Book contents
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume I
- General Preface
- Abbreviations
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I The Context of English
- Part II Contact and External Influences
- 6 Early Contact with Celtic
- 7 Latin in the Early History of English
- 8 Scandinavian Influence
- 9 Anglo-Norman, Its Dictionary and the Study of English Vocabulary
- 10 Code-Switching and Language Mixing
- 11 Early Standardisation
- 12 Neoclassical Borrowings: ‘Hard Words’ in English
- 13 Typological Reorientation in the History of English
- Part III The Long View by Levels and Areas
- Appendix: Recommended Reading
- Index
- References
11 - Early Standardisation
from Part II - Contact and External Influences
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2025
Book contents
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume I
- General Preface
- Abbreviations
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I The Context of English
- Part II Contact and External Influences
- 6 Early Contact with Celtic
- 7 Latin in the Early History of English
- 8 Scandinavian Influence
- 9 Anglo-Norman, Its Dictionary and the Study of English Vocabulary
- 10 Code-Switching and Language Mixing
- 11 Early Standardisation
- 12 Neoclassical Borrowings: ‘Hard Words’ in English
- 13 Typological Reorientation in the History of English
- Part III The Long View by Levels and Areas
- Appendix: Recommended Reading
- Index
- References
Summary
Shifts in the perception of the role of language users in the history of standardisation in the early periods of the language are evident as the scholarly narrative develops across time. This chapter begins with the notions of standardisation in Old English. The main focus is on the Middle English period, and Samuels’s (1989 [1963]: 66) suggestion that the Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English could be used to classify the less obviously dialectal forms of language, and thus might offer a way to discover the sources of the emerging standard language in fifteenth century English writing. This chapter notes the long shadow cast by this aperçu. It then examines more recent work spearheaded by Wright (1994, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2013, 2017, 2020), which has re-evaluated the narrative of standardisation in early English, focusing on multilingualism and the rejection of a single ancestor of Standard English.
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- The New Cambridge History of the English LanguageContext, Contact and Development, pp. 300 - 323Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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