This is the 3rd in a series of articles on the history of the English Language.

The first article can be found by clicking on here.

The second by clicking on here.

The history of the English language part 3

In our previous article we discussed the development of the English language from from ‘old English’ (essentially a different language and far more Nordic in structure and vocabulary than current English) to what has been called ‘Middle English’.

The Middle English is often seen as spanning roughly from 1066 to 1500, with 1066 being the year of the Norman conquest which fundamentally and permanently changed the nature of the English state till this day with the formation of a much more centralised state which exerted far stronger control of the  country including implementing the first known census i.e. the Domesday book. There was a massive infusion of French vocabulary in to English particularly in words related to a more formal context as the Norman French were the ruling elite and French and Latin were in the beginning the languages of law, governance and religion in the early Norman period.

Middle English is fundamentally different to old English in that it becomes a far more simplified language with the huge decrease in inflections and conjugational complexity. This could be argued to be the greatest difference between old and Middle English. The reason? No one is quite sure, but many tend to think that in the interaction between the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse settlers in the north of England due to the two having different inflectional endings and that possibly leading to difficulties in communication at times the inflectional endings were dropped. If you are interested in that topic you can read the article.

Modern English.

Modern English can be divided in to two periods, early modern English and and ‘modern English’.

Early Modern English is dated to around 1500 to 1700 approximately and ‘modern English’ (interestingly not generally termed as ‘later Modern English’ to distinguish it from ‘early Modern English) from 1700 onwards to the current era, but with 1755 being a key date in its emergence as that was the date the first real comprehensive dictionary of the English language by Samuel Johnson.

Early Modern English is clearly recognisable and able to be generally understood, if not at all times in their entirety at least the majority of words and sentences, by modern English speakers including the works of William Shakespeare, whose works alongside the King James Bible are undeniably the most famous and celebrated works of that era, read as they are even till this day by school children studying exams across the globe and by adults.

Homogenization  and standardization of the English language.

What this particular era represents is a general homogenization and standardization of the English language (a process still ongoing to this day for instance phonologically some in the UK comment on how young people in Scotland or the north are changing their accents or specific phonemes slightly due to the influence of regular watching of London-based TV programs or soap operas!). This is only natural and must be seen in parallel with wider social trends. The English language was changing from the language being spoken by disparate rural communities living in small hamlets, homesteads of even ‘villages’ (which by the standards of old England were something as they would be bigger than the many hamlets that many of the old English/ Anglo-Saxons lived in!) isolated from each other with very little travel amongst the peasantry to that of a language being spoken in bigger towns and even cities e.g. London and with much more extensive travel and interaction.

If James VI of Scotland moved from Edinburgh down to London to become the king of England and James I, and if William Shakespeare also moved to London from the West Midlands then this Scot and this Midlander would have to be able to speak with other residents of London including its many immigrants in a language understood by all. There is a natural process that accompanies industrialisation and urbanisation around the world which involves the loss of languages and dialects spoken exclusively in only small settlements to be replaced by languages and dialects spoken in larger towns including migrants to urban centres speaking in a more understood ‘standard’ form of the language or just more widely spoken dialect. This process will only set to continue as there is more and more urbanization and more and more communication in this digital age. Thus for those who seek to preserve numerous small dialects or languages they are facing in an uphill struggle against a very fundamental social trend.

Printing.

One thing that in this day and age of the Ipad and the smartphone may seem very primitive but at its time was a great leap in technology was the invention of printing which enabled the more prolific production of books and its consumption by readers.

English spoken in a live interaction could be adjusted to make a listener from another region understand more. A Scotsman who went to London (e.g. James I) could modify particular words or sounds in order to enable Londoners to understand him or vice versa. If not understood clarification could be sought, for the conversation is a live one, a living phenomenon between two alive dynamic entities, two human beings who can respond there and then according to the situation. But words written on paper have no such dynamism and cannot change their tone or pronunciation and must be clear for all to understand and this of course naturally lead to a process of homogenising the language and replacing the various regional dialects of English that existed.

Pynson, the Chancery Standard, and the ‘Great Bible’

But who defines what is right or wrong linguistically? Who makes the rules? Well naturally quite often the rule maker in language is the rule maker in wider life itself and one printer of that time Richard Pynson used the ‘Chancery standard’ (the form of English used by government officials at that time) in his printing which spread its usage. Thus the  and “hem” of Chaucer’s English was replaced by the ‘them’ of the Chancery standard, as was the case with Chaucer’s “hir” being replaced by the Chancery standard “their”. Pynson himself became printer for the government so naturally what he printed would be in conformity with what the government desired and would have a status of if not offically a legally-recognised standard at least unofficially in real terms.

The Tyndale ‘Great Bible/ was also printed later on  in 1525 during the reign of Henry VIII, . Its usage throughout the kingom (England) at the time exposed many common folk to a particular form of English which naturally had respect as the language in which a holy book was written and read in. This also contributed to the standardisation of English.

The King James Bible and Shakespeare.

The King James Bible (KJB) also contributed to the standardisation of the English language and the most important text of that time being written in a form of English understandable by the ordinary population and not just restricted to the few who could speak Latin, a linguistically democratic move with the KJB having a great and lasting influence on the English language.

No brief survey of the history of the English language and of early modern English is complete without reference to the greatest English writer of all time, William Shakespeare and his huge influence on the language.

Vocabulary

Shakespeare was not just creative as a playwright in skilfully employing the already existent words in the English language to create the desired effect he wished to have on his audience psychologically and emotionally, but also creative in the sense that he introduced and innovated new terms and words in to the English language, words such as:

bedroom, champion, amazement, generous, undress, and many others!

To understand this on a deeper level we must understand history.

England was unlike now, traditionally at the periphery of Europe a cultural being on the periphery which reflected its relative geographical peripheral nature in the north west of England separated by the sea. The civilizational and cultural core of Europe had been the Greco-Roman world for centuries in the southern Mediterranean then slowly, slowly it shifted more north-western to the centre of western Europe around France, Germany and Italy with events such as Charlemagne’s Franco-German empire, the renaissance in Italy. Latin at a certain point in that time was the dominant cultural language of Europe, later French acquired a great level of admiration and respect as being a language of those who were culturally sophisticated. Englishmen wanted to learn Latin and French, few wanted to learn English, a somewhat secondary little known language in a relatively isolated island.  Shakespeare’s ability to absorb and innovate can be said to be representative of a wider English and British ability to respect the strengths of other cultures, identify them and then use and innovate with them, an open-mindedness and ability to innovate shown by Shakespeare was later seen a few centuries later in the industrial revolution when the British (English and Scots) rapidly emerged as the world’s leading industrial and technological power due to their innovative abilities.

Shakespeare’s respect amongst subsequent generations was linguistically a ‘conservative’ influence in that later generations of writers or people did not try to develop the language in a way which would have rendered Shakespeare difficult to read in the way that Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ were difficult to read for Shakespeare’s generation.

Could Shakespeare be called a one man linguistic revolution? Well if not that could he be called a one man lexical revolution due to the sheer amount of vocabulary he introduced in to the language? Regardless of what terms and phrases which we wish to designate for him, his legacy on the English language is immense.

To hear what Shakespeare’s accent may have sounded like you can watch this video.

Also in this page you can find another rendering of what Shakespearean English may have sounded like, and it is quite different.

Robert Robinson rendition of Shakespearean pronunication, click link.

Samuel Johnson.

Johnson was the writer of the first major dictionary of the English language. Despite the centuries of gradual standardising of the English language that had been taking place continuously prior to Johnson’s renowned work, “A Dictionary of the English Language”, the language was felt to still suffer from confusion, lots of divergences in short a lack of standardisation and regularity. Johnson himself referred to that in his work and the “confusion to be regulated“.

Though not the first dictionary in English it’s the first which used so many citations and thus set a template for future dictionaries in the future.

The English of the era of Johnson is very easy to understand to English-speakers now. Phrases by Johnson include:

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Though British English and American English are the same with some very minute differences, though the main difference is the phonology it is both the influence of the British Empires and the later era of American global dominance and Anglo-American soft power which has helped to spread the use of English across the planet with it now being the undisputed premier language in the world. A language being learnt by millions in diverse countries with students studying sometimes late in to the night trying to memorise vocabulary for their IELTS or TOEFL exams (exams to test competency in English and often for university admission).

There has never been a language comparable to English in the dominance that it enjoys. Will there ever be a language such as English? It is arguable because even if American global influence goes the way of the old British Empire the language will still continue, all the countless works in many diverse subjects, areas will still exist. The thousands of films and TV programs, the songs will all still be.

Thank you for reading.

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