The Emergence of Standard English

University of Kentucky UKnowledge English Language English Language and Literature 10-19-1995 The Emergence of Standard English John H. Fisher Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Fisher, John H., "The Emergence of Standard English" (1995). English Language. 1. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature/1 THE EMERGENCE OF STANDARD ENGLISH THE EMERGENCE OF ~t STANDARD ENGLISH~- ..., h t\( ~· '1~,- ~· n~· John H. Fisher Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright© 1996 by The University Press of Kentucky The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Fuson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fisher, John H. The emergence of standard English I John H. Fisher. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN Q-8131-1935-9 (cloth : alk. paper).-ISBN 0-8131-0852-7 (paper : alk. paper). 1. English language-Middle English, llQ0-1500-Standardization. 2. Great Britain-History-House of Lancaster, 1399-1461. 3. English language-Middle English, llQ0-150(}-History. 4. Great Britain-Officials and employees-Language. 5. English language-19th century-Standardization. 6. Language policy-Great Britain-History. 7. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400--Language. 8. England. Court of Chancery-History. 9. English language Standardization. I. Tide. PE524.7.F7 1996 427'.02-dc20 95-16425 ISBN 978-0-8131-0852-0 This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. @@ Manufactured in the United States of America. ~j.•j., I~ Member of the Association of ~~ - American University Presses For Jan, Jack, and Judy This page intentionally left blank CoNTENTS Acknowledgments ix I. Introduction 1 II. A Language Policy for Lancastrian England 16 III. Chancery and the Emergence of Standard Written English 36 IV. European Chancelleries and the Rise of Standard Languages 65 V. Animadversions on the Text of Chaucer 84 VI. Chaucer's French: A Metalinguistic Inquiry 99 VII. Piers Plowman and Chancery Tradition 109 VIII. Caxton and Chancery English 121 IX. The History of Received Pronunciation 145 Notes 157 Bibliography 183 Index 198 This page intentionally left blank AcKNOWLEDGMENTS "A Language Policy for Lancastrian England." PMLA 107 (1992): 1168-80. "Chancery English and the Emergence of Standard Written Eng lish." Speculum 52 (1977): 870-89. "Animadversions on the Text of Chaucer." Speculum 63 (1988): 779- 93. "European Chancelleries and the Rise ofStandard Languages." Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association 3 (1986): 1-33. "Chaucer's French: A Metalinguistic Inquiry." Chaucer Yearbook 1 (1992): 33-46. "Piers Plowman and Chancery Tradition." Medieval Studies for George Kane. Ed. E.D. Kennedy. Cambridge, Eng.: Boydell and Brewer, 1988. 267-78. "Caxton and Chancery English." Fifteenth-Century Studies. Ed. R.E Yeager. New Haven, Conn.: Archon, 1984. 161-85. "The History of Received Pronunciation." The Ring of Words: Essays Presented to Henry Kratz. Ed. Ulrich Goebel and David Lee. Lampiter, Wales: Mellen, 1994. 41-62. This page intentionally left blank I INTRODUCTION or more than a quarter of a century I have become increasingly Fconvinced that Standard Modern English did not just "happen" but that it was, and is, the result of formal institutionalization, that is, of deliberate planning and management. This idea is anathema to the Anglo-Saxon temperament, which resists the notion of social engineering, but the institutionalization oflanguage is supported by the experience of other cultures, particularly those of France and Spain. In 1253 Alphonso X of Spain decreed that the usage of the Chancellery of Toledo should be the standard for all official docu ments. In 1257 St. Louis of France indicated that official correspon dence was to be written in the French of the Chancellerie Royale in Paris, and the 1539 ordinance ofVillers-Cotterets legally established chancellery French as the language of law and administration. Linguistic historians, preferring to believe that languages live and die by social evolution, have a hard time allowing for influences such as these. Besides, we have no record of any such formal prom ulgations in England. Professors Baugh and Cable in their History of the English Language have an interesting discussion (259ft) of the seventeenth-century movement in England for the establishment of an academy, like the academies in Italy and France, to control the development of the language. Years of foot-dragging, however, even- 2 THE EMERGENCE OF STANDARD ENGLISH tually left management of the language in the hands of en trepreneurial lexicographers and grammarians, where it still rests today in Great Britain and America. This congenital resistance to official control of the language is reflected in contemporary resistance to making English the legal language of the United States. A recent article by Jack Citrin and others, "The 'Official English' Movement and the Symbolic Politics of Language in the United States," is particularly interesting. It summarizes the "U.S. English" lobby, sponsored by S.l. Hayakawa, for amending the Constitution to make English the official language of the United States. By 1988, forty eight states had considered this proposition and eighteen had passed laws making English the official language. Thirty states rejected the proposition, mostly on the ground that it was unnecessary. Tables in Citrin's article show that the proposition was in direct response to the influx of non-English-speaking immigrants after World War II, that the states enacting laws were those with the smaller numbers of immigrants, and that the movements both for and against English as an official language were largely symbolic, supported by abstract notions of "national identity." In spite of this tradition of resistance, I have grown increasingly convinced that the standardization of English began and continues as more than a casual drift. At the end of chapter four I refer to congressional action toward simplified spelling. A Manual of Style Prepared by the U.S. Government Printing Office states: "By act of Congress the Public Printer is authorized to determine the form and style of Government printing.... Essentially it is a standardization designed to achieve uniform word and type treatment.... It should be remembered that the Manual is primarily a Government Printing Office printer's stylebook. Easy rules of grammar cannot be pre scribed, for it is assumed that editors are versed in correct expression" (xi). Thus, even in the United States today, there are laws that support a standard language. Conventions of grammar and expression are controlled by an establishment of government bureaucrats, men of letters, teachers, and publishers who have inherited from Henry V and the English Chancery of the fifteenth century. It is the regularity of their writing that creates a standard language. My interest has been in the process by which this regularity emerged, a process which I think is more authori tarian than historians of the English language have traditionally allowed. Introduction 3 For many years, I have been a voice crying in the wilderness. Language historians assumed that regularity developed simply as a convenience with the accumulation of literacy, was eventually im posed by the decisions of printers, and was codified by lexicographers and grammarians. But it has always been a matter of looking at the partially full glass: is it half empty or half full? On the one hand, standardization of the written language (I won't even consider the problem of standardization of the spoken) has not yet been achieved or there would be no need for English composition classes, diction aries, rhetorics, and the individual manuals of the Government Print ing Office, the Modern Language Association, the University of Chicago Press, and indeed the individual style sheets of every pub lisher and printer. On the other hand, as one whose professional life has been devoted to the study and teaching of Old and Middle English, I am impressed by the degree of standardization that has been achieved since 1400. Until that time there was no standard English; there were only the Old and Middle English dialects. The reason for this is obvious. During the Middle Ages the official language throughout Europe was Latin. The history of the emer gence of the modern era is coterminous with the history of the emergence of written standards of the European vernaculars. In 1920, in his important

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