Empires of the Word - Nicholas Ostler [260]
This maner was moche used to fore the Grete Deth [i.e. the Black Death]. But syth it is somdele chaunged. For Sir John Cornouayl, a master of gramer, chayngede the lore in gramer scole and construction of Frenssh in to Englysshe. And other scoolmasters use the same way… and leve all Frenssh in scoles and use al construction in Englissh. Wherin they have avauntage one way, that is they lerne the sonner theyr gramer, and in another disavauntage, for now they lerne no Frenssh ne can none, which is hurte for them that shal pass the see, and also gentilmen have moche left to teche theyr children to speke Frenssh.9
By the late fourteenth century, then, French had been dropped as a medium of education in England as a needless barrier to vernacular understanding; there was no more presumption that any children would grow up with French. It was now a language that was only of use in overseas travel, if at all; but there was still a feeling that a proper gentleman should make sure that his sons had a decent grounding in it.*
In the century after the Black Death, even royalty stopped using French. Richard II, with his deft handling of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, showed that he was quite able to appeal to a common crowd in English. After deposing him, Henry IV made his coronation speech of 1399 in English—the first of its kind, as were his son Henry V’s dispatches from the Agincourt campaign of 1415.* So ultimately, the Normans lost their French too, just as four hundred years earlier they had lost their Norse. The language vanished like a last ghostly reminder of their former identity, for by the fifteenth century there were no more Normans anywhere.
Stabilising the language
Also Englischmen, peyz hy hadde from pe bygynnyng pre maner speche, Souperon, Norperon, and Myddel speche (in pe myddel of pe lond), as hy com of pre people of Germania, nopeles, by commyxstion and mellyng furst wip Danes and afterward wip Normans, in menye pe contray longage ys apeyred, som usep strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harry ng and garryng grisbittyng.
Also englysshmen though they had fro the begynnyng thre maner speches Southern northern and myddel speche in the middel of the londe as they come of thre maner of people of Germania. Netheless by commyxtion and medlyng first with dans and afterward with normans In many thynges the countreye langage is appayred // for somme use straunge wlaffyng // chyteryng harryng garryng and grisbytyng.†
John de Trevisa, Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, i, 59 Original text, Cornwall, 1385; William Caxton’s transcription, London, 1482
This book has deliberately avoided much talk of distinct dialects. No language is totally homogeneous, and all widespread languages have their regional variants. But by their nature dialects have a much vaguer identity than full languages: they do not define the boundaries of language communities as wholes, but rather regional identities within them. Lacking a clear group identity, they tend to overlap, even to merge at the edges; and linguists often find it easier to speak of distinct features, such as an unrounded pronunciation of u, a verb plural ending in -en, a tendency to delay verbs to the end of the clause, or a particular choice of words, such as eyren instead of eggs, and map these across the whole language area, than to try to characterise each regional variant as a discrete whole sub-language with its own separate phonology, grammar and vocabulary. It is far easier to count languages than to count the dialects within a language.
The preferred ‘standard’ form of a language is, from a formal point of view, just one of the dialects, a preferred selection of features from among all the alternatives that are in use somewhere in the language community’s territories. Nevertheless, it is not always easy