EARLY MODERN

ENGLISH (C. 1500

- C. 1800)
The Great Vowel Shift
Between 1450 and 1750 there is a great event in the
history of the English language which saw the change
from Middle English to Early Modern English - the
Great Vowel Shift.
The Great Vowel Shift saw a complete change in the way
people pronounced English vowels. Vowels started to be
pronounced more towards the front of the mouth.
In addition to the change in pronunciation of vowels in
English, the end letter ‘e’ on many words became
voiceless.
The Impact of the Great Plague
The Great Plague of 1665 – 1666 had a strong impact on
the English language due to the cultural changes that
resulted.
The pronunciation changes that took place during the
Great Vowel Shift evolved in part due to the greater
social mobility which happened after The Great Plague.
This was because the plague wiped out a large portion of
the aristocracy as well as the lower classes. In just seven
months, one fifth of the population of London was dead.
This merging of lower class English and higher class
Anglo-Norman combined to create a new Early Modern
English.
 LATE MODERN
ENGLISH (C. 1800
- PRESENT)
Most of the innovations of the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th Century were of British origin.  The
English language dominance of new technology and innovation with inventions like electricity, the telegraph, the
telephone, the phonograph, the computer, etc. old words were given entirely new meanings and connotation ( vacuum,
cylinder, pump, locomotive), and new words created by amalgamating and fusing existing English words into a
descriptive combination (railway, horsepower, typewriter).

The colonialism increase in world trade in general during this time, led
to the introduction of many foreign loanwords into English. For instance,
India gave us such everyday words as pyhamas, thug, bungalow, cot,
jungle, loot, bangle, shampoo, candy, tank and many others.
American use of words like fall for the British autumn, trash for rubbish , hog for
pig, sick for ill, guess for think are all examples of this kind of anachronistic British word
usage. American kept several words such as burly, greenhorn, talented and scant that
had been largely dropped in Britain.
Many Spanish words also made their way into American English
during the expansion, including words like armadillo, alligator,
guitar, mosquito, ranch, tornado.

Present day
Neologism are being added all the time, including recent inclusions
such as fashionista, metrosexual, wussy, nerd.
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 (to thumb, to parrot, to email, to text,
to google.
Compound or portmanteau words are an increasingly common
source of new vocabulary ( stagflation, edutainment, gastropub,
bromance, gaydar, wellderly).