2. *Since 1900, a very large amount of vocabulary
words has been added to English in a relatively
short period.
*The majority of these words are related to
science and technology, and use Greek and Latin
roots.
3. *A proposal for an Academy of the English
Language was first brought forth by
Jonathan Swift in 1712, but the Parliament
voted against it.
*A more scientifically minded attitude took
hold by the 19th century when the Oxford
English Dictionary was proposed in 1859.
*Samuel Johnson's dictionary, published in
1755 in England, was influential in
establishing a standard form of spelling.
4. *World War I and World War II threw
together people from different
backgrounds, and the greater social
mobility afterwards helped to lessen
the differences between social
accents.
*The development of radio
broadcasting in the early 20th
century familiarised the population
with accents and vocabulary from
outside their own localities.
5. * The principal distinction between early- and late-modern
English is vocabulary.
* Pronunciation, grammar, and spelling are largely the
same, but Late-Modern English has many more words.
* These words are the result of two historical factors:
1. The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the
technological society
2. The rise of the British Empire
6. *The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the
technological society
* The industrial and scientific revolutions created a need for
new words to describe the new creations and discoveries.
* This process of coining new words is called neologism: a
neologism is a newly coined term, word, or phrase.
7. *The rise of the British Empire
* The rise of the British Empire and the growth of global trade
served not only to introduce English to the world, but to
introduce words into English.
