CAXTON’S SOUTH'RN BIAS

How the London dialect became the dominant force in printed English

When William Caxton began translating and printing works in English, he had to settle on a form of English his readers would understand. This was no easy task, for medieval English was by no means fixed. Instead, it consisted of a collection of often wildly varying regional dialects.

Caxton wrote about the difficulties of choosing the right language in several of his books. In the Recuyell, Caxton reveals uncertainty about his own -entish 'nglish, since “I no doubt spoke an English more broad and rude than anywhere else in England”. Caxton spent many years on the continent, where he learned both Dutch and French. This impacted the vocabulary and spelling of his translations, and goes some way in explaining the strange spelling conventions of English today.

Caxton received regular complaints from readers about his language. “Certainly it is hard to please every man,” he sighs in the Eneydos (his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid), not just because “common 'nglish spoken in one shire varies from that of another”, but also because “the language we use today is very different from that which was spoken when I was born.”

Eventually, the London printer settled on – surprise! – a London dialect, aimed at “a clerk and a noble gentleman”. This dialect had influences from Latin and French, which were seen as more prestigious. Caxton’s language is not “too rude” nor too “curious”, featuring “common terms used on a daily basis”. He clearly wanted his books to be understood by as many people as possible.

Though he may not have known it at the time, Caxton’s choice of a London dialect would go on to have an enormous impact on the long-term evolution of printed 'nglish, because it helped lay the groundwork for a southern city dialect becoming the paradigm. These were early steps in the standardisation of spelling, where dialectal variants – though they still exist in spoken English – are not seen on the page.