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William Caxton, an English merchant brought the printing press to England. The arrival of the printing press is a major step towards a standard writing system – and initiates an enormous boom in the production of printed resources in English
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English Pronunciation
English in word oder closely resembled those of today, Modern English. Before this time all the consonants were pronouced.
Ex: The W in Write
or the K in Knee -
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The dialoge from the Est Midlands begings to establish itself as a form of "Standard English"
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The ‘Great Vowel Shift’ takes place during the 15th century, and represents a major development in pronunciation which resulted in many words coming to be pronounced more like they are today. A speaker in Chaucer’s era pronounced 'time' like the modern English 'team', 'see' like 'say', 'fame' like 'farm'.
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This is a time of great invention in the language, as writers struggle to find appropriate terms to describe the groundbreaking techniques and concepts they are pioneering. Not content with raiding Greek and Latin, they are soon ransacking more than 50 languages from across the globe.
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This is a time of great invention in the language, as writers struggle to find appropriate terms to describe the groundbreaking techniques and concepts they are pioneering. Controversy regarding the immense proliferation of terms follows. Some writers see the introduction of ‘new’ Greek and Latin terms as an ‘enrichment’ of the language, while enthusiasts for native English words condemn the newfangled additions as ‘inkhorn terms’.
Ex: Imitate, Curriculum,
Greek: Dram, economy, catastrophe -
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In 1604, Robert Cawdrey's ‘A Table Alphabeticall’, listing the meanings of over 2,500 'hard words', is published. It is the first English dictionary.
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Is tan English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England. That´s why it is a reference of the English from that time.
Many modern day idioms can be found in the King James Bible of 1611: my brother's keeper, a man after his own heart, how the mighty are fallen, the skin of my teeth, out of the mouths of babes, a lamb brought to the slaughter, can a leopard change his spots, cast your pearls before swine, the signs of the times, to kick against the pricks, suffer fools gladly, -
The first folio of Sheakespears playes is published .
Shakespeare introduce about 600 new words into the English language and expressions.
Ex: There is method in his madness
without rhyme or reason -
Many new words are created by the addition of prefixes (uncomfortable, forename, underground); suffixes (delightfulness, laughable, investment); and by cobbling together compounds (heaven-sent, commander-in-chief).
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By the middle of the 17th century, ‘thou’ was disappearing from standard usage, but it was being kept alive in everyday life by members of the emerging Society of Friends, or Quakers. They disapproved of the way singular 'you' had come to be part of social etiquette and continued to use the ‘thou’ forms.
