Late Modern English (1800 – present)
Modern English is usually considered to have begun in the 19 th century and lies in its
vocabulary since the pronunciation, grammar and spelling remained largely unchanged.
There were two factors that contributed to the vocabulary of the Modern English: The
Industrial Revolution and the rise of the British Empire.
Most of the innovations of the Industrial Revolutions of the late 18th and 19th century
were of British origin. A lot of words were coined for new products, machines and processes and
in some cases old words were given entirely new meaning (vacuum, cylinder). Another English
speaking country, the USA, continued the English language dominance of new technology and
innovation.
British colonialism, on the other hand, was a two-way phenomenon. Thus English both
lent and borrowed words from its colonies, such as shampoo, tank, jungle from Indian,
boomerang, kangaroo from Australian. With the process of colonialism different variants of
English started to emerge. But, although there were speculations that this would lead to whole
new branches of English, just like the Germanic language fate, due to global communication, this
does not seem to be the case.
The British colonized about one fourth of the world. Certainly the English language had
its impact on all these countries. The Australian Aborigines were small in number so English
managed to impact their language more than they did English. Thus, an Australian version of
English became the official language of the country. The same happened in New Zealand which
wanted to emphasize its national identity showing the difference from Australia. A similar
history took place in South Africa, which started to be populated by the British in 1820. The
Dutch had been in South Africa since the 1650s but the British managed to anglicize the
Afrikaans and the black population and in 1822 English was made the official language though
with a distinctive homogeneous accent (like in Australia). Moreover, in East Africa, although
British trade began in 16th century, it was only in the 1850s that the British rule began, and six
modern African states, once British colonies, gave English official language status on achieving
independence in 1960s. As far as West Africa is considered, an interesting development
occurred, due to trading and the existence of a lot of languages, several English-based pidgins
and creoles arose, many of which still exist. With India the story differs a bit because upon
establishing trading companies in India, the British first had to learn the various language of
India in order to do business. But soon, schools and Christian missions were set up and British
officials began to impose English on the locals, thus English becoming the medium of
administration, army, business and education despite the fact that it is much less important than
Hindi. English also became the language of power and elite education in South-East-Asia while
Papua New Guinea developed a pervasive English-based pidgin known as Tok Pisin (Talk
pidgin) which is now its official language.
Despite the fact that English had quite a great impact on these countries, it was the
discovery of the New World that flourished the language. English colonization of North America
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had begun as early as 1600 which means that the first settlers spoke a dialect similar to
Shakespeare. Some of the pronunciations and usages remained unchanged with the English in
America while in Britain they continued to evolve. That is why in some respect American
English is closer to the English of Shakespeare than Modern British English is (AmE: gotten as
opposed to BrE: got).
Naturally enough, although quite conservative in this aspect, the contact with the Native
Americans brought to the language quite a lot of words, though mostly native lifestyle, animal
and food terms (raccoon, tomato).
Considering the fact that in the second half of the 19 th century millions of people
migrated to America from different parts of the world, it is only fair to acknowledge that
different dialects of English were created. However, with the improvements in transportation and
communication, this dialects started to become less distinct (less than the dialects in Britain) and
by the 19th century a standard variety of American English developed in most of the country,
based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states with its characteristic flat ‘a’ and strong final ‘r’.
Today, Standard American English is based on generalized Mid-Western accent.
After the Independence (1783) there was some discussions whether English should
remain the national language but it was never really in a doubt and was not even mentioned in
the new Constitution (even today the USA, Britain and Australia do not have an official
language).
The American dialect has been formed due to the big number of borrowings from Native
people’s language, Spanish and some French. There were also a lot of American coining which,
in fact, were exported to Britain, as well, as did Americanized spelling changes (horror,
emperor). Nevertheless, today about 4000 words are used differently in the USA and in Britain
(lift-elevator, tap-faucet). Moreover, there are some differences as far as spelling is concerned.
The spelling changes in American English are the merit of Noah Webster, who, through his
dictionaries, managed to put forward changes such as center instead of centre, jeweler-jeweller,
color-colour, defense-defence, check-cheque, plow-plough, etc.
On the other hand, even though taking ownership of the language and developing the
American Standard English was seen as a matter of honour, it was opposed by Britain and even
some more conservative British Americans. Nevertheless, Webster’s ideas were accepted,
especially when the Merriam-Webster dictionaries were published. It even went further when
Andrew Carnegie established the Simplified Spelling Board which resulted in the American
adoption of some words (ax, program, catalog), though some other recommended changes found
resistance (yu, filosofy, def).
English in Canada has also been influenced by successive waves of immigration, the
main impact having come from the Loyalists of Pennsylvania and New York with their
distinctive pronunciation of ‘ou’ (house) and ‘i’ (light). Canadian English today contains
elements of British English and American English as well as loanwords from the native peoples
of the north (igloo, anorak) and French.
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The 19th Century produced a large number of writers, such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley,
Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, etc. The language of Jane Austen appears to all intents and purposes
modern in vocabulary, grammar and style. She used the ‘correct’ grammar as dictated by Lowth.
Some of the words in her books have undergone a mild change in meaning (compliment meant
merely polite or conventional praise, genius was a general word for intelligence not anything
exceptional). Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and Lewis Carroll introduced new ideas, new concepts
and so of course new words. But some revolutionary works came in the 20 th century with
Virginia Woolf, T.S. Elliot and James Joyce. Joyce had taken English to a whole new level,
creating neologisms using compounds (allwhite, bigmost) or blended words (wherend,
guardiant). Joyce’s books are difficult works of fiction thus even today they are more written
about than read.
The 19th Century was also the time when the Oxford English Dictionary containing
415000 entries, supported by 2 million citations with over 15000 pages in 12 volumes was
compiled and was accepted as the definite guide to the English language.
In the 20th Century there were concerns (which still continue) that the language was going
downwards. This was especially pointed out by Sir Ernest Gowers, who started the movement of
“Plain English”, because a lot of coined words, according to him, were technical terms that
needed to be avoided, though not in legal documents. But in more recent years there has been a
trend toward plainer language in legal documents, too.
The 20th century brought a massive number of words into English, starting from words
connect to wars (radar, brainwashing), to electronic and computer terminology (byte,
cyberspace), to science fiction literature (robotics, nanobot) and finally to Internet (download,
blog). In addition, a whole body of acronyms, contractions and shorthands for use in email,
social networking and cellphone texting has grown up.
In recent years there has been an increasing trend towards using words as a different part
of speech, especially the verbification of nouns (to email, to google).
The language continues to change and develop and to grow apace, expanding in
incorporate new jargons, slangs, technologies, toys, foods and gadgets. Neologisms are being
added all the time (most recent: selfie, parkour, unplugged).
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