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Why Did The English Language Change Over Time

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As time progresses language also progresses. The English language has made obvious shifts over history including changes in vocabulary, the structure of sentences, and the pronunciation of words. Changes in language are caused by various sources such as different dialects used by different groups of people and the different language experience the speakers get throughout their lives. The very beginning of the English language was called PIE (Proto- Indo-European). Scholars say, “PIE was probably spoken about 5,000 years ago by people who lived in the region north of the Black Sea, in southeastern Europe.” (Ard). As these people migrated up to the area which is now Great Britain, it was occupied by the Celts who gave the new found English …show more content…

During this time period “The Great Vowel Shift” started. The Great Vowel Shift caused front vowels to be raised and fronted, back vowels to be raised and retracted, and high vowels were made into diphthongs. Even though this time period is during Shakespeare’s era and modern day English speakers have trouble reading that, many changes were made that later effected the modern English that is spoken today. “Finally, the sounds of a language change over time, too. About 500 years ago English began to undergo a major change in the way its vowels were pronounced. Before that,geese would have rhymed with today's pronunciation of face, while mice would have rhymed with today's peace.”(Birner). By changing the pronunciation in the English language so much, the Great Vowel Shift added more and more of the words that are used presently, even words as simple as pea. “That's how the word pea was created: Four hundred years ago, the word pease was used to refer to either a single pea or a bunch of them. But over time, people assumed that pease was a plural form, for which pea must be the singular, and a new word - pea - was born.” (Birner). The creation of printing was a major development during this era meant that books could now be printed in English as well as the first English dictionary in 1604. With the new technology there had to be standards set on grammar and spelling and the publishings had to be written in the …show more content…

It is made very clear that many things have changed in the English language since Early Modern English. The largest change in the language since then is the vast amount of vocabulary that has been added. Many words have come from the fact that Britain was a world wide empire during the 18th and 19th centuries making it so that words from all over the world naturally became part of the English language. All of the changes in language over time lead up to the English that is spoken by nearly 375 million people all over the world. Starting from the early 500’s, as far as experts could trace back, to now English has spread from one corner of Europe to around the world. Along with the 375 million people who regularly speak English as their first language, “another 375 million speak it regularly as a second language, and about 750 million more people speak English as a foreign language. English currently is the language most often taught as a second language around the world.”(Boyanova). English is also known as the universal language for business, tourism, technology, entertainment trade, and international communications because nearly 1.2 billion people speak English fluently. Even though the change from Old English to Modern English has been drastic, it is not over. There are currently changes going on through the English language that are not apparent to the speakers because the speakers of the time so

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