Noun

Modern English

1. English spoken since the great vowel shift, completed in roughly 1550.

Related terms

• Old English
• Middle English
• Early Modern English

Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.

Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern English, or more specifically, are referred to as using Early Modern English or Elizabethan English. English was adopted in regions around the world, such as North America, India, Africa, and Australia, through colonization by the British Empire.

Modern English has a large number of dialects spoken in diverse countries throughout the world. Most of these, however, are mutually intelligible. This includes American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, Caribbean English, Hiberno-English, Indo-Pakistani English, New Zealand English, Philippine English, Singaporean English, and South African English.

According to the Ethnologue, there are over 1 billion speakers of English as a first or second language as of 1999, a number surpassed only by the Chinese language. However, Chinese has a smaller geographical range and is spoken primarily in mainland China and Taiwan and also by a sizable immigrant community in North America. Additionally, Chinese is itself divided into a number of regional dialects that may not be mutually intelligible in spoken form. In contrast, English is spoken in a vast number of territories including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, and Southern Africa. Its large number of speakers, plus its worldwide presence, have made English a common language for use in such diverse applications as controlling aircraft, developing software, conducting international diplomacy, and business relations.