New English Period

Early New English ( from the introduction of printing in 1475 to 1660, the age of Shakespeare) the first printed book was published by William Caxton in 1475. This period is a sort of transition between two outstanding epochs: the age of Chaucer and the age of Shakespeare known as literary Renaissance.

Caxton’s English of the printed books was a sort of bridge between the London literary English of the M.E. period and the language of literary Renaissance.

The London dialect has risen to prominence as a compromise between various types of speech prevailing in the country and formed the basis of the National English language.

In the N.E. period the number of the English speaking people increased still more. The English language spread in North America. Australia, South Africa. This period is characterised by the establishment of the National literary language, the so-called Standard English. The old tribal dialects gradually disappeared, their place being taken by social dialects.

The N.E. vocabulary shows an enormous growth of words reflecting the rapid progress of technology, science and culture. Besides there are further numerous borrowings from the classical languages: Latin and Greek as well as from international fund of the vocabulary.

In grammar the levelling of inflectional forms and breaking down of the synthetical structure is going on, the analytical structure becomes predominant. H. Sweet called this period the period of lost endings.

In phonetics in unstressed syllables the loss of vowels is the most important phonetic change, these being preserved only in the most favourable positions..(horses, wishes, wanted)but (dogs, cats. loved). The loss of the unstressed vowels resulted in the confusion of of many grammatical forms which differed in M.E.

The great Vowel Shift is one of the most important changes of stressed vowels. The shift led to divergence of the English spelling and pronunciation. The Latin graphical system got broken. The shift also resulted in a great number of diphthongs peculiar to Modern English.

The expansion of English proceeded together with the growth of the British Empire in the XIX c. and with the increased weight of the United States. English spread to all inhabited continents. Some geographical varieties of English are now recognized as independent variants of the language.