Question

william shakespeare is widely credited with adding more than 1,700 new words to the english language in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. yet some scholars question that estimate, suggesting that some of the
ew\ words credited to shakespeare may have already been in use when he incorporated them into his plays. so if shakespeare didnt radically change the english language, then who did? according to some language experts, young women, rather than men, are actually responsible for inventing most new words. two linguists at the university of helsinki in finland analyzed six thousand letters written between 1417 and 1681. they found that female letter writers changed the way they wrote more often than their male counterparts. one reason could be that women often have more social connections than men, and social connections allow people to introduce each other to new uses of words.
what is the main, or central, idea of the passage?
researchers at the university of helsinki studied letters written between 1417 and 1681 to try to discover how new words enter the language.
recent research suggests that the language changes that occurred in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries owed a great deal to female letter writers.
shakespeare is often credited with adding many new words to the english language.

Explanation:

The passage first questions Shakespeare's role in coining 1,700 new English words, then presents research from Finnish linguists showing that female letter writers (1417-1681) changed their writing more often than men, and posits young women as the main creators of new words. The core idea centers on this research linking female writers to the language changes of that era, rather than just focusing on Shakespeare or the study's setup alone.

Answer:

Recent research suggests that the language changes that occurred in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries owed a great deal to female letter writers.