A History of English Language

A history of the english language 234
offers little difficulty to the modern reader. And the many new words added by the
methods already discussed had given us a vocabulary that has on the whole survived.
Moreover, in the writings of Spenser and Shakespeare, and their contemporaries
generally, we are aware of the existence of a standard literary language free from the
variations of local dialect. Although Sir Walter Raleigh might speak with a broad
Devonshire pronunciation, 57 and for all we know Spenser and Shakespeare may have
carried with them through life traces in their speech of their Lancashire and
Warwickshire ancestry, yet when they wrote they wrote a common English without
dialectal idiosyncrasies. This, as Puttenham (1589) reminds us, was to be the speech of
London and the court. It is not without significance that he adds, “herein we are already
ruled by th’ English Dictionaries and other bookes written by learned men, and therefore
it needeth none other direction in that behalfe.” However subject to the variability
characteristic of a language not yet completely settled, the written language in the latter
part of the sixteenth century is fully entitled to be called Standard English. The
regularization of spellings in this written standard can be seen as early as the midfifteenth
century in the official documents of Chancery. 58
Thirdly, English in the Renaissance, at least as we see it in books, was much more
plastic than now. People felt freer to mold it to their wills. Words had not always
distributed themselves into rigid grammatical categories. Adjectives appear as adverbs or
nouns or verbs, nouns appear as verbs—in fact, any part of speech as almost any other
part. When Shakespeare wrote stranger’d with an oath he was fitting the language to his
thought, rather than forcing his thought into the mold of conventional grammar. This was
in keeping with the spirit of his age. It was in language, as in many other respects, an age
with the characteristics of youth—vigor, a willingness to venture, and a disposition to
attempt the untried. The spirit that animated Hawkins and Drake and Raleigh was not
foreign to the language of their time.
Finally, we note that in spite of all the progress that had been made toward a uniform
standard, a good many features of the language were still unsettled. There still existed a
considerable variety of use—alternative forms in the grammar, experiments with new
words, variations in pronunciation and spelling. A certain latitude was clearly permitted
among speakers of education and social position, and the relation between the literary
language and
57
“Old Sir Thomas Malette, one of the judges of the King’s Bench, knew Sir Walter Ralegh, and
sayd that, notwithstanding his great travells, conversation, learning, etc., yet he spake broade
Devonshire to his dyeing day.” John Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. Andrew Clark (2 vols., Oxford,
1898),I, 354.
58
See John H.Fisher, Malcolm Richardson, and Jane L.Fisher, An Anthology of Chancery English
(Knoxville, TN, 1984), pp. 26–35.