Generally, three main periods are recognized in the history of the English language. From 450 to 1150 it is known as Old English, from 1150 to 1500 it is known as Middle English and from 1500 onwards it is called Modern English. The process of linguistic change that operated in a big way during the Middle English period is a progressive decay of inflections.
The Old English period in the history of the English language is, therefore, often described as the period of full inflections, the Middle English period as the period of leveled inflections and the Modern English period as the period of lost inflections.
The Modern English period, as defined according to this division, is too long a stretch of time to be considered fruitfully as a single period and so in this book it has been further split into four periods: the Renaissance period (from 1500 to 1650), the Augustan period (from 1650 to 1800), Nineteenth Century English, and Twentieth Century English.
Image Source: hull.ac.uk
ADVERTISEMENTS:
It should be mentioned here, however, that like all other divisions of history into periods, this division of the history of the English language into certain periods is only a matter of procedural convenience. Most of the changes that take place in a language are of a slow and continuous nature, spreading over long stretches of time.
History, particularly the history of a language, is a continuous interplay of two opposite tendencies: the urge to innovate and the urge to conserve. At times one of the two tendencies asserts itself much more forcefully than the other but both the tendencies are basic, instinctual and always in operation.
It would be naive, therefore, to conceptualize these periods as neat blocks of time with sharply defined edges, with a definite month or year to mark the beginning of any one of the periods and with another definite month or year to mark its end.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Every period shades off into the next, gradually and imperceptibly, like a leaf coming out of a tree. The dates mentioned here are, therefore, not sharp lines of division; they are only convenient cut-off points of an arbitrary nature introduced to facilitate our study of the subject-matter.