Laura Wright (ed.), The development of Standard English, 1300–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 236. $59.95.

Extract

This important book – hereafter DSE – demonstrates for all linguists how an insightful observation by a young scholar can question basic assumptions and fondly held beliefs. In 1996, Laura Wright published an essay in a Festschrift for Eric Stanley in which she pointed to the fragility of the received wisdom that the modern prestige dialect of Britain emerged from a medieval “Central Midland” progenitor brought to London from the north and promulgated through the scribes in the Court of Chancery. In 1997, a conference was held in Cambridge to pursue the questions she had raised; then, in 1999, further discussion at the University of London led to this volume.