The English language hasn't changed that much since the 1500s, at least, not all of it. But a physicist crunching through 5.2 million books published over five centuries have analyzed the way it has changed over the times and its shocking.

One of the unsurprising thing about the language is that the word "the" hasn't had any change, perhaps simply it wasn't needed at all. But dig around into short phrases and things become interesting.

In 1520, the most popular three word phrase was "of the Pope". Today we don't hear much of that, simply because it's been replaced by a more useful "one of the".

Favorites from 1520s remain religious, including "the Pope and his followers", "the laws of the Church", and "the body and blood of Christ". Modern day diction looks to a duller description with the likes of "at the end of the", "in the middle of the", and "on the other side of".

So in 500 years of the evolution of the language, we've become less religious, but also, rather a tad bit boring. According to Matjaž Perc, the physicist behind the research the English language has come to a plateau in the last two centuries.

[Royal Society Interface via New Scientist]