In relation to the Conquest, Burnley (2000) suggests that innovations linked to the birth of Middle English were only broadly related to the arrival of the Norman French. He claims that, in many instances, dialect manuscripts of the period merely reveal that diversity and change was already occurring in Old English, a result of the substantial linguistic influence of the Scandinavian invaders in the 9th and 10th centuries.

Furthermore, Baugh and Cable (1993) observe that these changes were not only phonological but also grammatical and lexical. However, such changes did not all occur all at the same time but materialized over hundreds of years and at disparate rates in the different Middle English dialects (see below).

Features of Middle English

Burrows and Turville-Petre (1992) highlight three features which specifically distinguish Middle English from Old English:

• The inflectional system was much simpler (see Loss of Inflections), particularly with regard to adjectives and nouns.

• Relationships between words in a sentence relied more and more on prepositions and word order.

• English vocabulary was progressively more heterogeneous. That is to say, whilst Old English was predominantly Germanic, Middle English was a linguistic mixture of Scandinavian, Latin and French.

Middle English Dialects

The accepted dialect divisions of this new form of English (see map) equate approximately with those of Old English. However, Northumbrian is now designated "Northern" whilst Mercian is described in terms of either the "East Midlands" or "West Midlands" dialect. The suggestion is that the majority of the inhabitants of Yorkshire would have spoken the Northern form but that West Riding speech would have belonged to the West Midlands group. Barber (1993) adds that Northumbrian, due in part to political division, separated into northern English and the English of the Scots.

In relation to these dialects Baugh and Cable (1993) observe that diversity was not confined only to the spoken word. Because there was no written standard, people wrote in the dialect employed in their everyday speech. This not to say that they were unaware of the existence of other dialects. There are recorded instances of written works being transcribed from one Middle English dialect to another. For example, the author of the Cursor Mundi, who was from the North, translated the Assumption of Our Lady from Southern English into his own dialect for the benefit of "northern people who can read no other English" (Baugh and Cable, 1993: 184).

The North / South Divide
The features that distinguish northern dialects from those of the south are, to varying degrees, pronunciation, inflection and vocabulary. Crystal (1995), citing manuscripts written during this period as evidence for regional speech differences, provides the following examples of a north \ south linguistic divide:

• The participle ending -ing as in "walking" was realized as -and(e) in Northern dialect but -end(e) in some areas of the West Midlands.

• In Northern speech h was omitted from such words as shall and should resulting in sal etc.

• There were vowel, and word differences between north and south as exemplified by Northern stane and kirk contrasting with Southern stone and church.

• Northern and the West Midlands had the pronouns they, their and them which were realized in the south as his, here and hem (the last survives to the present-day in the form 'em as in bring 'em here).

The Rise of Standard English

Crystal (1995: 50) draws attention to the evolution and adoption of the London dialect (the precursor of Standard English) as the language of the educated, and how its spread throughout the country was aided by the advent of the printing press (when Caxton and his successors adopted London English as the norm for their publications).

Baugh and Cable (1993) expand on this theme of standardization stating that, towards the end of the 14th century, out of the variety of dialects, a written language arose which in the following century gained general recognition and became the acknowledged standard in both writing and speech. The basis for this standard was the English of the East Midlands, particularly the London dialect. There were several factors which led to the predominance of this dialectal form:

• The East Midlands dialect occupied a central position between the varieties of the north and the south. It was "less radical" than the former and "less conservative" than the latter. Sharing the characteristics of both northern and southern forms, its sounds and inflections reflected a type of balance between the two.

• Of the major dialect areas, the East Midlands region was the largest and the most highly populated.

• The area contained the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which by the 14th century "had developed into important intellectual centres". Thus, for example, any linguistic influence possessed by Cambridge would be brought to bear in favour of the East Midland dialect.

• It is possible that Chaucer may also have had some influence but only in a general rather than specific way. That is to say, his influence may be viewed as supporting the dialect of his home region rather than arbitrating the exact form to be assumed in the developing Standard English.

• Of the greatest influence in relation to the rise of Standard English was the country's capital, London. Described by Baugh and Cable (1993) as "the political and commercial centre of England" and the "focus of the social and intellectual activities of the country". London English both influenced, and in turn was influenced, by, other dialectal forms. By the end of the 15th century, through this reciprocity, a "fairly uniform dialect" had gained ascendancy in the East Midlands region.

Baugh and Cable (1993) also refer to the influence of Chancery English.

Chancery English

Burnley (2000) describes Chancery English as the written form of the language employed by scribes preparing official documents from around the beginning of the 15th century. He adds that although it was a type of London English, dialectally its attributes were not preponderantly southern. Rather, it was distinctively central and east Midland in its character. Burnley claims that its wide adoption was "partly as a result of its status as an official language, partly from the volume of documents written in it, and partly from the acceptability of the dialectal mixture from which it was composed." (2000: 141). Inter alia, within the system:

• th- forms of the third person pronouns (as opposed to h- forms ) are in the majority.

• present participles now end in -yng / -ing.

• spellings of large numbers of words are those which eventually become the standard forms.

Baugh and Cable (1993) note that, by the second half of the 15th century, the written form of this variety of English had been adopted in most parts of the country. This, more than any other factor (coupled with Caxton's employment of the London standard), guaranteed the prompt espousal of a standard written form. However, dialectal diversity continued to exist in everyday speech.

Sources

Barber, C. (1993) The English language: a historical introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Baugh, A.C. and Cable, T. (1993) A History of the English Language, Fourth Edition, London: Routledge.

Burnley, D. (2000) The History of the English Language: a source book, Second Edition, London: Longman.

Burrows, J. A. and Turville-Petre, T. (1992) A Book of Middle English, Oxford: Blackwell.

Crystal, D. (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.