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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 16th 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 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 comprehensible. This includes American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, Caribbean English, Hiberno-English, Indian EnglishIndian English is a catch-all phrase for the dialects or varieties of English spoken widely in India (by about 11% of the population, according to the 1991 census) and the Indian subcontinent in general. The dialect is also known as South Asian English ., and Pakistani English.
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 Chinese 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 the United States. In contrast, English is spoken in a vast number of territories, including Great BritainGreat Britain (often abbreviated as Britain is an island lying off the western coast of Europe, comprising the main territory of the United Kingdom. Great Britain is also used as a political term describing the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales,, CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe, the United States of America, AustraliaAustralia is the sixth-largest country in the world (geographically), the only one to occupy an entire continent, and the largest in the region of Australasia. Australia includes the island of Tasmania, which is an Australian State. Its neighbouring count, and IndiaThe Republic of India is a large multicultural country in South Asia, with a population of over one billion. The Indian economy is the fourth largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, and is the world's second-fastest growing economy.. Its large number of speakers, plus its worldwide presence, have made English a common language for use in such diverse applications as controlling airplanes and developing software.
1 Outline of changes in Modern English
The following is an outline of the major changes in Modern English compared to its previous form (Middle English). Note, however, that these are generalizations, and some of these may not be true for specific dialects:
1.1 Phonology
- instability of ( SAMPAThe Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA is a computer-readable phonetic script using 7-bit printable ASCII characters, based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It was originally developed in the late 1980s for six European langua) /E:/ with varying, semi-random results, causing meat, bread, and steak no longer to rhyme. (after 1550; perhaps the last event of the Great Vowel Shift in England.)
- (Southern England, after 1700): development of non- rhotic dialect, loss of /r/ at ends of syllables; non-rhotic dialects may develop a new class of falling diphthongs by substituting schwa for /r/.
- (Southern England, after 1700): /æ/ (/{/) -> /a/ before /f, s, th, z, v/ alone or preceded by /n/: bath -> bawth &c. (the British broad A)
- (Southern England, after 1800): intervocalic /t/ -> glottal stop; /bo`@l/ for bottle
- (Southern England, after 1850): loss of /o:/, replaced by /@u/; cf. southern English v. North American pronunciation of boat.
- upper-class southern English speech, esp. dialects associated with boarding schools, as prestige dialect in England.
- varying degree of prestige of Southern English changes in North America; some are imitated in North America, but most changes fail to penetrate past East Coast.
- ( North America, after 1750): loss of distinction between /a/ and /O/; father and bother rhyme;
- (North America, after 1800): intervocalic /t/ -> /d/; ladder and latter sound very similar or identical, distinguished perhaps by degree of aspiration of consonant.
- ( Scotland, parts of North America, date uncertain): /ai, au/ -> /@i, @u/ before voiceless consonants; house (unvoiced) has a different diphthong from houses (voiced); see Canadian raising.
