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.

From around 1600, the English colonization of North America resulted in the creation of a distinct American variety of English. Some English pronunciations and words «froze» when they reached America. In some ways, American English is more like the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some expressions that the British call «Americanisms» are in fact original British expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost for a time in Britain (for example trash for rubbish, loan as a verb instead of lend, and fall for autumn; another example, frame-up, was re-imported into Britain through Hollywood gangster movies). Spanish also had an influence on American English (and subsequently British English), with words like canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante being examples of Spanish words that entered English through the settlement of the American West. French words (through Louisiana) and West African words (through the slave trade) also influenced American English (and so, to an extent, British English).

Today, American English is particularly influential, due to the USA’s dominance of cinema, television, popular music, trade and technology (including the Internet). But there are many other varieties of English around the world, including for example Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English, Indian English and Caribbean English.

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Two thousand years ago the British Isles were inhabited by speakers of Celtic languages. These languages still survive in parts of Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Brittany in France. The Celts were conquered by the Romans and from 43BC to about AD 410 the areas which are now England and Wales were part of the Roman Empire and Latin was the language of government. Between the fourth and seventh centuries AD the Anglo-Saxons arrived from what is now northern Germany, Holland and Denmark and occupied most of England and parts of southern Scotland. In some parts of Wales, Scotland and Ireland people still speak Celtic languages. The Anglo-Saxons spoke a Germanic language which forms the basis of modern English. This language was modified by the arrival of Viking invaders in the north and east of the country who came from Norway and Denmark between the eighth and eleventh centuries. These Scandinavian settlers spoke Old Norse, which was related to Anglo-Saxon, and which is the parent language of modern Danish. The mixing of the two languages greatly enriched the vocabulary of English. By the middle of the tenth century England had become a unified country under one king.

In 1066 England was conquered by the French-speaking Normans, and French became the language of government. For the next three hundred years three languages co-existed. The aristocracy spoke French; the ordinary people spoke English, while Latin was used in the church. Modern English evolved from the mingling of the three tongues. Today English vocabulary is approximately half Germanic (from the Saxons and Vikings) and half Romance (from French and Latin). There are however considerable borrowings from other languages.

Some derived words:

Old English shirt, life, death, heaven, earth, love, hate

Old Norse skirt, birth, window, ugly, wrong, they, their, them

French boil, roast, veal, beef, pork, village, painter, tailor

Latin index, item, major, memorandum

Features of the English language. English has changed so much in the last 1500 years that it would now be hardly recognizable to the Anglo-Saxons who brought the language across the North Sea. Although they would be able to recognize many individual words, they would not recognize the way those words are put together to make sentences. Old English, like modern German, was a highly inflected language, i.e. most words changed their endings or forms to show their relationship to other words in the sentence according to number (singular, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), case (subject, object), tense (past, future) etc. Some modern English words still inflect, but much less so than in other European languages. The English verb ‘to ride’ inflects into five forms (ride, rides, riding, rode, ridden) whereas the equivalent German verb has sixteen forms. The English word ‘the’ has only one form, whereas other European languages would have several different forms. The trend towards simplicity of form is considered to be a strength of English. Another strength is the flexibility of function of individual words. Look at the use of the word ‘round’:

There was a round table. (adjective)

He bought a round of drinks. (noun)

He turned round. (adverb)

He ran round the field. (preposition)

The car tried to round the bend too quickly. (verb)

This flexibility, together with a flexibility towards the assimilation of words borrowed from other languages and the spontaneous creation of new words have made English what it is today, an effective medium of international communication. English has achieved this in spite of the difficulties caused by written English, which is not systematically phonetic.

Some loan words:

Arabic admiral, algebra, mattress

Spanish mosquito, cigar, canyon

Italian piano, violin, spaghetti

Dutch yacht, boss, deck

Hindi pyjamas, shampoo, bungalow

Turkish yoghurt, kiosk

Japanese tycoon, karate

Malay bamboo, compound

Aztec tomato, chocolate

Hungarian coach, paprika

Classical Greek theatre, astronomy, logic

Gaelic whisky

Russian vodka, sputnik