A History of English Language

A history of the english language 182
northern texts, to determine with any precision the region in which a given work was
written. And in correspondence and local records there is a widespread tendency to
conform in matters of language to the London standard. This influence emanating from
London can be seen in the variety of English used in documents of the national
bureaucracy as written by the clerks of Chancery. By the middle of the century a fairly
consistent variety of written English in both spelling and grammar had developed, and as
the language of official use it was likely to have influence in similar situations
elsewhere. 47 With the introduction of printing in 1476 a new influence of great
importance in the dissemination of London English came into play. From the beginning
London has been the center of book publishing in England. Caxton, the first English
printer, used the current speech of London in his numerous translations, and the books
that issued from his press and from the presses of his successors gave a currency to
London English that assured more than anything else its rapid adoption. In the sixteenth
century the use of London English had become a matter of precept as well as practice.
The author of The Arte of English Poesie (attributed to Puttenham) advises the poet: “ye
shall therefore take the usuall speach of the Court, and that of London and the shires
lying about London within 1x. myles, and not much above.”
151. Complete Uniformity Still Unattained.
It would be a mistake to think that complete uniformity was attained within the space of a
few generations. Even in matters of vocabulary dialectal differences have persisted in
cultivated speech down to the present day, and they were no less noticeable in the period
during which London English was gaining general acceptance. Then, too, there were
many French and Latin words, such as the aureate stylists were indulging in, that had not
been assimilated. It was not easy for a writer at the end of the fifteenth century to choose
his words so that his language would find favor with all people. How difftcult it was may
be seen from the remarks that Caxton prefixed to his Eneydos, a paraphrase of Virgil’s
Aeneid that he translated from French and published in 1490:
After dyverse werkes made, translated, and achieved, havyng noo werke
in hande, I, sittyng in my studye where as laye many dyverse paunflettis
and bookys, happened that to my hande came a lytyl booke in frenshe,
whiche late was translated oute of latyn by some noble clerke of fraunce,
whiche booke is named Eneydos…. And whan I had advysed me in this
sayd boke, I delybered and concluded to translate it into englysshe, and
forthwyth toke a penne & ynke, and wrote a
47
See John H.Fisher, The Emergence of Standard English (Lexington, KY, 1996).