Middle English Dialects Caxton & Printing

Middle English

• Dialects

• Caxton & Printing

• Emergence of a Standard

Middle English Dialects

Studying Middle English Dialects

• Linguistic Atlas of Late Middle English (1350-1450)

• • late time period means lots of texts

• • according to the atlas, almost any Middle English written before 1430 considered “dialectal” by definition

• Some regions have more written documents than others

• Northern/North Midland English: very few sources before 1350

• Southern England: lots of material from 14th century on

Dot Maps

• Dot maps show where in an area (county, region, etc.) a certain spelling/pronunciation is used

• Each dot map displays the distribution of the set of forms specified in the map’s caption

• Places where each form has been found represented by black dots

• 3 dot sizes: large, medium, small (reflecting how dominant the particular form is in the given place)

• Lots of statistical variation

ME Dialects: The Basics (heavily generalized!)

• Northern

• Much Norse settlement, reconquest by English in early 10th century - all-Norse settlements learned English quickly, badly

• Rapid development, decay of inflections

• Þey, þem, þeir (with y for þ, and spelling variants)

• Bot fals anticristes he sall yaim call

• (cf. Southern hy, hem, her)

• Verbs in -es, not -eþ (sing.), -en (plur.)

• He loves, þey loven

• Present participle in -ande, -ende

• (goande, not going)

• Brut (historical poem)

ME Dialects: The Basics (cont’d)

• East and West Midlands

• -en in plural verbs

• They loven

• Þey, hem, here in 3rd pers. plural

• He shal hem calle

• Þei lyuen in falce trouþe

• West Midland

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Piers Plowman

• East Midland

• Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower

ME Dialects: The Basics (cont’d)

• Southern

• Persistence of ʒ

• He schal saye thanne ryʒt to cristene man

• Heo/ho for she

• Hy, hem, here in 3rd person plur.

• Voicing of fricatives

• For > vor

• Seggen pronounced /zɛǰən/

• -eþ in most verbs (sg./plur.)

• The Owl and the Nightingale (allegorical poem)

• Ancrene Riwle (rule for anchoresses)

ME Dialects: The Basics (cont’d)

• Kentish (Southeastern)

• Similar to Southern, with some vowel differences

• Hy,hem, here in 3rd person plur.

• Voiced fricatives (vor)

• No major literary texts

Rise of London Standard (14th-15th centuries)

• written standard, spoken variation, but not complete variation (like today)

• But in the real world, variation in both written and spoken language

• East Midland dialect gradually merged with London

Reasons for Rise of London Standard

• (i) Midland dialects: middle position between North and South

• Southern dialect very conservative (slow to change), Northern very radical (quick to change) – Midlands in between - workable compromise

• (ii)East Midlands: largest, most populous area – fertile, prosperous agricultural area - larger, wealthier population - politically important throughout the Middle Ages and afterwards

• (iii)Influence of Oxford and Cambridge (14th century): role of monasteries decreasing, two universities rapidly developing – Cambridge, at least, would support East Midlands dialect

Reasons for Rise of London Standard (cont’d)

• role of Chaucer - popular in his day, popular throughout 15th century

• • but, slightly more conservative/ Southern than London dialect

Reasons for Rise of London Standard (cont’d)

• (v) role of London as capital city

• • political and commercial center of England

• • seat of royal court, law courts, social and intellectual activity

• • true in other languages: Parisian French, Castilian Spanish (Madrid)

• • much movement of people into and out of the city: government officials go out on business, others go to London on business

• • local speeches mixed together to form a new combination – visitors take away the influence of London speech - standard spreads

• • began as a Southern dialect, ended up more or less East Midlands

Reasons for Rise of London Standard (cont’d)

• (vi) Chancery (government writing office)

• • by c. 1450, had developed a consistent variety of London English

• • language of official use, influenced other writing

Reasons for Rise of London Standard (cont’d)

• (vii) Caxton & Printing

• • first printer in English

• • “I was born & lerned myn Englissh in Kente in the Weeld, where I doubte not is spoken as brode and rude Englissh as is in ony place of Englond.”

Caxton/Printing (cont’d)

• Merchant/diplomat

• learned printing on the Continent

• introduced the press into England c. 1476, near Westminster Abbey

• printed Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Malory, translated bestsellers from France and Burgundy

Caxton’s Spellings

• not easy for a writer and printer in 15th century to choose a version of English that would be acceptable to all readers

• Caxton describes difficulties when he printed English for the first time - he found he had used ‘strange terms’

• (see printed handout)

• for commercial reasons, he used the spelling of the London/East Midlands dialect

Caxton and Standardization

• For commercial reasons, Caxton and other printers settled for London English - privileging a dialect

• Used some foreign typesetters - confused by English spelling (silent -e or not? Often line length) - see handout

• Dutch influence: ghost, ghesse (guess)

• Caxton modernized orthography: eliminated ʒ, þ, ð

• Eventually, printing helped to fix the language on the page - sometimes forced a consensus, accounting for some oddities of English spelling:

• right, riht, rite, richt

Effects of Print

• printing made books available at a relatively low price - increased demand for books and literacy, especially among middle and lower classes

• In general, the middle classes didn’t have a classical education - wanted books in English rather than Latin or French

• To make Greek and Latin classics available to people who only knew English, they were translated into English

• translations led to the introduction of thousands of loanwords from Latin and Greek into English

Effects of Translation

• 15th c. - lots of translations, “half-chewed Latin”

• Hale sterne superne! Hale, in eterne stars on high

• In God’s sight to schyne!

• Lucerne in derne, for to discerne lamp

• Be glory and grace devyne;

• Hodiern, modern, sempitern. Present,current,eternal

• William Dunbar (ca. 1460- 1520), Hymn to the Blessed Virgin

Rise of London Standard

• Printed books made London English current and durable

• By 16th c. (EMnE), London English was prescribed:

• Ye shall therefore take the usuall speach of the Court, and that of London and the shires lying about London with lx. myles, and not much above.

• Anon. (attributed to Puttenham) The Arte of English Poesie (1589)
• Complete uniformity never attained, even in vocabulary (let alone accent) - dialects even today