Language Change Timeline

1700's
1. Demand for grammatical languages e.g. Latin fell, emphasis on modern english.
2. Industrial rev 1780 onwards, shift from agriculture to industry.
3. 1755 Johnson's dictionary, took 8 yrs, until Oxford English Dictionary, was viewed as pre-eminent english dictionary.
  1. Great importance in standardisation of spelling.
  2. OED published over 150 yrs later.
  3. Also gave phonological information.
  4. Had social prestige, most words included quote from most prestigious authors.
4. Non-standard caps of nouns generally died out in C18.
5. Lowth's Short introduction to English grammar, standardising grammar, 1762.
  1. Lowth and Johnson - early prescriptivists.
1800's
1. Long S, derived from roman cursive, generally fell out of use late C19, rarely found in good quality London printing after 1800, although lingered provincially for a while.
2. 'Ye' died out C19, fully replaced by the.
3. Social.
  1. Late C19, invention of telephone, communication changes.
  2. Abolition of slavery 1807.
  3. Huge gap between wealthy and poor, distinct social classes.
    1. 1848 - Communist manifesto, Marx & Engels.
  4. Improvement of communication ont transport, rail, canal, steam ships allowed goods to be transported rapidly, facilitating trade and industry.
    1. British Empire causes huge lexical growth.
  5. Many movements to obtain greater rights for women, Married Woman's Property act introduced.
4. Noteable literature, Dickens, Brontes, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley - Frankenstein.
  1. 1816, Pickering compiled first dictionary of americanisms.
  2. First thesaurus created C19.
  3. 1820s, grammar and punctuation books for children.
1900's
1. WW1 1914-1918, WW2 1939-1945.
  1. War & army brought with it new lexicon.
  2. After WW2 high immigration from India, Pakistan & Caribbean, new cultures and lexis came with.
2. Women.
  1. Sex discrimination act 1975, work, education and training.
  2. Suffragette movement, women got vote 1928.
  3. 1970 equal pay act passed.
  4. Tech.
    1. 1914, first mass produced motor car, they gained great popularity in C20.
    2. 1973, first mobile phone.
      1. Text speak begins late C20.
        Numeronym - number used to form abbreviation e.g. gr8 (not in initialisms and acronyms).
    3. 1975, first personal computer.
    4. Much new lexis introduced to language. Many initialisms and acronyms.
3. 60s youth-based sub-sultures became prevalent.
4. 80s Political correctness, avoiding offence.
5. Sales of Good act, 1979 legislation - advertising must be accurate.
2000's
1. Social Networking & further technological advances, most people have phone/smart phone and pc.
  1. Global communication through social media, lead to coining of much new slang, spread through internet.
  2. Popularisation of Blackberry (first BB smart phone 2003) - QWERTY keyboard, no longer a need for some text speak.
  3. Emoticons, 2011, Apple introduced Emoji keyboard, Emoticons lost popularity.
Earlier
1. 1476 - Caxton introduced printing press.
  1. Standardized to some extent due to country having wide range of very different dialects, by homogenising regional dislects to South East, as this was most influential area at time.
  2. Began standardising spelling, and homogenising a variety of english dialects.
  3. By C17, books generally cheaper, literacy rates increasing, however predominantly elite classes still.
2. Between 14th century and 18th century, Great Vowl Shift, meaning vowels were no longer 'phonetic'.
  1. Pronunciation of english began to stabilise.
3. Shakespeare writing around late 16th century to early 17th, brought over 1700 new words into language.
4. 1693, first woman's magazine published.
5. Increase in international trade C17, increase in word borrowings.
6. Æ, þ, ȝ, Ash, Thorn and Yogh used in old english, generally disappeared as popularity of printing rose.

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Language Change Timeline

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	Created by r.struthers97 over 9 years ago