The third period of English is the Modern English period. The Modern English period begins around 1500 and continues to the present. That is, what we speak today is Modern English, and it is essentially the same as what was spoken in the 1500s.

You don't believe it? Let's look at some examples of works written in that early Modern English period.

Activity: Looking at Early Modern English

Look at the excerpt from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Try to find a word that you don't know in it. Try to reword it as if you were speaking it today. How many changes would you need to make?

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Now do the same with an excerpt of the Canterbury Tales of almost the same length. First, find the words you don't know. Next, try to reword it as if you were saying it today. How many changes would you need to make?

Now preye I to hem alle that herkne this litel tretys or rede, that if ther be any thynge in it that liketh hem, that therof they thanken oure lord Jhesu Crist, of whom procedeth al wit and al goodnesse. And if ther be any thyng that displese hem, I preye hem also that they arrette it to the defaute of myn unkonnynge, and nat to my wyl, that wolde ful fayn have seyd bettre if I hadde had konnynge.

Which of the two is close to the English we use today? Is either of them exactly the same?

We know that the invasion of England by William the Conqueror created the break between Old English and Middle English, but what separates Middle and Modern English?

A phenomenon called the Great Vowel Shift.

The Great Vowel Shift is a chain reaction that altered the pronunciation of the long vowels of Middle English. In this process of language change, almost every word of Middle English with a long vowel in it received a new pronunciation. The whole vowel system was thus radically affected, and when an entire language system is altered, it is not unreasonable to see it as entering a new period.

By the way, English isn’t the only language that had a great vowel shift. Chinese did too.

In order to understand the Great Vowel Shift, it is necessary to understand a bit of phonetics, especially how vowels are articulated, or produced, in the vocal tract.

Direction of Movement and Starting Points

There are three possible starting points for a shift,
each creating a type of chain reaction named after the direction of movement caused by the starting point of the shift.

The Great Vowel Shift in English

The Great Vowel Shift in English was a drag chain that resulted in vowel raising.

• The long high vowels changed first in pronunciation to diphthongs.
• They dragged the other long vowels behind them.
• Words that used to a long vowel changed and were pronounced with a vowel in a higher tongue position
• the shift was one of vowel raising.

The Great Vowel shift accounts for why English pronounces many of the same spellings different ways:

1. [aj] hi
2. [i] he
3. [I] hit
4. [e] hay
5. [ɛ] hell
6. [æ] hat

We can see that the letter ‘i’ corresponds to both 1 and 3; ‘e’ corresponds to 2 and 5; ‘a’ corresponds to 4 and 6.

http://asstudents.unco.edu/faculty/tbredehoft/UNCclasses/ENG419/GVS.html

But what caused the Great Vowel Shift?
No one knows for sure!

None of the usual causes of language change seem to have occurred during that time period

What are the usual causes of language change?