4. Book printing.

Book printing was invented by Gooteberg in 1438 (Germany). One of the first English book printers was William Caxton, who was born in kingdom Kent and spoke Kentish dialect of English or South Eastern dialect. But he served as a statesman in the Netherlands for several years. It was in Holland where he learned about the invention of book printing. His first book was printed Holland (“The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy” – “Сборник рассказов о Трое”). The book which he printed in England was “The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers” (Афоризмы и высказывания философов). William Caxton was not sure how correct his English was, because there was no such linguistic conception as a language standard. So he asked the Princess Margaret (she spoke Lodon dialect) to read his work. The princess made some corrections. And of course her language was the language of royal society, her corrections were connected with the royal dialects. As for the spelling of words Caxton followed the traditional principles, that is, his spelling was the same as the clerks used. But the difference in spelling pronunciation has already existed at the period. So W. Caxton only made this difference between spelling and pronunciation more stable. He consolidated she difference between spelling and pronunciation.

5. Forming national language (15-17 c.)

So, in the 16-th сent. the position of London dialect was the leading one. That’s why this dialect became the base of the national language. But there were some fields of life where this dialect wasn’t used. These fields were church and science. The problem of introducing London dialect in church sphere was settled by the king Henry VIII. Henry VIII was on bad terms with the pope Klement VII (Клементий). Henry VIII started introducing Protestantism in England. There was no much resistance to his innovations from the side of the people of Church. That’s why this reformation was done more or less peacefully. After introducing Protestantism all church texts were translated into English, even during religious services they began using English. As for English in scientific literature, it was difficult to introduce English in it (You know that scientific works were written in Latin). The fact was that there were no scientific terms (terminology) in English. These English scientific terms were formed from Latin words in such a way that the terms became more English but not Latin. The first attempt to write scientific works in English was done by sir Thomas Elyof ( the book “Governour”). In this book he transformed Latin scientific terms into English keeping the roots of the terms, and explained in details the meaning of the terms which he introduced.

Practical necessity to have scientific book and text-book written in English but not in Latin made Englishmen make the decision what language to use in science.

So in the 16 с. Latin was excluded from all spheres of language. By the end of the 16 с. English as the national language had been formed. But different dialects went on to exist. They still exist but in oral form.

The necessity to know what is “right” or “correct’ and what is “ not right” or ‘incorrect” in language was very strong at the end of the 16 сen. and at beginning at the 17 с. During that period the activity of orthoepists, grammatists and lexicographers was extensive. The orthoepists of the 16 с. were predecessors of phonetists. In the 16 с. there was no such section of linguistics as phonetics. Some phonetic phenomena were not clear for the orthoepists. They called digraphs (the combination of letters) diphthongs (combination of sounds). The most serious orthoepists of the 16 с. were Hart (Харт) “Orthography of English speech” (1580). William Bullokar (Буллокар), Charles Butler.

As for the grammar text-books, they were composed according to the idea of Latin grammar text-books. But even in the 18 с. there were two types of grammatists. Those who followed the tradition and those who had more advanced ideas and tried to clean the language from archaisms. The languages of Shakespeare and Chaucer were archaic even in that period. The best grammatists were R.Lowth “A short introduction to English Grammar” (1758); J.Priestley “The rudiments of English Grammar” (1761); Lindley Murray “English Grammar” (1795). The text-book by Lindley Murray “English Grammar” was a text book for many generations of English people. It was republished more than 50 times without any corrections and 100 times with some corrections and changes.

As for lexicographers – they tried to fix the vocabulary. First dictionaries were bilingual (Latin English) (15 cent.) Later the dictionaries of difficult words, the dictionary of archaisms and borrowings appeared. The greatest event in the history of work which was connected with dictionaries was “A Dictionary of English Language” (by Samual Johnson - 1753). in which the words are deduced from their originals and illustrated in their different signification by examples from the best writers. This dictionary was even more popular than Murray’s grammar. It was universal. Some writers of the 19 с. used it as a reference book.

So the standard of national English lang. was established at the end of 18 с. and at the beginning of 19 с. when academic and reference literature was composed.