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First English Daily Newspaper is published and in circulation
The publishing of the first ever newspaper in English is a great step forward for the English language as it allowed English vocabulary to be more standardised and more available to the entire population. -
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Modern English Language
The Modern era of English Language is now. This era has ushered in a new wave of major changes in semantics and the globalisation of the English Language. From the change in the meaning of many words (like 'gay' and 'bug') to the diversity of language that has arisen from the British Empire and thr adoption of numerous words and phrases. From all the wars of the modern era to the social complexities and revolutions of this era, English Language changed on a more complex level than ever before. -
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References Part 1: In chronological order
First Newspaper: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1785311
Samuel J Johnson's Dictionary: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/dic/johnson/1755johnsonsdictionary.html
The Industrial Revolutions:
http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution
The American Civil War:
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war
Etymology of words:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php
Thomas Jefferson's Letters:
http://www.barefootsworld.net/tjletters.html -
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References Part 3: In chronological order
First ever Television:
http://www.videouniversity.com/articles/the-birth-of-television/
US Precidencies:
http://www.presidentsusa.net/presvplist.html
First Computer Built:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm
First Text message:
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4402146/1st-text-message-is-sent--December-3--1992 -
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References Part 2: In chronological order
Charles Dickens:
https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/words-invented-by-dickens/
Elementary Acts:
http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/school/overview/1870educationact/
http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/acts/1880-elementary-education-act.html
The Machine age and radio:
http://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/machine/text1/colcommentarymachine.pdf
The World Wars:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/ -
Samuel Johnson published the first ever dictionary
Samuel Johnson, funded by his wife, published the first ever English dictionary. This book was the first ever attempt at standardising English. Previous to this, English lexemes were spelt differently in different locations. This changed the language such that more and more people were able to understand what each other meant. -
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The Industrial Revolution occurs
Due to the increased invention of items, such as the steam engine, the production of new technologies greatly increased. This required the invention of new lexemes to describe what was being created. For example, words like electricity were used for the first time throughout this period. This age brought an advancement in technology and in the English language through the increase and standardisation of vocabulary. -
America declares independence from the British Empire
America declares independence from the British Empire. This brought on a series of changes in the American version of English, such as the dropping of the letter 'u' in colour and the changing of 's' to 'z' in words like stabilise. -
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Change in the Semantics of the word: 'Nigger'
In the 1800s 'nigger' quickly became a derogatory term for coloured people. At the time, it was considered sympathetic to use 'black' as a substitute. During the mid 1900s, 'nigger' was used a lot, and compounded to form words like: 'nigger-brown', 'nigger toes', and 'nigger heaven' refering to other races, nuts, and theaters respectively. However, after Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, the word quickly gained positive notions to support the movement. The word is considered taboo today. -
The Signing of the United States Constitution
The United States Constitution was signed at this time. This document has been identified as the source of a number of new words and different spellings. One word that was coined in the document was that 'suffrage' now meant ‘the right to vote’, rather the ‘prayer’. Furthermore, the spellings that changed for the first time ever included: 'behaviour' to 'behavior', 'controul' to 'control', 'defence' to 'defense’; as well as other changes in spelling. American English started to emerge. -
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Change in the Semantics of the word: 'Gay'.
In the beginning the word 'gay' was equivalent to 'happy' and 'pretty'. However, through the the connotations of 'pretty', the word started to mean brothel (in the form of 'gay house') and a 'gay man' became a person who slept with multiple people. This quickly changed in the 1940s to mean 'homosexual', which first appeared in psychology reports, but the slang was present before this occurred. Finally, in more recent times, people have begun to associate 'gay' with 'bad' or 'lame'. -
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The Life of Charles Dickens
Unknown to most, Charles Dickens played a major part in the creation of the English Language we know today. This is because he was instrumental in the creation of new lexical items and phrases within English. He created many words and also helped spread many others. Notably, he is attributed to coining a number of words with the suffix '-dom' (eg 'boredom') replacing words with the ending '-ism' (eg 'boreism' which now seems out of place). -
Thomas Jefferson Wrote Letter describing American English
In 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter: "The new circumstances under which we are placed call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects. An American dialect will therefore be formed". Thomas Jefferson predicted the formation of a separate vocabulary for American English, this included the changing of 's' to 'z' in words like colonise and the dropping of the 'u' from colour. -
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The American Industrial Revolution
After the first Industrial Revolution, which occurred in England earlier on in the timeline, America experienced a similar event which increased the number of steam trains within America and made a multitude of transport related words become zmore commonplace within the American English of the time. -
The Great 1832 Reform Act
In March, 1932, the first of many Reforms Acts was created. It was designed to further regulate the voting procedure in England. This historical document is extremely interestig to English Language as the document outlines that "male" land owners can vote. This created an uproar and was the cause of the suffrage movement later on in the 1800s. This is because the use of this one, gender specific, noun, resulted in half the population being legally excluded. All because of the meaning of a word. -
The Elementary Education Act of 1870
The Elementary Education Act (1870) was the first parliamentary iteration of an attempt to standardise the education system in England. This was first drafted by William Forster. The reason for its implementation is that the government perceived that they were no longer keeping up advancement of other countries; and so, made it that all school's would have a standardised curriculum. This included reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now, the following generations could read and write English. -
The Elementary Act of 1880
This act was implemented in 1880, and was an extension on the 1870 Elementary Act. This act made undertaking school education for children compulsory, up until the age of 10. However, because schooling was not made free until 1891, it was extremely difficult on many families. Anyway, this new act meant that now the majority of the following generations of people would be literate to some extent and also, importantly, speak and write in the standard form of English given by the government. -
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The Machine Age occurs
In this period after the Industrial Revolution, the English speaking population were now exposed to a comsumerism, advertisement and an increased exposure to movies. This allowed for more vocabulary to spread from other countries and therefore allowed more words to seep into the English language. -
The First Iteration of the Radio was made
In the year of 1894, the first iteration of the radio was created. This would, in the following years allow many millions of people tune into the same stations wherever they were and listen in the same news and English. This helped spread many English words and also spread news about wars and different political situations. It was used by many politicians in the following years. -
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The Suffrage Movement and the Suffragettes
In 1903, the suffrage movements started. This was initially a movement of words, calling for the political parties to give women the right to vote. But they were repeatedly denied. With the adoption of many new terms within the English Language (like suffrage), and the colloquialisms that ensued (suffragette, and feminism), the English language changed drastically. In the beginning, this was a war of words and cartoons but quickly descended into violence. -
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World War I
World War I broke out in 1914 and raged for many years, until coming to an end in 1918. WWI brought many new words into the English Language; many of which were either borrowed from all of the other troops fighting in the trenches or invented to describe a number of new experiences while fighting in this modern warfare. Many of the words the soldiers used slowly crept into English Language through the reports coming from the battlefield. Some of these include "lousy" and "snapshot". -
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Presidency of John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
President Coolidge is notable to English Language as he possessed the power to transmit his word to 23 million people in America through the use of radio. This was the first time radio had ever been used in politics; and it changed the game dramatically. It allowed Coolidge to reach everyone within the country and for his party's views to be delivered to everyone. From this point on, politics was no longer a game of picking a side, but listening to the views and promises of these politicians. -
First ever Television was Demonstrated to the public
On this day, an inventor, by the name of Philo Farnsworth had successly demonstrated television for the first time. It was a crude device, however, in the years to come, it would serve a major role in many people's lives through being used in everyone's house and would eventually be responsible of the Americanisation of many cultures, and the medium of many revolutions, eras and political campaigns. -
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World War II
WWII brought many new words to the English Language. Many of this is due to the influence of America during the war and many words and colloquisms were taken from the Allied forces in Europe. Notably, words within the semantic field of weapons had started being used in everyday language and also "Nuclear bomb" and "nuke" were words that became extremely common during this era. -
First Ever Mechanical Computer Created
Due to the creation of the first ever computer, a whole new surge of new lexical items occurred. Where multiple words that are now specific to computers were formed. Also during this time, many words were changed semantically. For example, the word bug had now come to meant an error in a computer and/or computer program. -
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The Presidency of John F. Kennedy
John Kennedy is known for many inspiring speeches within his time as president. He is notable to English language for two reasons. The first is of the numerous events within his presidency (Bay of Pigs Invasion and Cuban Missile Crisis etc.) which resulted in the formation of many English phrases (nuke, doomsday, and patsy). Secondly, his famous speeches brought millions his dreams and aspirations which then added to the vernacular of the people of America. -
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The Information Age occurs
During this period, the internet was created. This resulted in the use of online chat and discussions. This created a series of abbreviations and neologisms due to the lac of words to describe things, such as the internet. -
First ever use of the Emoticons in Computing
On this day in 1982, the Computer Scientist, Scott Fahlman posted on the general message board of the computer science faculty of Carnegie Mellon University. In this post (attached), the outlines the use of the smiley face and sad face in character art for the computer. This was the first time that emoticons had been introduced into computing and from there followed a neverending change of the use of the emoticon in messaging, texting and emails. -
The internet was created
In 1983, on the 1st of January, researchers assembled what would later be called the internet. Along with this came many new terms and many words shifted meaning. A computer 'mouse' did not refer to a mouse capable of computation neither did a computer 'bug'. These words had come to mean very specific terms in computer jargon, the controller of the computer, and a glitch in the computer. -
The World Wide Web was conceptualised and Created
The World Wide Web (WWW) was created in 1989 by a British scientist at CERN, originally to be used as a scientific sharing system. It was quickly marketed to comsumers in following years and resulted in a majority of people having access to this database. Quickly chat forums were formed and language changed. Originally, language was still well structured on the internet and is still on many official documents. However, as many casual conversations were sparked, common phrases were abbreviated. -
First ever text message sent
On this day, a technician send a test SMS from his PC to a friend's phone reading 'Merry Christmas'. This paved the way for many changes in English Language when the populace got their hands on texting. This is because, due to the size restrictions on texts, the user had to make sure the message was conveyed. Therefore, many words and phrases were slowly replaced by abbreviations and shortenings. Some of these include: 'brb' (be right back), 'srsly' (seriously), and 'ttyl' (talk to you later). -
First ever use of an Emoji
The first ever emoji was created and implemented within this year. This revolutionised the way mobile devices could be used to communicate by allowing the user to convey emotion as well as words. The introduction of the emoji and other features also created a variety of new words to discribe what they are. Exampels include "emoji" and "smiley". The word "emoji" itself, was coined by the maker of the first one, who was Japanese, and stands of emotion. -
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The rise and rise of Online Forums and Gaming
Over the last few years, online multiplayer gaming has become a major part of society. Their contribution to English Language is massive, with many of the colloquialisms coming from gaming these days. Examples include: 'gg' (good game), 'gank' (flanking around an enemy), and 'no scope' (to kill an enemy without aiming). Many of these have now crept into everyday english of the youth and are used to signal either anger towards someone, or as a joke between select groups of people.
