The Origin of the National English Language

The language of the nationality (of the English community) and the national language differ in several respects. For one thing, the language of the nationality is represented only by dialects and fulfills its functions within a certain territory. The national language serves the needs of the whole country. For another thing, dialects are not practically supplied with written language while the national language serves to satisfy all the spheres of political, social and cultural life both in writing and in oral speech. In OE it was Wessex dialect which fulfilled the written necessities. So did French and Latin in ME. For a third thing, there is no literal norm in the language of the nationality, phonetics, grammar differ from dialect to dialect, there are variations within the dialect itself. Existence of a language norm becomes evident in the national language.

The development of trade and manufacturing, of new social relations in the XIV c. meant the decay of feudalism, the end of scattered economy and demanded extensive consolidation of the country. The situation when the Englishmen of the North and of the South spoke different dialects and could hardly understand each other was no longer possible. With the rise of London as the political centre of absolute monarchy it was quite natural that London dialect should take the place of French. London (East Midland) dialect became the basis of the national language. On the one hand, as it was a trade centre, people from all over the country mixed in the capital contributing to its language with their dialect forms and spreading the forms of East Midland in their dialects. On the other hand, the War of Roses resulted in the rise of an absolute monarchy. This meant a high degree of political centralization and thus contributed to centralization in language as well, that is, to a predominance of the national language over local dialect. The first stage in the formation of the national language was concentration and coexistence of different dialectal features, f. i. in busy the pronunciation is East Midland and in bury the pronunciation of Kent is evident.

In the course of the XV c. the London literary language gradually spread all over the country. William Caxton, bringing printing to England, contributed to fixing spelling and grammar. In the XVI c. the existence of a language norm becomes evident. The literary language serves as a model which must be followed. In all written documents of that period only literary English is used and there is a demand, need to observe the language norm in many documents.

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