Modern English

Today's spoken language

Modern English is the form of English spoken from roughly the late 15th century onward, distinguishing it from Old English and Middle English.

The term usually appears in historical or linguistic contexts: Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English.

In casual use, it can simply mean contemporary, current English: Can you translate that into Modern English?

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global language · British accent · semantics · verb forms · word order · language · syntax · present tense · passive voice · split infinitive · globalization · nominalization · inflection · subject-verb agreement · verb conjugation · synth-pop · orthography · etymology

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Opposites
historical period of English language

Modern EnglishOld English

Germanic language of early Britain

Anglo-Saxon · Middle English · Proto-Germanic · Early Modern English · Northumbrian

classical vs. vernacular languages

Modern EnglishLatin

Ancient Roman language

Ancient Greek · Sanskrit · Old Norse

linguistic conservatism vs. innovation

Modern Englisharchaic English

Outdated form of language

classical languages · dead languages · ancient languages · traditional grammar

Family

modern, modernity, modernism, modernist, modernize, modernization, modernized, modernizing, modernistic

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