ENGLISH LANGUAGE 



2926 



ENGLISH LANGUAGE 



this origin. Norman French having 

 been the language of the upper 

 classes for nearly 300 years, and the 

 official vehicle of law and govern- 

 ment, was abolished in courts of 

 law hi favour of English in 1362 ; 

 in 1385 it was no longer used in 

 schools ; by the end of the century 

 it was probably dead as a spoken 

 language. The Scandinavian ele- 

 ment is very large in Middle English 

 in the N. and E. Midland dialects. 

 Modern English 



The chief event in the general 

 history of English since the be- 

 ginning of the 15th century has 

 been the gradual acceptance of a 

 virtually uniform dialect by all 

 writers. This agreement was 

 greatly helped by the introduction 

 of printing in 1476. Caxton, him- 

 self a Kentishman, adopted the 

 London dialect for his translations 

 and prefaces, and a knowledge of 

 this type was rapidly diffused 

 throughout the country through 

 his labours. Even by the middle 

 of the 15th century, provincial or 

 regional dialect was falling into 

 disuse in writing. 



The adoption of a standard of 

 spoken English was a much slower 

 process. George Puttenham, in 

 his Art of English Poesie (1589), 

 says that in the N. noblemen 

 and gentlemen spoke their own 

 dialect ; Aubrey has it from one 

 who knew Sir Walter Raleigh 

 that he spoke broad Devonshire 

 all his life. In the 17th century 

 comedies country gentlemen who 

 come to London for the first time 

 are made to speak a broad rus 

 tic form of English, and as late 

 as the 18th century Fielding 

 makes Squire Western speak pure 

 Somersetshire. It was the language 

 of the court which in Elizabeth's 

 day was recognized as the best 

 form of spoken English, and upon 

 tin's the literary English ot the day, 

 the ancestor of our own, was based. 

 The English of Caxton is virtually 

 the descendant of that of Chaucer. 

 The differences between the two 

 are due chiefly to the growing 

 encroachment of the E. Midland 

 element in London English since 

 Chaucer's time. 



Since the Middle English period 

 English pronunciation has changed 

 considerably, although the con- 

 ventional spelling handed on, with . 

 few modifications of importance, 

 from the early printers who de- 

 rived it from the professional 

 Middle English scribes, reveals next 

 to nothing of this. All the long 

 vowels and all the Middle English 

 diphthongs have altered com- 

 pletely in character. Many changes 

 in the pronunciation of consonants 

 have also taken place, though 

 some of these have since been 



"restored" through the influence 

 of the received spelling. The same 

 factor has influenced to some ex- 

 tent the pronunciation of un- 

 stressed vowels which in the Early 

 Modern period had undergone con- 

 siderable weakening. 



It is a necessary result of the 

 recognition of a standard dia- 

 lect, which in origin was that of the 

 upper classes, that other forms fall 

 into disrepute, and are considered 

 either vulgar or merely provincial 

 and rusticT The latter epithets are 

 now applied to the modern regional 

 dialects, while the former justly 

 applies to certain forms of English, 

 cognate with the best form of 

 spoken English in origin, but 

 differentiated from it in the mouths 

 of the humbler and less refined 

 classes of society. The principal 

 sound changes were probably com- 

 plete, or at least well under way, 

 by the end ot the 16th century, 

 though the final distribution of the 

 various dialect types which com- 

 pose standard English was not yet 

 finally settled. The subsequent 

 history of standard spoken English 

 is very largely the result of the 

 influence exerted upon this by 

 other class dialects, and to some 

 small extent by regional or pro- 

 vincial dialects. 



Modern English Sound Changes 

 The changes made in the 

 English vowel system from the 

 " Continental values " to approxi- 

 mately our present pronunciation 

 are traceable from occasional spell- 

 ings of the scribes, in some cases 

 as early as the early 14th century, 

 very clearly and frequently in the 

 15th century, when private letter 

 writing began to be practised by 

 all sorts of persons, and in the 1 6th 

 and later periods, not only from 

 this source, but also from de- 

 liberate descriptions of English 

 pronunciation. Most of the tvpical 

 modern vowel changes began very 

 early, but acceptance of many of 

 these in court English was con- 

 siderably later than the 15th 

 century, and some appear to have 

 been accepted only m a few words. 

 Many of them were considered 

 vulgarisms at first, and penetrated 

 into the standard language through 

 the influence of lower class London 

 English. Many pronunciations 

 used by the beat speakers during 

 the 17th and 18th centuries would 

 now appear vulgar, rustic, or, at 

 least, antiquated. Among these 

 may be 1 mentioned sarvis, sarvant, 

 sarmon, varttie, Booshop. goold. 



There is ample evidence from the 

 15th century onwards that the pre- 

 sent day natural pronunciation o 

 the vowels in unstressed syllable^ 

 either with the " murmur vowel " 

 (a) as in second syllable of father, 



or with i was already in vogue. In 

 the 18th century words with on 

 were often pronounced as with in, 

 e.g. flaggin, dunjin, durjin for 

 flaggon, dungeon, sturgeon, etc. 

 The ending ure was pronounced 

 like -er far into the 18th century 

 jointer, picter, nater, etc. Such a 

 word as fellow was pronounced 

 fetter (without r), and Pope rhymes 

 it with prunella. The present-day 

 pronunciation of the suffix -es, 

 -est, -eth, etc., as -iz, -1st, is already 

 established as the polite one in the 

 court English of the 15th and 16th 

 centuries by such spellings as 

 horsis, princis, eldist, givith, etc. 



Spelling Pronunciation 

 In the 18th century nus, pus, 

 Usly, thusty are the spellings of a 

 writer on pronunciation to express 

 the proper forms of nurse, purse, 

 Ursula, thirsty. The ending -ing 

 was pronounced as -in as early as 

 the 15th century, and this was 

 probably universal in standard 

 English until the end of the first 

 quarter of the 19th century, when 

 the spelling- pronunciation won the 

 day to some extent. Usage now 

 varies. The loss of the sound of gh 

 in the middle of words before t is 

 shown to have been caused in the 

 15th century by the omission of 

 the symbol in words where it 

 belongs historically, and by such 

 spellings as dought " doubt," ought 

 " out," uright " write." In the 

 16th century even Spenser often 

 writes whight, quight, etc. The 

 sound of w develops initially before 

 o and ho ; won for one is fairly 

 common in the 15th century, and 

 in the 16th occurs in the letters 

 both of Henry VIII and Elizabeth. 

 The spelling whole has been re- 

 tained. Consonants are often lost, 

 finally and in combinations, as ia 

 proved by spellings from the 15th 

 century onwards. 



Similar pronunciations are re- 

 corded in the 18th century. The 

 following 15th and 16th century 

 spellings show losses in combina- 

 tions in the middle of words : 

 Whys-yon we Ice " Whitsun " ; Wens- 

 day, morgage, xepukyr, Woftreet 

 " Wood Street." Queen Elizabeth 

 herself writes " often " offen. Lun- 

 non was a polite 18th century pro- 

 nunciation. Many of these forms 

 survive at the present time, but 

 the consonants are now often re- 

 stored from the spelling. At the 

 beginning of unstressed syllables 

 w was normally dropped already 

 in Middle English. It has been 

 largely restored, however, through 

 the influence of the spelling. While 

 w is still omitted in Norwich, 

 Southwark, etc., it has been re- 

 stored in forward, earlier forrard, 

 Edward, etc. Eddard was the polite 

 18th century pronunciation, and 



