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Aug 30, 1476
The Printing Press
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 -
Period: Aug 30, 1480 to Aug 30, 1490
Lost of English Inflections
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 -
Period: Aug 30, 1485 to
Early Modern English Period
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Period: Aug 30, 1490 to Aug 30, 1500
Standard English
The dialoge from the Est Midlands begings to establish itself as a form of "Standard English" -
Period: Nov 29, 1499 to Nov 29, 1551
The Great vowel Shift
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'. -
Period: Aug 30, 1500 to
Renaissance
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. -
Period: Aug 30, 1500 to
Ifluence from Latin and Greek
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 -
Loand Words
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First English Dictionary
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. -
King James Bible
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, -
Shakespears
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 -
Period: to
New additions of words
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). -
"Thou"
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.
