Many people have contributed to the evolution of the English language in ways that may or may not have been intended but that have had profound effects over time. During the period of Norman rule, there was a proliferation of English dialects that meant that by the fifteenth century people in one part of England could not understand people in another. William Caxton was the first person to print a book in English, and as more and more books increased the possibilities of education, they also helped create a common language rather than such a babble of tongues. Caxton also translated numerous foreign works and at the same time introduced many foreign words into the English language.
William Shakespeare contributed to the language by perpetuating a large vocabulary--and many have cited the large vocabulary of the plays as evidence that the largely uneducated Shakespeare could not have written the works attributed to him--and also in the poetic nature of the dialogue he created. Many aphorisms and enriching, poetic descriptions and terms have been carried through from Shakespeare to common usage and to other literary works. The popularity of Shakespeare's works over many centuries has helped perpetuate the power of this language, and again and again other writers have turned to Shakespeare for inspiration and for some phrase that would then become popular even to many who did not know its origins.
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in an English most people today can barely read at all without extensive annotation, though they can still recognize it as English. At one time, English was sharply challenged by French, and the two coexisted up until the time of Chaucer. The greatness and popularity of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales helped the cause of English. Chaucer's dialogue is spiced with a creative and descriptive use of language, and his poetry has a dramatic structure so that the way characters use language differentiates them. These ...