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History of the English language (The invention of the printing press and…
History of the English language
The invention of the printing press and standardization
The printing press was introduced to England in 1476, by William Caxton. But was invented by Johann Guternberg in Germany (1440)
Up to 20,000 books were printed in the next 150 years.
As mass-produced books became cheaper and more commonly available, literacy mushroomed, and soon works in English became even more popular than books in Latin.
At the time of the introduction of printing, there were five major dialect divisions within England - Northern, West Midlands, East Midlands (a region which extended down to include London), Southern and Kentish
and even within these demarcations, there was a huge variety of different spellings. For example, the word church could be spelled in 30 different ways, peoplein 22, receive in 45, she in 60 and though in an almost unbelievable 500 variations.
Some of the decisions made by the early publishers had long-lasting repercussions for the language. One such example is the use of the northern English they, their and them in preference to the London equivalents hi, hir and hem
Standardization was well under way by around 1650, but it was a slow and halting process and names in particular were often rendered in a variety of ways. For example, more than 80 different spellings of Shakespeare’s name have been recorded, and he himself spelled it differently in each of his six known signatures, including two different versions in his own will
The bible
John Wycliffe, made the first English translation of the bible 1384. in 1586 William Tyndale printed his own version of the bible (new testament) much clearer and more poetic than the previous. also simpler
After that he was executed and loads of bibles were produced so king James brought out a bible to standardize the rest, based off of the Tyndale one.
the golden ages of English literatrue
International trade
the Great Vowel shift
a radical change of pronunciation between 15th and 17th
a long vowel sound began to be
this may have occurred due to the large intake of loanwords from renaissance languages of Europe. borrowing from French and Latin too.
oddities in English pronunciation and now obscure relationships between English words and their foreign counterparts became apparent
spellings changed to reflect the sound of the words e.g. stone from stan rope from rap
vowel shift occurred earlier in the south
the English Renaissance
the dictionaries and Grammar
William Shakespeare