1.3. Geographical expansion of English in the 17—20 centuries and its effect on the language

Up to the 17th century the English language was spoken by the people who lived only on the British Isles (at the time of William the Conqueror there were about 2 million people), but even there in the far-away mountainous parts of the country the people preserved their own Celtic dialects very long into the New English period. Thus in Cornwall the local dialect, Cornish died out in the 18 century. In Wales there arose a tendency to revive the local Celtic language. In 1893 the Welsh University was founded, and in 1961 the number of those speaking Welsh amounted to 650 thousand. In Ireland through centuries a struggle against English was fought. It reached its climax in 1916 with the Irish rebellion. In 1922 the Irish free state was formed and in 1949 .the new state — Eire — left the Common wealth of Nations. Now Eire occupies the whole but the Northern part of ; Ireland, which is a part of Britain. The number of people rose from 300 thousand to over 600 thousand, but the majority speak English.

The penetration of the English language to other parts of the globe mainly began in the 16 century together with the expansion of British colonialism. The 16th century was an age of great adventurers, and England's progress in the discovery and colonising field was tremendous. The first Virginian colony was . founded; Drake circumnavigated the globe; the East India Company was established and English seamen left their mark in many parts of the world. In 1620 the famous ship The Mayflower reached North America in the region which is now the state of Massachusetts. This marked the beginning of English in the New World.

The 18th century witnessed the coming of English to India, where nowadays the language is widely spread, although its sphere is limited to large cities and a certain social layer, and in today's India English is a state language together with the native languages of Hindi and Urdu.

In the 18th century England conquered Canada. During the 19 th century the colonisation of Australia took place. In the 20 th century English penetrated into South Africa.

Now about 300 million people speak English as their national language in

various parts of the globe, and many times that — as a second language. To foretell

the future of any language, English among them, is of course impossible, but the mere fact of its wide diffusion throughout the world is a guarantee that it will continue to change and develop.

2. Inner history

The speed of the development of the language was lesser than in Middle English. The language developed quickly at the beginning of the period and slowly — at the end (with the exception of the word-stock which develops equally quickly during the whole period). When the literary norm was formed, it, being always very conservative, prevented the change of the language, that is why the speed of the development slowed down. .