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History of English Lecture 3
History of English Lecture 3
Table 1
2
OE ME
Northumbrian NORTHERN
(Northern, Lowland,
Mercian Scottish)
MIDLAND
(West Midland, East
Midland, South-West
Midland)
LONDON
SOUTHERN
West Saxon (South-Western)
Kentish KENTISH
The earliest records of the Middle English period are written in the local
dialects, for no literary standard was yet in existence. We ought to keep in mind
that for some time after the Norman conquest (1066) literature in the English
3
language was practically nonexistent. In some dialects this gap (пробел) covers
almost two hundred years.
The earliest samples of Middle English prose are the new enties () made in
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles from the year 1122 to the year 1154 known as the
Petersborough Chronicle.
2.2. The London Dialect and the Flourishing of literature in the late 14 th
Century
In the 14th century, when English revived as the official and the written
language, the four main dialects, Northern, Southern, West Midland and East
Midland, were struggling for supremacy but none of them was destined to
predominate.
The Early Middle Englishrecords made in London – beginning with the
London Proclamation of 1258 – show that the dialect of London came from an
East Saxon dialect, or, in terms of the Middle English division, from the south-
western variety of the Southern dialect group. Later records show that the speech
of London becomes more mixed, with East Midland features gradually prevailing
over the Southern features.