8. Modern English period

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world.

This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.

Late Modern English (1800-Present)

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.

9. Henry Sweet periodization of the English language

With reference to the history of English, which covers roughly 1200 years, different features might be taken as a ground for such division.

The English scholar Henry Sweet (1845 — 1912), author of a number of works on the English language and on its history, pro-posed the following division of the history of English according to the state of unstressed endings:

1st period, Old English — the period of full endings. This means that any vowel may be found in an unstressed ending. For example, the word sin^an 'sing' has the vowel a in its unstressed end¬ing, while the word sunn 'son' has the vowel u in a similar po-sition.

2nd period, Middle English — the period of levelled endings. This means that vowels of unstressed endings have been levelled under a neutral vowel (something like [a]), represented by the letter e. Thus, Old English sin^an yields Middle English singen, Old English sunn yields Middle English sune (also spelt sone, see §286).

3rd period, Modern English — the period of lost endings. This means that the ending is lost altogether. Thus Middle English singen became Modern English 'sing'. Middle English sone became Modern English 'son'.'

This division is based on a feature both phonetic (weakening and loss of unstressed vowel sounds) and morphological (weakening and loss of grammatical morphemes).

Now we must define the chronological limits of each period. These are approximately the following: the OE^period begins about 700 A.D. (the time to which the earliest writings in English belong) and lasts till about 1100. The ME period lasts from about 1100 till about 1500. The MnE period begins at about 1500 and lasts well into our own times. Within the MnE period it is customary to distinguish between Early MnE (approximately 1500—1660) 2 and Late MnE

(approximately from 1660 till our own times).

It is easy to see that the approximate dates fixing the boundaries between the periods are very close to important events in the social and political life of the country: 1100 follows close upon 1066, the year of the Norman conquest, and 1500 is close to 1485, the year when the Wars of the Roses came to an end, which marked the de¬cay of feudalism and the rise of capitalism in England. The end of the 15th century is also the time when the English nation arises.

Thus division into periods based on a phonetic and morphological feature fits quite well into a conception of English history.

It should be emphasized that such dates as 1100 or 1500 cannot be taken literally: they are merely a convenient means of expressing the statement that by the end of the llth and again by the end of the 15th century changes in the language have accumulated to an extent which makes it possible to state the beginning of a new period in its history.