3. The development of the dialect of London into a national language

The history of the London dialect reveals the sources of the literary language in Late ME and also the main source and basis of the Literary Standard, both in its written and spoken forms.

The history of London extends back to the Roman period. Even in OE times London was by far the biggest town in Britain, although the capital of Wessex – the main OE kingdom – was Winchester. The capital was transferred to London a few years before the Norman conquest. London eventually became the commercial and cultural capital, and it clearly had a central role to play in the emergence of a standard dialect in Britain. However, the dialect that developed into standard is not simply the London dialect. It had both East Midlands elements and southern elements. But gradually East Midlands elements took the upper hand, so that the London dialect had comparatively few elements from other dialects.

There were some other factors that contributed to the development of the English national language. The popularity of Geoffrey Chaucer helped a great deal in the development of the London dialect into a literary language. Chaucer’s literary language, based on the mixed (largely East Midland) London dialect, is known as classical ME; in the 15^th and 16^th c. it became the basis of the national literary English language.

Of greatest linguistic consequence was the activity of John Wycliff. His most important contribution to English prose was his translation of the Bible completed in 1384. It was coped in manuscript and read by many people all over the country. Written in the London dialect, it played an important role in spreading this form of English.

A major reason for the standardization of the London dialect was the introduction of printing by William Caxton in 1476. Caxton probably did more to standardize English in his time than any other individual, since it was expedient for him to edit the works he printed to resolve the dialect variants in order to gain the broadest readership possible for his publications. Strong dialectal traits disappeared from written works by the mid-15^th c. and by the end of the 17^th c. most orthographical variants had been standardized.

Periods in the History of the English Language

1. Henry Sweet and his division of the history of English

Each of the periods is marked by a set of specific features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and may be also defined in these terms. Henry Sweet classified them as the Period of Full Endings, which means that any vowel may be found in an unstressed ending (e.g. OE sunu), the Period of Levelled Endings, which means that vowels of unstressed endings were leveled under a neutral vowel [ə] represented in spelling by the letter e (e.g. OE sunu – ME sune), and the period of Lost Endings (e.g. NE sun).

2. Historical periodization as offered by b. Khaimovich

According to B. Khaimovich, the history of the English language is divided into three periods: Old English, Middle English, and New English. As landmarks separating the three periods, he uses very important events, which had a great influence on the history of English:

• The Anglo-Saxon invasion of the 5^th century is taken as the beginning of the Old English period.

• The Norman Conquest of the 11^th century is regarded as the beginning of the Middle English period.

• The introduction of printing in the 15^th century is the beginning of the New English period.