Development of

English:
Modern English

Presentation made by
Vladlena Savchenko and Symoshyna
Anna, ФКБ 2-19
History of Modern English
Modern English evolved from Early Modern English which was used from the beginning of the
Tudor period until the Interregnum and Restoration in England. The works of William
Shakespeare and the King James Bible are considered to be in Modern English, or more
specifically, are referred to as using Early Modern English or Elizabethan English. 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 contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. Modern English
also facilitated worldwide international communication. English was adopted in North America,
India, parts of Africa, Australia, and many other regions. In the post-colonial period, some of the
newly created nations that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using Modern
English as the official language to avoid the political difficulties inherent in promoting any one
indigenous language above the others.
Early Modern English and Late Modern English, also
called Present-Day English (PDE), differ essentially in
vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words,
arising from the Industrial Revolution and technologies
that created a need for new words, as well as
international development of the language. The British
Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's
land surface, and the English language adopted foreign
words from many countries. British English and North
American English, the two major varieties of the
language, are together spoken by 400 million people.The
English language will almost certainly continue to
evolve over time. With the development of computer and
online environments (such as chat rooms, social media
expressions, and apps), and the adoption of English as a
worldwide lingua franca across cultures, customs, and
traditions, it should not be surprising to see further
shortening of words, phrases, and/or sentences.
 Transition from Middle English to
Early Modern English
The Early Modern English period is regarded by many scholars as beginning about 1500 and
terminating with the return of the monarchy (celebrated in John Dryden’s poem Astraea Redux) in
1660. The three outstanding developments of the 15th century were the rise of London English, the
invention of printing, and the spread of the new learning associated with the Renaissance.

The Midlands and East Anglia, the most densely peopled parts of England, supplied London with
streams of young immigrants. The speech of the capital was mixed, and it was changing. The seven
long vowels of Chaucer’s speech had already begun to shift. Incipient diphthongization of high
front /i:/ (the ee sound in meet) and high back /u:/ (as in fool) led to instability in the other five long
vowels.
 Great Vowel Shift

This remarkable event, known as the Great Vowel Shift, changed the whole vowel system of London
English. As /i:/ and /u:/ became diphthongized to /ai/ (as in bide) and /au/ (as in house) respectively, so the
next highest vowels, /e:/ (this sound can be heard in the first part of the diphthong in name) and /o:/ (a
sound that can be heard in the first part of the diphthong in home), moved up to take their places, and so
on. The table shows the vowel shift in London English; every one of the sounds appearing in this table
can still be heard somewhere in living English accents.
 one two thre four fiv six seve moth heart hear
e e n er

Late Middle English, ɔːn twoː θreː fowər fiːv sik sevə moːð hertə hɛːrə(n)
c. 1350 ə s n ər

(Late Middle English (oon) (two) (thre (fowe (fiv (si (seve (moth (hert (heere(n))
The vowel changes over time spelling) e) r) e) x) n) er) e)
can be seen in the following
example words, showing the
Early Modern oːn >! twuː > θriː foːr fəi sik sevə mʊðə hert heːr
changes in their form over the English, c. 1600 wʊn tuː v s n r
last 2,000 years:
Modern English, c. wʌn tuː θriː fɔː(r) fai sɪk sevə mʌðə hɑrt/h hiːr/hiə
2000 v s n (r) ɑːt

one two thre four fiv six seve moth heart hear
e e n er
 Restoration period
With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, writers again looked to France. John Dryden admired the
Académie Française and greatly deplored that the English had “not so much as a tolerable dictionary, or
a grammar; so that our language is in a manner barbarous” as compared with elegant French. After the
passionate controversies of the Civil Wars, this was an age of cool scientific nationalism. In 1662 the
Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge received its charter. Its first
members, much concerned with language, appointed a committee of 22 “to improve the English tongue
particularly for philosophic purposes.”
It included Dryden, the diarist John Evelyn, Bishop Thomas Sprat, and the poet Edmund Waller. The
committee, however, achieved no tangible result, and failed in its attempt to found an authoritative
arbiter over the English tongue.
 Restoration period

A second attempt was made in 1712, when Jonathan Swift addressed an open letter
to Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, then Lord Treasurer, making “A Proposal for
Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining [fixing] the English Tongue.” This letter
received some popular support, but its aims were frustrated by a turn in political
fortunes. Queen Anne died in 1714. Oxford and his fellow Tories, including Swift,
lost power. No organized attempt to found a language academy on French lines has
ever been made since.

With Dryden and Swift the English language reached its full maturity. Their failure
to found an academy was partly counterbalanced by Samuel Johnson in his
Dictionary (published in 1755) and by Robert Lowth in his Grammar (published in
1761).
 Age of Johnson
In the making of his Dictionary of the English Language,
Samuel Johnson took the best conversation of contemporary
London and the normal usage of reputable writers after Sir
Philip Sidney (1554–86) as his criteria. He exemplified the
meanings of words by illustrative quotations. Johnson admitted
that “he had flattered himself for a while” with “the prospect of
fixing our language” but that thereby “he had indulged
expectation which neither reason nor experience could justify.”
The two-folio work of 1755 was followed in 1756 by a
shortened, one-volume version that was widely used for
centuries afterward.
 19th and 20th centuries
In 1884 the first fascicle of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles was published by
James A.H. Murray. Later Murray was joined successively by three editors: Henry Bradley,
William Alexander Craigie, and Charles Talbut Onions. Aside from its Supplements, the
completed dictionary itself filled 12 volumes, had over 15,000 pages, contained 414,825 words,
and was illustrated by 1,827,306 citations. It sought to represent English in the British
Commonwealth and the United States—a fact symbolized by the presentation of first copies in
the spring of 1928 to King George V and President Calvin Coolidge—and to record the histories
and meanings of all words known to have been in use since 1150. A revised edition of this
dictionary, known as The Oxford English Dictionary, was published in 1933, and a second
edition was published in 1989. Online publication of the dictionary’s corpus enabled ongoing
revision and expansion.
 Morphology
Inflection
Modern English nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and
verbs are inflected. Adverbs, prepositions,
conjunctions, and interjections are invariable. Most
English nouns have plural inflection in (-e)s,
but that form shows variations in pronunciation in
the words cats (with a final s sound), dogs (with a
final z sound), and horses (with a final iz sound.
Seven nouns have mutated (umlauted) plurals: man,
men; woman, women; tooth, teeth; foot, feet; goose,
geese; mouse, mice; louse, lice. Three have plurals
in -en: ox, oxen; child, children; brother, brethren.
 ● Adjectives have distinctive endings for comparison (e.g.,
comparative bigger, superlative biggest), with several irregular forms (e.g., good,
better, best).

● The forms of verbs are not complex. Only the substantive verb (to be) has eight
forms: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been. Strong verbs have five forms: ride,
rides, rode, riding, ridden. Regular or weak verbs customarily have four: walk,
walks, walked, walking. Some that end in t or d have three forms only: cut, cuts,
cutting.

● In addition to the above inflections, English employs two other main morphological
(structural) processes—affixation and composition—and two subsidiary ones—
back-formation and blend.
Affixation
Affixes, word elements attached to words, may either precede, as prefixes (do, undo; way,
subway), or follow, as suffixes (do, doer; way, wayward).

They may be native (overdo, waywardness), Greek (hyperbole, thesis), or Latin (supersede, pediment).
Modern technologists greatly favour the neo-Hellenic prefixes macro-“long, large,” micro- “small,”
para- “alongside,” poly- “many,” and the Latin mini- “small,” with its antonym maxi-. The early
Internet era popularized cyber- “of computers or computer networks” and mega- “vast.”

Suffixes are bound more closely than prefixes to the stems or root elements of words. Consider, for
instance, the wide variety of agent suffixes in the nouns actor, engineer, magistrate, merchant, scientist,
secretary, student, and worker. Suffixes may come to be attached to stems quite fortuitously, but, once
attached, they are likely to be permanent. At the same time, one suffix can perform many functions.
The suffix -er denotes the doer of the action in the words worker, driver, and hunter; the instrument in
chopper, harvester, and roller; and the dweller in Icelander, Londoner.