Late-Modern English
Trends
A major trend beginning in the Victorian Era and still continues today is the trend of foul language. Foul language began in the Victorian Era beginning with acronyms that were inappropriate and foul. Continuing in the Modernist era where more slang and inappropriate language was presented. Ulysses, a book by James Joyce that had a large amount of profanity and in result the last chapter was banned in the United States because of how severe the amount of profanity was in the chapter. Also a show created in the 90's called "Firefly" has several bad acronyms in Japanese and English. This trend continues in our texts we send with the innapropriate acronyms we use. Today this trend continues in the way we speak, books we read, tv shows, songs, texting, ect.
Expansion of English
The New World
English speaking immigrants were not the only people coming to America and the mixing of languages created different dialects of english.
American settlement introduced English to Natives and new words were created from the Natives words for particular animals and foods. New words were also created for geographical features
In this time period the United States, newly independent from Britain as of 1783, established its pervasive influence on the world. Some English pronunctiations didn’t change in America, lagging behind the continuously evolving English in Britain. American English is closer to Shakespeare than Britain and it kept several words that had been dropped in Britain.
The main difference between early- and late- modern English is the vocabulary. Spelling, pronunciation, and grammar are roughly the same, late-modern english just has more words. This vocabulary is the result of the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire. At its height, Britain ruled one quarter of the earth’s surface, and English adopted many foreign words and made them its own.
Colonialism and the British Empire:
Although beginning in the 16th Century, it picked up pace in the 19th and 20th Century.
-A maritime empire, and the influence of nautical terms on the English language has been great.
-Phrases like "three sheets to the wind" have their origins onboard ships.
Finally, the military influence on the language during the latter half of twentieth century was significant. Before the Great War, military service for English-speaking persons was rare.
-Military slang existed, but with the exception of nautical terms, rarely influenced standard English.
-During the mid-20th century, however, a large number of British and American men served in the military. And consequently military slang entered the language like never before.
ex. Blockbuster, nose dive, camouflage, radar, roadblock, spearhead, and landing strip are all military terms that made their way into standard English.
But colonialism was a two-way phenomenon, and Britain’s dealings with these exotic countries, as well as the increase in world trade in general during this time, led to the introduction of many foreign loanwords into English. For instance, Australia gave us a set of words like boomerang, kangaroo, budgerigar, etc. But India gave us such everyday words as pyjamas, thug, bungalow, cot,jungle, loot, bangle, shampoo, candy, tank and many others.
Industrial and Scientific Revolution:
The Industrial and Scientific Revolution requires the need for many new scientific terms for the new discoveries and creations, most of which derived from Latin and Greek. ex. protein, oxygen, etc.
Dialects & Pidgins
America kept several words from Britain (such as burly, greenhorn,talented and scant) that Britain dropped & the words received their specific American meanings.
~Canadian English~ similar to northern and western American English.
~Characteristics- "Canadian rising" & "eh?"
~Most Canadians retain r's after vowels. -Maritime's drop the r's.
~Newfoundland has dialect "Newfie" influenced by Irish immigrants
British colonization of other continents created many dialects due to these factors:
1) the emigrants (first colonizers) spoke a variety of British English
2) language mixed with non-English in the colony
3) languages mixed with other English dialects in the colony
4) word innovations in Britain didn't occur in the overseas dialect
Late 1800’s~ increase in World Trade made other countries learn English. Australia & India gave us words Kangaroo, pajamas, thug, etc.
Black English~ is a mixture of English basis and West African languages. Developed by African slaves (Jamaicans)
English~ a blend of early Frisian & Saxon with Danish and Norman French & later added Latin & Greek technical terms. English speaking nations got terms for indigenous plants, animals, foodstuffs, clothing, housing, and items from native and immigrant languages.
Various dialects, from Cockney to Jamaican use slang, from Polari to hip hop.
Changes in grammar
Double Negation:
The use of two negators was common to heighten the negation. However with prescriptive notions in the 17th and 18th centuries this came to be frowned upon. The same type of reasoning was used in German and led to the proscription of double negation here as well. However, many dialectal forms of English allow two or more negators, all of which serve to strengthen the negation, as in He don't take no money from nobody.
Relative Pronouns:
In modern English there is an exclusive use of which and who, whereby the latter refers to inanimate things and the latter to animate beings. Up to early modern English, however which could be used for persons as well and dialectally this is still found in English today: The nurse which gave him the injection. Similarly that is generally employed with defining relative clauses today as in The car that was stolen turned up again. However, earlier that was common in non-defining relative clauses as well, e.g. The girl that (who)having failed her exam left college for good.
Auxiliary Verbs:
In present-day English the only auxiliary is have. But formerly English had be in this function with verbs expressing motion or change of state, much as does German to this day, e.g. He is come for He has come; She is turned back for She has turned back.
Reflexive Pronouns:
English, like German, frequently used an oblique case form of the personal pronoun with reflexive verbs; the ending -self was found only in cases of emphasis. But later the emphatic element became obligatory in all reflexive uses, so that a sentence like "I washed me quickly" came to be expressed as "I washed myself quickly."
