I; Includes the English Civil War (1642-1648), beheading of King Charles I and Interregnum, including the Commonwealth (1649-1653) and

417 views • 13 slides

Early Modern English Period

Early Modern English Period. end of the 15 th – beginning of the18th century The formation of the National English Language. Historical background. 1485 - ? Henry Vll (Tudor) crowned king (1485-1509). Absolute monarchy

388 views • 13 slides

Early Modern English. Loan words 101 By, Meaghan Riemer. Background info. Associate this stage with the Renaissance - think Shakespeare, and Milton, Marlowe and Jonson The period extends from 15th century to the 18th century

453 views • 17 slides

The Early Modern Period 1450 - 1750

The Early Modern Period 1450 - 1750. Ch. 23 Transoceanic Encounters and Global Connections. KEY POINTS:. What motivated exploration to take place?. What factors facilitated exploration?. What impact did exploration have globally or what changes took place as a result of this exploration?.

467 views • 8 slides

Modern English Period(1500-present)

Modern English Period(1500-present). Objectives Early Modern English(1500-1800) Late Modern English(1800-present) Linguistic Features of Early Modern English Early Modern English Literature. Modern English Period is divided into two periods: Early Modern English Late Modern English.

294 views • 22 slides

Historical Demography in the Early Modern Period

Historical Demography in the Early Modern Period. God send mee the use of things, and notions, whose foundations are sense and the superstructure mathematicall reasoning, for wont of which props so many governments doe reel and stagger, and crush the honest subjects that live under them .

135 views • 12 slides

IMAGES

VIDEO

Period Of English Literature
NTA/UGC NET ENGLISH 2022 History of English Literature/Old English period(Anglo-Saxon period)TGT,PGT
Old English Period (in hindi) || Anglo-Saxon period || A History of English Language || MEG-04 ||
Modern English Period (1500
Old English Period### English Literature##Saffa Parammal
Middle English Period & Features Explanation In Malayalam

COMMENTS

PPT
Modern English. Sep 08, 2014. 940 likes | 3.93k Views. Modern English. The Modern-English Period is dated from A.D. 1500 to the Present. The Modern English period began in 1500 and lasts until the present day. The complex inflectional system of Old English had been simplified during the ME period. Download Presentation. english.
Early Modern English
History about English Periods especially "Early Modern English". Early Modern English, Early New English (sometimes abbreviated to EModE, EMnE or EME) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English, in the late 15th century, to the transition to Modern English, in the mid-to-late ...
Early modern english
*The standardisation of English spelling falls within the Early Modern English period and is influenced by conventions predating the Great Vowel Shift, which is the reason for much of the non-phonetic spelling of contemporary Modern English. *The revival of classical scholarship brought many classical Latin and Greek words into the Language.
Early Modern English
Boundaries of time and place. The early modern English period follows the Middle English period towards the end of the fifteenth century and coincides closely with the Tudor (1485-1603) and Stuart (1603-1714) dynasties. The battle of Bosworth (1485) marked the end of the long period of civil war known as the Wars of the Roses and the ...
Modern English
Development. Modern English evolved from Early Modern English which was used from the beginning of the Tudor period until the Interregnum and Stuart Restoration in England. By the late 18th century, the British Empire had facilitated the spread of Modern English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all ...
The Early Modern English Period
1 The Early Modern English Period C.M. Millward: A Biography of the English Language John Algeo: Origins and ... Download ppt "The Early Modern English Period" Similar presentations . How the Bible Came To Be. Development of the Canon. Chapter 1 Our Story of Faith. Vocabulary Bible - amazing story of God's love for us; God's word written ...
From old English to modern English
The Old English (OE) period can be regarded as starting around AD 450, with the arrival of West Germanic settlers (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) in southern Britain. They brought with them dialects closely related to the continental language varieties which would produce modern German, Dutch and Frisian. This Germanic basis for English can be seen ...
Early Modern English (c. 1500
A major factor separating Middle English from Modern English is known as the Great Vowel Shift, a radical change in pronunciation during the 15th, 16th and 17th Century, as a result of which long vowel sounds began to be made higher and further forward in the mouth (short vowel sounds were largely unchanged). In fact, the shift probably started ...
Early Modern English
Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English, in the late 15th century, to the transition to Modern English, in the mid-to-late 17th century.. Before and after the accession of James I to the ...
Early Modern English and The Elizabethan Era
Closing off the era of the Tudors, Elizabeth was crowned queen in 1558. Her reign is considered the start of the golden age of English history typified by national pride, classical ideals, international expansion, military might, and a much-welcomed renaissance of the arts. In this peaceful era, the arts flourished and culture bloomed.
English language
Negation was often repeated for emphasis. English language - Old English, Middle English, Modern English: Among highlights in the history of the English language, the following stand out most clearly: the settlement in Britain of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles in the 5th and 6th centuries; the arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the subsequent ...
Modern Period in English Literature : Thinking Literature
The Modern Period in English literature marks a significant transition in terms of aesthetic expression and cultural responses. It came into being as a direct reaction to the profound socio economic upheavals that followed World War I.This period was marked by the impact of technical developments, such as rapid industrialization and the emergence of mass media, which altered how people ...
A History of the English Language
A History of the English Language. This detailed presentation gives a clear overview of the evolution of the English language throughout the ages. Including the Old English, Middle English, Early Modern, Modern and Late Modern periods, the slideshow covers contextual elements, key features of language, key dates and examples of text for each.
Late Modern English (c. 1800
It was largely during the Late Modern period that the United States, newly independent from Britain as of 1783, established its pervasive influence on the world. The English colonization of North America had begun as early as 1600. Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607, and the Pilgrim Fathers settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.
Late Modern English period
Presentation on theme: "Late Modern English period"— Presentation transcript: 1 Late Modern English period Aftermath of Great Vowel Shift. 2 In one technical sense, once we get past the Great Vowel Shift, almost everything interesting has already happened in the history of English. After 1600, when the Shift was basically complete, there were ...
Early modern english
Introduction on The Anglo Saxon Era. Early Modern English (1500-1800) Renaissance Period Literature. Anglo Norman Period or Middle English. The norman conquest. Foreign influences on old english. Reestablishment of english in england in the middle. Middle english period (literary) History of the English language.
PPT
Dec 19, 2019. 270 likes | 454 Views. The Early Modern English Period. End of the: 1500's - 1800's. War of the Roses. Fought between 1455 and 1485. Houses of York and Lancaster (Red and White Roses) For rights of succession on the English Throne. King Henry V (Lancaster) was defeated in 1470. Download Presentation.
30 years on, South Africa still dismantling racism and apartheid's
There are the passive-aggressive comments from colleagues, constantly complimenting her on how well she speaks English. She has lived through the daily microaggressions that form part of her life. "I am a born-free and despite being born after the advent of democracy in South Africa, my race continues to play a huge role in my being, as a ...
KIU Modern Literature Presentation on Literary Movements 1901-1960
Presentation Group 3 Hajat Hussain (Group Leader) Haseena Jan Haseen Zehra Aien Shah Shaheena Bano Raja Zubair Hassan Shamsullah. 3. 4. 1901-1960. 5. Modern Age Started from beginning of 20th Century Political History World War 1 (1914-1918) Emergence of new Nations Women Rights Issues Prepared by Hajat Hussain. 6.