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Old English (5th to 11th Century), Late Modern English, Early Middle…
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Late Modern English
The Industrial Revolution and the Rise of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th and early 20th-century saw the expansion of the English language.
Due to the nature of these works, scientists and scholars created words using Greek and Latin roots e.g. bacteria, histology, nuclear, biology.
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Early Middle English
It was during this period that the English language, and more specifically, English grammar, started evolving with particular attention to syntax. Syntax is “the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language,” and we find that while the British government and its wealthy citizens Anglicised the language, Norman and French influences remained the dominant language until the 14th century.
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It was during the 14th century that a different dialect (known as the East-Midlands) began to develop around the London area.
Geoffrey Chaucer, a writer we have come to identify as the Father of English Literature and author of the widely renowned Canterbury Tales, was often heralded as the greatest poet of that particular time. It was through his various works that the English language was more or less “approved” alongside those of French and Latin, though he continued to write up some of his characters in the northern dialects.
After this date, the clerks started using a dialect that sounded as follows:
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Early Modern English
The changes in the English language during this period occurred from the 15th to mid-17th Century, and signified not only a change in pronunciation, vocabulary or grammar itself but also the start of the English Renaissance.
Caxton’s publishing of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (the Death of Arthur) is regarded as print material’s first bestseller. Malory’s interpretation of various tales surrounding the legendary King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, in his own words, and the ensuing popularity indirectly ensured that Early Modern English was here to stay.
If one endevours to study various English language courses taught today, we would find almost no immediate similarities between Modern English and Old English. English grammar has become exceedingly refined (even though smartphone messaging have made a mockery of the English language itself) where perfect living examples would be that of the current British Royal Family.
The basic history and development of a language that literally spawned from the embers of wars fought between ferocious civilisations. Imagine everything that our descendants went through, their trials and tribulations, their willingness to give up everything in order to achieve freedom of speech and expression.
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