The Rise of Standard English and the Royal Chancery
The Rise of London Standard English and the Royal Chancery
The Rise of London Standard English
Out of the varieties of local dialects, a written language emerged toward the end of the 14th century and gained general recognition in the 15th century. The East Midland district contributed the most to the formation of this standard. Several causes contributed to its rise as the dialect of London, the metropolis.
Some characteristics of the East Midlands dialects are:
- OE / OE /eo/ became /o/, a half-close rounded vowel in all dialects which was unrounded in EM: herte dep (V. WM Heorte deop)
- EM shared the rounding of Northern OE sounds.
- The diphthongization of /a/ to /au/, /o/ to /ou/ before /h/; /gh/ was less common in EM than in the S and W (Chaucer: broght, wroght)
- In both EM and WM, the…
In the pre-printing age, many scribes and scriveners appeared, bringing no uniformity and chaotic writing. New forms appeared: let in hortatory use, double comparatives (more gladder, more hardyer, most royaliest, most lordyest), together with the loss of the unetymological final -e. From 1430, the Chancery started to issue documents in English, abandoning Latin and French. London English, at the same time, continued to develop orthographically during the 15th century: /tch/ and /dg/ replaced earlier /cch/ and /gg/ for /t/ and /d/. Later, /v/ was preferred to /u/.
The Royal Chancery
Official languages have always been the prerogatives of ruling hierarchies, from Mandarin Chinese to Sanskrit and Classical Latin. But, until the end of the 15th century, Chancery comprised virtually all of the national bureaucracy of England except for the closely allied Exchequer. Chancery followed the King in his peregrinations about the country, and correspondence up to this time may be dated from York, Winchester or wherever the court happened to pause.
The group that introduced English as an official language of central administration between 1420 and 1460 was formed by the Chancellor, 12 clerks of the second form, Keepers of the Petty Bag and Hanaper and 14 cursitors. In 1362, the clerks for the first time admitted that the Parliament had to be addressed in English. The Chancery written in English had ceased to be a representation of any spoken dialect and it followed basically the language developed in the centers of Wycliffite activity like Lutterworth and Leicester in Central England.
The influence of the Chancery reached Oxford (where Latin was still the official language of learning) and a statute of 1432 indicates that private tutors were provided for students who wanted to pass on to the Inns of Court. However, there was no “London Standard” before the advent of Chancery Standard, and writing continued to be in the dialect of the scribe, and the closer to the City writing got to the central administration, the more it resembled Chancery. Therefore, Chancery is the starting point for the evolution towards Modern English.
Variation and Change in the Pronominal Forms in the Middle English Period
The decay of inflections that brought about the simplification of the noun and the adjective in the Middle English period also meant a decay of pronominal inflections, where the simplification of forms was due in only a slight measure to the weakening of final syllables. The loss was great in demonstratives. Of the numerous forms of sē, sēo, þæt, we have only the and that surviving through Middle English and continuing in use today. A plural tho (those) survived to Elizabethan times. All the other forms indicative of different gender, number, and case disappeared in most dialects early in the Middle English period.
The same may be said of the demonstratives þēs, þēos, þis (this). Everywhere but in the south, the neuter form þis came to be used early in Middle English for all genders and cases of the singular, while the forms of the nominative plural were similarly extended to all cases of the plural, appearing in Modern English as those and these. The forms of the dative and accusative cases were early combined, generally under that of the dative (ʒit, and their oblique cases did not survive beyond the 13th century, and English lost the dual number.
It can be observed that the pronoun she had the form hēo in Old English, and the modern form could have developed from that word, but it is believed that it is due to the influence of the demonstrative sēo. A similar reinforcing influence of the demonstrative is perhaps to be seen in the forms of the third person plural (they, their and them), but here the source of the modern developments was Scandinavian. The normal development of Old English pronouns would have been hi (he), here and hem. However, in the districts, the nominative hi began early to be replaced by the Scandinavian form þei (ON þeir), and somewhat a similar replacement occurred in the other cases, their and them. By the end of the Middle English period, the forms they, their, them may be regarded as the normal English plurals.