The Stories of English

1182 Pages·2005·5.73 MB·English

by  David Crystal

Copyright
First published in the United States in 2004 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
141 Wooster Street New York, NY 10012
www.overlookpress.com
For bulk and special sales, please contact [email protected]
Copyright © 2004 by David Crystal All Rights Reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in
writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief
passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine,
newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-46830-617-0
Contents
Copyright
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Introduction
The standard story
The real story
Chapter 1: The origins of Old English
Interlude 1: The Celtic language puzzle
Chapter 2: The Old English dialects
Interlude 2: The rise and fall of West Saxon
Chapter 3: Early lexical diversity
Interlude 3: Understanding Danes
Chapter 4: Stylistic variation in Old English
Interlude 4: Grammatical transition
Chapter 5: The transition to Middle English
Interlude 5: Two Peterborough Chronicles
Chapter 6: A trilingual nation
Interlude 6: Lay Subsidy dialects
Chapter 7: Lexical invasions
Interlude 7: The first dialect story
Chapter 8: Evolving variation
Interlude 8: Well well
Chapter 9: A dialect age
Interlude 9: Where did the -s ending come from?
Chapter 10: The emerging standard
Interlude 10: Complaining about change
Chapter 11: Printing and its consequences
Interlude 11: The first English dictionary
Chapter 12: Early Modern English preoccupations
Interlude 12: Choosing thou or you
Chapter 13: Linguistic daring
Interlude 13: Avoiding transcriptional anaemia
Chapter 14: Dialect fallout
Interlude 14: A beggarly portrayal
Chapter 15: Stabilizing disorder
Interlude 15: Delusions of simplicity
Chapter 16: Standard rules
Interlude 16: Glottal stops
Chapter 17: New horizons
Interlude 17: Tracking a change: the case of y’all
Chapter 18: Linguistic life goes on
Interlude 18: The grammatical heart of nonstandard English
Chapter 19: And dialect life goes on
Interlude 19: Dialect in Middle Earth
Chapter 20: Times a-changin’
Appendix: The location of the towns and counties of England referred to in this
book
Notes
References
Acknowledgements
Person Index
Subject Index
About The Stories of English
Illustrations
p. 22 The Caistor rune
p. 39 An extract from an Old English manuscript: The Dream of the Rood, in the
Vercelli Book p. 40 Line 56 of The Dream of the Rood in runic lettering on the
Ruthwell Cross p. 91 The opening page of The Wanderer
p. 109 Manuscript of the oldest known rota (‘round’) in English p. 122 Writ
issued by William I in 1067
p. 267 A page from Bullokar’s abridged grammar, illustrating his reformed
orthography p. 282 A page of Cawdrey’s dictionary
p. 336 An extract from a courtroom clerk’s record (1615) p. 384 The entry for
dialect in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) p. 412 Punch cartoon: ‘Poor letter
“H”’
Maps
p. 19 The general direction of the fifth-century Germanic invasions p. 24 Early
domains of Anglo-Saxon power (seventh century) p. 51 Factors influencing Old
English dialects in the eighth and ninth centuries in England p. 142 The
distribution of q-, wh-, and w- spellings in personal names and place-names in
East Midlands Lay Subsidy Rolls p. 201 Major Middle English dialect areas
p. 213 Known locations of words for church in England during the Middle
English period p. 214 Known locations of words for church in northern East
Anglia during the Middle English period p. 230 The city of London c. 1400
p. 245 The distribution of wealth in England and Wales in 1334
p. 432 Some US regional dialect items
p. 448 A family-tree representation of the way English has spread around the
world p. 535 Locations in the British Isles referred to in this book
Introduction
In fact, the book has two introductions, because there are two stories to be told.
On p. 3 there is an outline of the history of English, as often recounted. The
past century has seen dozens of books which have presented the language in
such terms, describing stages in the emergence of what has come to be called
‘Standard English’. A standard is a variety of a language which has acquired
special prestige within a community. It is an important focus of study, and one
which will be routinely encountered as the chronology of the present book
unfolds. But an account of the standard language is only a small part of the
whole story of English. The real story is much, much bigger.
Accordingly, beginning on p. 5, there is an introduction to this real story, which
is what this book is largely about. ‘Real stories’ would be more accurate, for in
the history of something as multifaceted as a language, there are always several
trends taking place simultaneously. A richness of diversity exists everywhere,
and always has, over the language’s 1,500-year history; but the story of Standard
English has hitherto attracted all the attention. The other stories have never been
given their rightful place in English linguistic history, and it is time they were.
Telling several stories simultaneously is not something which suits the linear
expository method of a book, so to convey this message I have had to adopt a
somewhat unorthodox structure. The main sequence of chapters provides a
chronological narrative from Old English to Modern English, focusing on the
interaction between standard and nonstandard; but they are separated by
‘Interludes’ illustrating topics to do with nonstandard English which fall outside
the time framework. Also, within chapters, I have used panels to illustrate the
nature of the nonstandard dimension, thereby emphasizing the dynamic tension
which always exists between nonstandard and standard varieties.
It is a patchwork quilt of a book, as a result; but that is inevitable, given the
constraints faced by any historian of nonstandard language. It is not easy to
obtain data on the various kinds of nonstandard English, or even on what
informal spoken Standard English was really like, in the years before
broadcasting, tape-recorders, camcorders, and the Internet gave voices to daily
personal interaction in all its regional and cultural diversity. Standard English
presents us with no such problem because, as the community’s prestige written
form, it has been the medium of authorial expression over several centuries. The
other varieties do not fare so well.
If the recorded linguistic echoes of the past are predominantly White and
Anglo-Saxon, as they seem to be, how much will we ever learn about the
language of the ethnic minorities which form an important part of British
history? If past echoes are predominantly male, will we ever discover what role
women played in the history of English? And if these echoes are all so closely
tied to the standard dialect, with writers dismissing regional dialects as ‘sadly
battered and mutilated’ or ‘quaint and eccentric’, will we ever discover our real
1
sociolinguistic heritage?
The Stories of English is an exploration of this heritage.
The standard story
The standard history of the English language usually goes something like this.
• In the year 449 Germanic tribes arrived in Britain from the European
mainland, and displaced the native British (Celtic) population, eventually
establishing a single language which was Anglo-Saxon in character.
• Most writings of the period are shown to be preserved in the West Saxon
dialect, the language of King Alfred, spoken in the politically and
culturally dominant region of southern England around Winchester.
Descriptions of the language, known as Anglo-Saxon or Old English,
therefore reflect this dominance.
• Fundamental changes began to affect Old English grammar during the later
Anglo-Saxon period, and these, along with changes in pronunciation,
innovative spelling conventions, and a huge influx of new words after the
Norman Conquest, led to the language evolving a fresh character, known
as Middle English.
• During the Middle English period, the literary language began to evolve,
culminating in the compositions of Chaucer, and we see the first signs of a
Standard English emerging in the work of the Chancery scribes in London.
• The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1476 brought an enormous
expansion in the written resources of the language, and was the major
influence on the development of a standardized writing system. Spelling
began to stabilize, and thus became less of a guide to pronunciation, which
continued to change.
• Further changes in pronunciation and grammar, and another enormous
increase in vocabulary stimulated by the Renaissance, led to the emergence
of an Early Modern English. Its character was much influenced by
Elizabethan literature, notably by Shakespeare, and by the texts of many
Bibles, especially those of Tyndale (1525) and King James (1611).
• The unprecedented increase in the language’s range and creativity brought
a reaction, in the form of a climate of concern about the unwelcome pace
and character of language change. This led to the writing of the first
English dictionaries, grammars, and manuals of pronunciation, in an
attempt to bring the language under some measure of control.
• As a result, there emerged a sharpened sense of correctness in relation to a
standard form of English, and this came to be encountered worldwide, as
speakers of educated British English gained global influence throughout
the British Empire. At the same time, the question of standards became
more complex, with the arrival of American English as an alternative
global presence.
• By the end of the eighteenth century, the standard language had become so
close to that of the present-day, at least in grammar, pronunciation, and
spelling, that it is safely described as Modern English. But there continued
to be massive increases in vocabulary, chiefly as a consequence of the
industrial and scientific revolutions, and of the ongoing globalization of the
language – a process which would continue throughout the twentieth
century and into the twenty-first.
2
Just one story is being told here. It is predominantly the story of what happened
to English in England, and moreover to just one kind of English in England – the
kind of English which we associate with the written language, with literary
expression, and with speaking and writing in a formal, educated way. It is a
story, in short, of the rise of Standard English – and, as we shall see, not even all
of that. Yet it takes only a moment’s reflection to deduce that this cannot be the
whole story. The book needs a better introduction.