MODERN ENGLISH

History of Modern English

Modern English began in England during the Elizabethan era

which is also around the time of the great poet William
Shakespeare.

English was adopted in regions around the world, such as United States,
India, and Australia, through colonization by the British Empire. So as Great
Britain began colonizing America, Asia, and Africa, the English language and
other customs and ideas spread around the world. This is considered an
aspect of the Columbian exchange.
Modern English is the term used for the contemporary use of the English
language. In terms of historical linguistics, it covers the English language
after the Middle English period; that is, roughly, after the Great Vowel
Shift, which was largely concluded after 1550.
Despite some differences in vocabulary, material from the early 17th century,
such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, is
considered to be in Modern English, or more specifically, they are referred to
as Early Modern English, and most people who are fluent in the English of the
early 21st century believe they can read these books with little difficulty.
 Modern English has a large number of dialects, spoken in diverse countries
throughout the world. Most of these, however, are mutually intelligible. This
includes American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian
English, Caribbean English, Hiberno-English, Indo-Pakistani English, New
Zealand English and South African English. These dialects may be met in
different contexts, for example the stereotypical villain in some American
movies has a British accent, and many British pop singers sing in an American
accent.
According to Ethnologue, there are over 508 million speakers of English as
a first or second language as of 1999, a number dwarfed only by the
Chinese language in terms of the number of speakers. However, Chinese
has a smaller geographical range: it is spoken primarily in mainland China
and Taiwan, and by a sizable immigrant community in North America. In
contrast, English is spoken in a vast number of territories, including Britain,
Ireland, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand,
India, Pakistan and Southern Africa. Its large number of speakers, plus its
worldwide presence, have made English a common language for use in
such diverse applications as controlling airplanes, developing software,
conducting international diplomacy, and business relations.
 Influences on Modern
English
Early Modern English lacked uniformity in spelling, but Samuel Johnson's
dictionary, published in 1755 in England, was influential in establishing a
standard form of spelling. Noah Webster did the same in America,
publishing his dictionary in 1828.
Some words from Webster's original dictionary were not
adopted, despite these simpler and often more practical
spellings.

Public education increased literacy, and more people had access to

books with the spread of public libraries in the 19th century. Many
words entered English from other languages, as a result of contact
with other cultures