A sudden change in pronunciation started. It was called, The Great Vowel Shift. This meant that vowels were being pronounced shorter overtime. This is partly because Britain in the 16th century had met with many peoples from around the world. Another reason is because of the Renaissance of Classical learning which was new words and phrases that entered the English language. Because of the invention of printing, there was now a common language in print. Books cost less than before and more people learned to read. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and London's dialect became standard because that was where most of the publishing houses were. Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, the first single-language English dictionary, was produced in 1604.