Middle English: the emergence of Standard English

Middle English between 1350 and 1500

1) Political and social overview:

- 13th century – stability and population growth - 1315-17 – The Great Famine --> decrease of population - 1348 and the following years – the first wave of the Plague --> 20 – 50 % population decrease - 1337 – 1453 – the Hundred Years’ War --> loss of almost all continental lands

                                            --> resentment towards all French
                                            --> unjust taxes - Peasant's Revolt (1381)
                                            --> geographical mobility - contact of varieties
                                            --> social mobility

- 1455 – 1485 – the Wars of the Roses --> weakening of feudal power and strengthening of merchant classes - religious matters - Lollardy - movement led by J. Wycliffe demanding changes in the Church --> challanging Latin

2) Languages in then England:

- Latin - language of laws and of the Church

       - with questioning of the habits of the Church came challanging of Latin
       - De heretico comburendo - the ban of translations of the Bible into English
       - familiarization of the mass population with Lollard's Bible represented a threat to the Church

- in scholarly writing present until EModE

- French - decrease during the Hundred Year's War

- became a language of 'culture and fashion rather than an economic or political necessity'

- English - language of rural people and merchants

         - minor documents - wills, municipal proclamations, merchants' documents, guilds rules

- later spoken in courts (written still Latin)

3) New standard

- people from various parts moved to London (centre of government, administration, trade) - London English began to function as a standard

    - koinéization (dialects levelling) - spoken
    - Chancery English - written

- people from North came to London and got to the upper class - reflected in London (later Standard) English

- the Midlands variety best for StE - in the middle, neither radical nor too conservative, Oxbridge

- Chancery English - official documents, letters of the men of affairs

- the wave theory - prestigious varieties moving to neighbouring areas

3) CHARACTERIZE THE EMERGENT STANDARD OF THE ME PERIOD AND HOW IT BECAME ESTABLISHED.

• for three centuries following the Norman Conquest there no single form of English recognised as a norm (of a language differentiated into a great number of regional dialects)
• beginning of the 13th century: people from all over England moving to London and bringing their divergent dialects with them (a medieval melting pot of regional, social and individual varieties)

Changes in socio-historical context

• the decline of French and growing centralization of the conduct of national business --> called for the development of a written standard form of English suitable as an administrative language for communication throughout the kingdom (minimal exceptions, maximum application)

Context of the emergent standard

• language contact
• waning feudal system
• the emerging middle class
• increasing social mobility
• the economic and political opportunity offered by the more and more powerful guilds (social climbing)
• the necessity that people understand the law moved English into the centre of learned attention

East Midlands

• in the 14th century, a major population centre (centre of wool and grain exportation)
• = most populous and prosperous area
• geographically and linguistically well suited for the development of the standard
  • in the middle
  • its language not extreme, a land of compromise
  • universities of Oxford and Cambridge (intellectual leadership)

London

• attracted more and more people
• = centre of government, administration, trade and commerce
• largest city, concentration of power
• London English becomes a “national language” --> takes on the force of a standard

Two central forces driving standardization

1. the spoken language of everyday life – degree of levelling (koineization), variety of Midlands laced with Northern features
2. Chancery English – written, influenced by the language of the Chancery, the government administration (used in official records), a high degree of uniformity

• this new standard was, then, an artificial form of English with two primary sources:

1. the non‐localised literary standard of Central Midland counties
2. the writing of London of the late 14th century: Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, the Chancery ‐ more diversified in spelling and usage

London English

• prominence of Midlanders and Northerners in the London City government
• English becomes the language of court
• widely accepted as a written standard everywhere (x spoken language still considerably varied)

Wave theory

• applicable to the expansion of London English
• language variety adopted by prominent people --> adopted in neighbouring areas
• = spreading like waves around a stone thrown into a pond
• London --> neighbouring areas --> distant areas

4) Name the innovations of the late ME period in the pronominal system, in the system expressing verbal categories and in the word order.

Pronominal system

You singular

• started to by used instead of thou
• due to French influence (upper class and bureaucrats) x sg. vous more consistent
• sg. you used for pagan deities x thou for Christian God
• shift towards you = a sign of respect; sg. you used between equals x who uses though indicates his/her superiority → thou became more of an “insult”, you used more and more as a polite form

One

• emergence in 15th century
• influenced by French on x on appears only as a subject, while earliest forms of one were non-nominal case → French probably not that important
• (gradual loss of indefinite man – similarity to man “man” and the problems of agreement and anaphoric references → more suitable candidates for indefinite references (you, they, we, people)

Relative pronouns

• þat replaced by what (early ME) and by which (late ME)
• that as non-restrictive probably began in ME, but were essential in ModE

Periphrastic structures

• ME was the beginning of widespread phrasal/periphrastic structure
• occurred already in OE, but the auxiliary status was hard to determine
• two words (auxiliary have and also be combined with past participle) took over the function of a single word with and inflectional ending
• affected the progressive, the modal auxiliaries in place of the subjunctive and periphrastic do

Word order

• most prominent change was gradual move from accusative object before verb to accusative object after the verb (by 1500 98% of accusative objects are after verb)

<ref> GRAMLEY STEPHAN. The History of English: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2012. </references>