Modern English

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Modern English, New English
Period c. 1700 AD to today, in some literature also c. 1500 to today

Formerly spoken in

And to date spoken in the United States, United Kingdom , Canada , Australia , New Zealand , Ireland , and (as a secondary language) in over 50 other countries worldwide
United StatesUnited States 
United KingdomUnited Kingdom 
CanadaCanada 
AustraliaAustralia 
New ZealandNew Zealand 
IrelandIreland 
Linguistic
classification
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

en

ISO 639 -2

closely

ISO 639-3

closely

Modern English or Modern English (English. Modern English , also New English ) is a language level of English that begins depending on the definition in 1700 and Early Modern English (ca. 1500-1700) follows or starts at 1500 with Early Modern English. Other levels of English are Old English and Middle English .

The demarcation between Early New English and modern English is less clear than between the previous language levels, which is why the years 1650, 1725 and 1750 are mentioned as the beginning of modern English. Authors who do not regard Early Modern English as a separate language level, but see it as the beginning of modern English, set the beginning of modern English as early as around 1500.

Classification of the period and differentiation from other language levels

The distinction between New English and other language levels is handled inconsistently in the literature. In some introductions to the history of language, Early New English (1500–1700) and New English (from 1700) are presented as independent language levels. Other authors, on the other hand, subsume early New English under New English. New English is then divided into Early Modern English 1500–1700 and Late Modern English from 1700.

Finally, there are authors who subdivide New English even more finely:

  • Early Modern English ( Early Modern English , 1500-1700)
  • Spätneuenglisch ( Late Modern English , 1700-1900)
  • Today's English ( Present-Day English , from 1900)

distribution

In the 16th and 17th centuries, English was spoken almost exclusively in England and partly in Scotland , Ireland and Wales . Today it is an international language spoken as the mother tongue of over 340 million people in the British Isles , Canada , the United States of America , Australia and New Zealand . It serves as the official language for teaching and administration in many other countries, such as India and Pakistan , as well as other African and Asian countries. The national variants of English in these countries are considered to be separate “ varieties ” of English.

standardization

The beginning of modern English is accompanied by efforts to standardize the English language: There have been several, albeit unsuccessful, attempts to establish an English language academy based on the Italian model.

The great days of grammarians and lexicographers were the late 17th and 18th centuries. Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language" appeared in 1755 after more than seven years of preparation and remained exemplary for a long time. In the 18th century, several prescriptive grammars also appeared, driven by the desire to regulate the English language, e.g. B. Practical English Grammar (1738) by William Loughton, The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) by John Priestley, and Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) by Robert Lowth. Noah Webster's A Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1784) was published in Great Britain and the USA, where it enjoyed great popularity. Work on the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1850 .

Phonetics and Phonology

The phoneme coincidence of some vowels turns words with originally different pronunciations into homophones. Thus, see ([si:] dt. See ) and sea (originally [s:]., Dt Lake ) to homophones by the collapse of [i] and [e:] to [i:]. In addition, some consonants disappear at the beginning of a word: While the consonants [w] and [k] in the words wring and knight were still pronounced in Middle English and at the beginning of Early New English, they are mute in modern English.

From the 18th century onwards, the phoneme / r / was no longer pronounced before consonants and at the end of a word. While British English was still a rhotic accent during the Middle English and Early New English periods , it was non-rhotic from the 18th century, as were the accents of Australian and New Zealand English . In contrast, z. B. American and Irish English and Scots rhotic.

vocabulary

With the worldwide spread of English, more and more words from other languages ​​are finding their way into the English vocabulary. In the course of its development, modern English borrowed words from more than 50 languages, including from other European languages ​​such as Italian ( volcano, violin ), Spanish ( alligator, sombrero ), Portuguese ( fetish, tank ), German ( kindergarten, zeitgeist ), Swiss German ( putsch, muesli ), Russian ( samovar, troika ), but also from Arabic ( magazine, coffee ), Persian ( naphtha, chess ), Hindi ( guru, chutney ), Japanese ( sake, soy, tycoon ), Chinese ( sampan, ginseng ) as well as from the indigenous languages ​​of America ( coyote, wigwam ) and Australia ( kangaroo, boomerang ).

grammar

Personal and possessive pronouns

In New England, the use of the possessive pronoun its instead of his for inanimate things became established. The pronouns thou / thee / thy are given up in favor of you / you / your , and the short form ye disappears.

Verb-adverb combinations ( phrasal verbs )

A typical phenomenon of the New English language level are fixed connections consisting of a verb, followed by an adverb, with an independent meaning, which non-native speakers must learn as "phrasal verbs".

Examples:
take up take in
take in learning, understanding, deceiving
set take on , take over
take off take off, take off

Sentence structure

The strict word order subject-verb-object , which in Old English was only used in main clauses, is now mandatory in modern English. The use of the auxiliary do becomes mandatory in questions and negations. While the progressive form ( Progressive ) was in Old English and Middle English, a rare phenomenon, it is widely used in New England time and obligatory in certain contexts. In addition, the progressive form is permitted in all tenses: is laughing , was laughing , will be laughing . The progressive form is even extended to the passive voice: the house is being built .

Spelling and punctuation

In New England, standardized spelling and punctuation developed. However, the spelling no longer corresponds to the pronunciation, but reflects the sound level of late Middle English.

In particular, the early New English vowel shift ( Great Vowel Shift ) meant that in many cases the typeface no longer corresponds to the pronunciation. In many cases, you can no longer recognize the pronunciation from the spelling and you can no longer deduce the spelling from the spoken word. George Bernard Shaw is credited with proposing ghoti as a possible spelling for the word fish : gh as in cough (cough), o as in women (plural) and ti as in nation . However, there is no evidence for such a proposal from Shaw, for such a proposal has already appeared before him. But actually z. B. The sound [f] in English spelling is represented by four different spellings (f, ff, gh, ph). Nevertheless, all previous efforts to achieve a thorough orthography reform have failed.

See also

literature

  • Albert C. Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0415655965 .
  • Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 5th edition. Winter, Heidelberg 2003, ISBN 978-3825314101 .
  • Herbert Koziol: Fundamentals of the history of the English language. 3. Edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1984, ISBN 3-534-04449-5 .
  • Ernst Leisi, Christian Mair : Today's English. Traits and problems. 8th edition. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0598-8 .
  • Christian Mair: Twentieth-Century English - History, Variation, and Standardization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2006, ISBN 0-521-83219-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 2nd Edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , p. 28 .
  2. ↑ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to Early New English . 2nd Edition. Winter, Heidelberg 1994, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , pp. 8-9 .
  3. ^ Andreas H. Jucker: History of English and English Historical Linguistics . 3. Edition. Klett, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-12-939584-4 , pp. 7 .
  4. ^ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 2nd Edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , p. 27 .
  5. ↑ Terttu Nevalainen: An Introduction to Early Modern English . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2006, ISBN 978-0-7486-1524-7 , pp. 1 .
  6. ^ Klaus Faiß: English language history . Francke, Tübingen 1989, ISBN 3-7720-1757-6 , p. 1 .
  7. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 311-322 .
  8. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 258-264 .
  9. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 258-264 .
  10. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 268-270 .
  11. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 330 .
  12. ^ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 2nd Edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , p. 28, 53, 54 .
  13. ^ Charles Barber: Early Modern English . 2nd Edition. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1997, ISBN 0-7486-0835-4 , pp. 127 .
  14. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 284-285 .
  15. ^ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 2nd Edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , p. 64-66 .
  16. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 337 .
  17. ^ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 2nd Edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , p. 28, 98 .
  18. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 285-286 .
  19. ^ Manfred Görlach: Introduction to the history of the English language . 2nd Edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-02043-4 , p. 28, 98 .
  20. ↑ Josef Essberger: "Ghoti" = "Fish". In: English Club. Retrieved January 28, 2018 .
  21. ^ Albert Baugh, Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language . 6th edition. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-65596-5 , pp. 325-326 .
English language levels

Old English  • Middle English  • Early New English  • New English