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Aug 30, 1476
The Printing Press
William Caxton, who was an English merchant brought the printing press to England. The arrival of the printing press is a major step towards a standard writing system. -
Aug 30, 1485
Lost of English Inflections
The pronunciation of certain words in the English language, started to resemble the pronunciation of words during the modern English period. Before this time of change, all consonants were pronounced expect for the W in the word write, and the K in the word knee. -
Nov 29, 1499
The Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift had taken place during this period of time, it represented an enromous development in pronunciation. This had resulted in many words being pronounced more alike to today's pronunciation. 'time' like the modern English pronounced 'team', 'see' pronounced 'say' and 'fame' pronounced 'farm'. -
Aug 30, 1500
Ifluence from Latin and Greek
This was the time of the ‘Great Invention’ in the English language. Writers had struggled to find the most appropriate terms, which described techniques and concepts. Some saw the introduction of new Greek and Latin words as an improvement of the English language. -
First English Dictionary
In this period of time, Robert Cawdrey's ‘A Table Alphabeticall’, which was the a list of meanings of over 2,500 'hard words', was published. This was considered the first English dictionary. -
Shakespeare
Shakespeare was acknowledged by the Oxford English Dictionary for the introduction of approximately 3,000 words into the english language. Shakespeare's vocabulary is between 17,000 and 20,000 words. Shakespeare's work displays two different types of linguistics. -
"Thou"
During this time period, the lexeme 'thou', had started to disappear from the standard usage. -
New Additions of Words
Many news words had been formed and created by 'prefixes',example the word 'uncomfortable'; 'suffixes', example would be the word 'delightfullness'; and by compound words like 'heaven-sent'.
