Lecture XI. The making of the national language

1. The historical background.

2. London dialect.

3. Chaucer and hie part in the making of English, Wyclif and Gower.

1. The 14 century was a time of great political, religious and literary activity as well as an age of great unrest. Peasants were giving trouble to their masters. The Black Death, the plague, had greatly reduced the number of farm-hands throughout the country. In England there were the uprisings of Wat Tyler, John Straw, a revolt against unjust taxation and oppressi­ve landlords. The revolt against the Pope which resulted in the Reformation began in the 14 century with Wyclif in England and with John Huss in Bohemia. The Revival of Learning also falls in this ce­ntury. The interest in education was widespread. A whole chain of uni­versities, from Cracow to Saint Andrews, were established bet­ween 1340 and 1410. King Edward expressed his claims to the crown of France, Richard II led the war in Ireland, John of Gaunt made an attempt to seize the kingdom of Castille. Towns grew more and more important, merchants and craftsmen constituting powerful social strata. The development of trade and manufacturing, of new social relations meant the decay of feudalism, the end of scattered economy, and demanded extensive con­solidation of the country. The situation, when Englishmen of the North and of the South spoke different dialects and could hardly understand each other, was no longer possible.

2. What was needed was a dialect that was widely intelli­gible and that was already the language of certain powerful ele­ments in the state. The East Midland seemed to meet the require­ments. It was the dialect of London, of the court. With the rise of London as a political centre of absolute monarchy it was qui­te natural that London dialect should take the place of French. London dialect became basis of the evolving national language. A very important fact was that London stood at the junction of three dialects: East Midland, South West and Kent. Till 14 c. the dialects had existed each in its own territory and had been used for communication of English-speaking people each within its limits, French being a superstructure throughout the count­ry. There was a certain interpenetration of dialects though it did not bring about merging of phonemic and morphological forms, it concerned only words. By 14 c. French was ousted everywhere and its function to be a universal means of communication pas­sed to London dialect. Up to the middle of the 13 century Lon­don dialect contained more South Western features; then East Middland began to prevail so it may be considered the basis of London dialect. The first stage in the making of the national language was concentration and coexistence of different dialectal features. Thus, present indicative plural ending –‘eth’ characteristic of the South was replaced by Midland ‘en’ which became national. Northern – ‘es’ in the 3-d person present singular substituted for Midland – ‘eth’, Northern ‘g’ substituted for ‘y’ in ‘give’ and ‘get’. The paradigm of ‘to be’ shows different dialectal features, e.g. present indicative plural of Northern arn – became national. (Midland bēn, Southern bēth). Very illustrative are the words ‘busy’ and ‘bury’:

busy – spelling South Western, pronunciation East Midland.

bury – spelling South Western, pronunciation of Kent.

Despite all this dialectal variations features of East Midland – London dialect were prevailing.

3. It was the dialect in which Chaucer wrote. Some English linguists give undue prominence to Chaucer. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) belonged to the well-to-do burgher class, and his family stood in some kind of relation to the court. He was well acquainted with all varieties of English life. In his youth he became page to the Countess of Ulster. He was a collector of the Customs, a Superintendent of Buildings and an officer in charge of the Thames conservation. He was also a member of Parliament for a short time. He visited France and Italy several times and thus came into close relations with foreign life and literature as well as with diplomacy. As courtier, office - holder, legislator, soldier, diplomatist, burgher of London, he came into contact with every sort of people. He had a broad and intimate knowledge of the social life of his age. Chaucer found his native East Midland dialect already a cultivated language. There had been much narrative poetry written in his dialect. It was the English of commerce, of the court, and of the universities. Before he had written a line, the East Midland dialect seemed likely to become standard or literary English, and it doubtless would have achieved that position even if Chaucer had never been born.

Chaucer was not the father of the language. He was a literary man, a poet of genius, whose native dialect was that which stood ready to be stamped as literary English. He used the language he was born to and lived in. Chaucer did not actually import many new words into English.

Almost every word that he used can be found somewhere at any earlier date. What he did for the Midland dialect was to write it with an ease, a polish, a regularity which had not been hitherto attained, and to use it as the vehicle for his first – rate poetry. This stamped the language of Chaucer at once as the literary standard. The excellence of his English is celebrated by his contemporaries and successors.

But no less than Chaucer’s part was the part played by John Wyclif (1320-1384), leader of English Reformation that anticipated the reformation of 16 c. He made the translation of the Bible which became a necessary book in every home where somebody could read throughout the country.

Having lived in Oxford for many years John Wyclif spoke and wrote the same language as Chaucer did, though he used no Kentish and hardly any South Western features. His part in fixation of linguistic forms is unrivalled because the Bible was kept and read in every nook whare Chaucer’s poems might never have any access.

By Chaucer’s side stood Gower (1325-1408) who wrote in the same dialect. Gower, though no genius, was a skilful versifier and the master of an extremely neat style. His language coincided with Chaucer’s in almost any particular.

Chaucer’s successors and pupils, Hoccleve and Lydgate, though contributed nothing of value to English poetry, did much to popularize the language of Chaucer which they directly imitated. There was no longer any doubt what was the English literary language: it was the East Midland dialect, and whoever wrote in any other dialect was not writing standard English, but a local or provincial tongue.

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