Growth of the Spoken Standard.

The next stage in the growth of the national literary language was the development of the Spoken Standard. The dating of this event appears to be problematic.

Naturally, we possess no direct evidence of the existence of oral norms, since all evidence comes from written sources. Nevertheless, valuable information has been found in private letters as compared to more official papers, in the speech of various characters in 17th and 18th c. drama, and in direct references to different types of oral speech made by contemporaries.

It seems obvious that in the 18th c. the speech of educated people differed from that of common, uneducated people — in pronunciation, in the choice of words and in grammatical construction. The number of educated people was growing and their way of speaking was regarded as correct. Compositions on language gave diverse recommendations aimed at improving the forms of written and oral discourse. Some authors advised people to model their speech on Latin patterns; others banned borrowing mannerisms and vulgar pronunciation. These recommendations could only be made if their authors were — or considered themselves to be — in a position to distinguish between different forms of speech and label them as “good” or “bad”. Indirectly they testify to the existence of recognised norms of educated spoken English.

The earliest feasible date for the emergence of the Spoken Standard suggested by historians is the late 17th c. Some authorities refer it to the end of the normalisation period, that is about a hundred years later — the end of the 18th c. The latter date seems to be more realistic, as by that time current usage had been subjected to conscious regulation and had become more uniform. The rules formulated in the prescriptive grammars and dictionaries must have had their effect not only on the written but also on the spoken forms of the language.

The concept of Spoken Standard does not imply absolute uniformity of speech throughout the speech community — a uniformity which, in fact, can never be achieved; it merely implies a more or less uniform type of speech used by educated people and taught as “correct English” at schools and universities. The spoken forms of the language, even when standardised, were never as stable and fixed as the Written Standard. Oral speech changed under the influence of sub-standard forms of the language, more easily than the written forms. Many new features coming from professional jargons, lower social dialects or local dialects first entered the Spoken Standard, and through its medium passed into the language of writing. The Written Standard, in its turn, tended to restrict the colloquial innovations labelling them as vulgar and incorrect and was enriched by elements coming from various functional and literary styles, e.g. poetry, scientific style, official documents. Between all these conflicting tendencies the national literary language, both in its written and spoken forms, continued to change during the entire New English period.

The geographical and social origins of the Spoken Standard were in the main the same as those of the Written Standard some two-hundred years before: the tongue of London and the Universities, which in the turbulent 17th c. — the age of the English Revolution, further economic progress and geographical expansion — had assimilated many new features from a variety of sources. Intermixture of people belonging to different social groups was reflected in speech, though the rate of changes was slowed down when the norms of usage had been fixed. The nourishing of literature enriched the language and at the same time had a stabilising effect on linguistic change.

Thus by the end of the 18th c. the formation of the national literary English language may be regarded as completed, for now it possessed both a Written and a Spoken Standard.

The Modern Period. Varieties of English in Britain in the 19th and 20th c.

The main functional divisions of the national English language, which had been formed by the 19th c, were its standard or literary forms and its substandard forms.

The literary language comprised a great number of varieties (or “forms of existence”). It had a Written and a Spoken Standard; within the Written Standard there developed different literary and functional styles: the belles-lettres style (with further differentiation between poetry, prose and drama), official style, newspaper and publicist style, scientific prose style. Within the Spoken Standard we can safely assume the existence of more formal and less formal, colloquial varieties which bordered on the sub-standard forms of the language. We can also posit the existence of modified local Standards used by educated people but displaying certain local colouring (the term “Regional Modified Standards”, proposed by H C Wyld implies that despite some differences these forms of speech belong to Standard English).

Literary English found its ideal representation in the works of English authors of the 19th c. Sub-standard forms of the language — local dialects and lower social dialects— were mainly used for oral communication. During the 18th c, when conformity to the rules of correctness and high style were looked upon as a primary merit, writers were not inclined to employ the non-prestige types of local speech. Characterisation through dialect, which sometimes occurred in the drama of the Renaissance, had fallen into disuse. In the 19th c. literary tastes changed and writers began to take a greater interest in the regional dialects and in folklore. Non-standard forms of the language were recorded in the speech of various characters to show their social rank and origin.

Two varieties of English in Great Britain distinguished from Standard English —Scottish and Anglo-Irish — claimed to be literary tongues. Scottish English re-emerged again into literary eminence, after a decline in the 17th c, in the poetry of Robert Burns (1759—1796). The literary tradition was not given up in the 19th c: a series of poets employed the Scottish dialect in depicting the grievances of the common people. For the most part, however, Scottish English was used for oral intercourse by the less educated people, while a Regional Modified Standard displaced it in other functions. As elsewhere the local dialect was transformed into a social local dialect used by the lower classes.

The English language in Ireland displayed sharper differences from British English than the Scottish dialect, as for several hundred years it developed in relative isolation from the monopoly. Despite the attempts to revive the Celtic tongue, Gaelic, or Irish (which was one of the major issues in the vigorous struggle for home rule in the 19th c.), by 1900 a variety of English with a strong Irish accent, known as the “brogue”, had become the main language of the population. Some authorities regard Anglo-Irish as a separate geographical variant of English possessing an independent national Standard, others treat it as a local dialect. Anglo-Irish is the official language of Northern Ireland and Eire and also the language of literature, school and universities.

Dialectal division in England proper in the 19th and 20th c. was roughly the same as before since it goes back to the age of feudalism, particularly to Early ME. The dialects are distinguished by counties or shires, e. g. the dialect of Somersetshire, the Yorkshire dialect. They are usually grouped under the following main headings: the Southern dialects, subdivided into East- and West-Southern; the Midland dialects subdivided into Eastern, Central, and Western; (the term Midland is also used as an equivalent of Central); the Northern dialects.

Among the social dialects of particular interest is London’s Cockney. 16th c. spellings testify to the existence of Cockney in the age of Shakespeare. Cockney was used as a form of oral speech by the lower ranks of the Londoners throughout the New English period and was looked upon as a social handicap in the 19th c. (it is shown in PYGMALION by G. B. Shaw).

Geographical Expansion of the English Language from the 17th to 19th c.

English Outside Great Britain