9 - English in the scientific age

Summary

By about 1700, the main changes in pronunciation that made up the Great Vowel Shift were all completed. Third-person forms like loveth had disappeared from ordinary educated speech. The pronouns thou and thee and the corresponding verb-forms like lovest had disappeared from standard usage. Auxiliary do had come to be used as we use it today. And, all in all, the language differed only slightly from present-day English. This can be seen if we look at a piece of writing from the early eighteenth century. The following is an extract from one of the numbers of The Spectator for the year 1711. It was written by Joseph Addison, who was fond of ridiculing the Italian opera, which was then in vogue in London:

The next Step to our Refinement, was the introducing of Italian Actors into our Opera; who sung their Parts in their own Language, at the same Time that our Countrymen perform'd theirs in our native Tongue. The King or Hero of the Play generally spoke in Italian, and his Slaves answer'd him in English: the Lover frequently made his Court, and gain'd the Heart of his Princess in a Language which she did not understand. One would have thought it very difficult to have carry'd on Dialogues after this Manner, without an Interpreter between the Persons that convers'd together; but this was the State of the English Stage for about three Years.