The role of the printing in the formation of the Standard English language

The creation of printing was, undoubtedly, one of the greatest inventions. It eased the writing process as the whole, and it also had a great deal of influence over language.

Linguists claim that one of the most important things printing brought was a development of a standard language of symbols and codes that we use today [27; 28; 34].

Printing which was introduced into England by William Caxton in 1476, helped to increase the spread of knowledge and literacy level among the British public as more and more people had better access to reading materials. Over the centuries, as more English texts were printed, such as novels, dictionaries, the Bible and other documents, the English language gradually gained popularity and established itself as the national language of England. Apart from the advent of printing, political, social and economic factors also contributed to the development of English as a national language.

Through printing Caxton played a very significant and instrumental role in establishing English as the national language of England. By adopting the dialect of London and the South-East as the English for his books, Caxton took a decisive step forward in establishing that particular variety as the English language. William Caxton as the first printer in England was highly responsible for imposing some form of uniformity to the English language simply by default. His choice of the dialect of the southeast Midlands has given us the present form of Standard English [34; 37; 46].

William Caxton was born in Kent, England and was accepted as an apprentice in London in 1438. This was not a regular apprenticeship. According to N. F. Blake, Robert Large was an important and influential merchant. Caxton had thus become apprentice to one of the more important men in the city. He became part of what was certainly a flourishing business, which would have provided him with useful contacts and future trading partners. Seven years later, in 1445, he moved to Bruges, Belgium as a mercer to take part in the trade there of the Merchant Adventurers of whom the London Mercers where prominent members. Many Englishmen were attracted to Bruges due to its production of fine cloths, which also made other textiles of import. The move to Bruges was important in the scheme of Caxton’s shift to printing. As the years progressed, so did his skills as a mercer and his career. He eventually became an important figure among his colleagues, which would again benefit him in the future with printing. In this period Caxton learned how to finance projects and he acquired considerable wealth. Both were necessary for the successful completion of his venture into printing [23].

With the trouble that ensued with the government, William Caxton began to look elsewhere for merchandise to sell. English mercers where not allowed to sell fine cloths for a while and it is assumed that Caxton supplemented his sales with manuscripts. He worked closely with many of the noble who were the only ones that could afford such luxuries as reading materials. Through his handling of manuscripts and even books, he gained an interest in literature [23; 28].

His first effort with literature was not in printing, but in translating. He knew enough Dutch, Flemish, French and Latin to translate books into English. This was unheard of before; English was not a scholarly language like French or Latin, but one used only by the common folk. The first book to be translated by him was the Latin book History of Troy (1475), that had been translated into French. However, he had such a difficult time in translating that he would almost given up on the notion. He had begun translating in 1469 and then given it up. The reason, according to Caxton, was his incompetence as a translator and his lack of command of English. It is not a convincing one, for in the centre of the European book trade he could probably have found someone else to do it for him if he had just wanted a translation. He evidently wanted to make the translation himself and was prevented from completing it for two years [23; 26].

Many of the translators in Caxton’s day stated that they attempted to stay as close to the original text as possible, even though this was more of a selling point for their work than reality. Caxton made the same claims, probably out of obligation. How would it look if everyone were doing it except him? His number one priority was not accuracy of translation, but ensuring that there was always something on the press. Because he owned it, it was up to him how many books he had available for printing and if nothing was printing, he wasn’t making money. To keep the presses working may have appeared more important than a finely wrought phrase [23].

In his closing remarks on the subject of Caxton as a translator, Henry Blake says, that in general he can hardly be distinguished from the host of translators who crowd the 15th century scene, except perhaps in the sheer quantity of his output. Of the 106 works printed by or attributed to Caxton, he translated at least twenty-five. It is hardly surprising that he did not always have time to polish his version for the press [23].

Caxton eventually resigned as the Governor within the Merchant Adventurers, a post he held for several years, so he could travel to Cologne, Germany. He lived there from 1471 – 1472, a total of eighteen months. It is assumed that his intention in traveling there was to learn how to be a printer so he could print his own book, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, translated from French. Cologne, with a press dating from about 1465, was the town nearest to Bruges which had a press at that time, and Caxton had little choice where to go [18]. It had become the capital of the Low Countries because of its university, which attracted a lot of scholars and students; an important archbishopric; and strong trade, especially with English tradesmen.

An interesting aspect to the printing world is the fact that there was an immediate division of labor within the profession. There were the skilled craftsmen who actually did the work on the presses and then there were the tradesmen that already had connections to sell the books who were considered the publishers and entrepreneurs. Paper was the most expensive investment that had to be available upfront, before any books were sold, and it was the tradesmen who had the money readily available for purchasing. Surely Caxton learned how to print, for it was his responsibility to teach his assistants once he returned to Bruges and set up shop as a printer. Blake explains it thus: “Normally he would not have interfered in the actual printing operations, and it is not right to think of Caxton as a printer. He was the publisher and entrepreneur. He provided the capital, chose the books and distributed them, leaving the printing to others” [23:59].

Once he returned to Bruges, Caxton used the patronage of Margaret of Burgundy to help him publish his book. The first book he printed, and the first book to appear in English, was his own translation of the History of Troy in 1475. Before returning to England to set up a printing press there, Caxton printed six or seven other volumes while in Bruges. Two were in English, the one already mentioned and Game of Chess, and four were in French. The seventh pamphlet is attributed to him but has not been confirmed to be his work [18]. Caxton finally returned to England to set up his own printing press in 1476. Since Caxton settled in Westminster instead of his hometown of London, it was supposed that the relations between the scribes and the printers were at odds. It was thought that perhaps the scribes felt threatened by this new device that would ultimately outdate them, stealing all of their work. However, this has never been proved and, in fact, there are several accounts of printers working closely with the scribes. As an example, the first known item to be printed in England is an indulgence which must be dated prior to 13 December 1476, since that date has been entered by hand in the surviving copy. It is printed in Caxton’s type 2 with six letters in his type 3 [23; 26]. Obviously he was working with the abbots, who were also scribes, in the production of indulgences.

Caxton could not have ever hoped to have the entire publishing market of England in his hands for the rest of his life. And accordingly, rivals began to arrive, setting up their own print shops. The first few were no real threat to the well-known Caxton; however, by 1480, a real competitor entered the stage. John Lettou, a native of Lithuania, moved into London and actually had better books than Caxton. It at once became evident that the new printer had learnt his art under a much better master than Caxton had [37]. This became a wake-up call to William Caxton, letting him know that he needed to begin fixing some of the problems with his own printing so as not to lose the business entirely and this he did.

At the time of Caxton’s translations, English was a language that was still new. It had begun to change from the Old English to a more modern English but different ways of spelling and pronunciation abounded. This was bound to make any printer go insane. It is said the English vernacular was only just beginning to develop a prose form, and Caxton coped with the problem of meager vocabulary and wide variations in the spelling of even the simplest English words .As an example, the word little can be spelled several ways in Caxton’s texts. Two variants are litil and lytel. At this very period, the English language was still passing from its mediaeval pronunciation into that state with which we are familiar today, and it was precisely then that the press began to crystallize the orthography of a language still in flux. Gradually, the spelling tended to become fixed, while the pronunciation continued to evolve [23; 26].

Caxton knew of these difficulties personally and recognized the need for a remedy. Through his efforts as a printer and publisher, things began to slowly change. [26]. An interesting side note about this event in English history is the current spellings and pronunciations found in the language today. Because the written word began to take a more permanent form while the spoken word had not, many variants developed on how to pronounce the same word. For this reason, we see many differences in the pronunciation of British English and American English. Even within England there are dialects with differences in word pronunciation. This all developed due to the solidifying of the written and spoken language at different times [26; 37].

The standardization of the English language or any language is an issue which linguists always have to grapple with. Printing had brought into focus problems regarding the variations in the English language, which Caxton had observed, such as:

· Should he use foreign words in his translations or replace them with native English words?

· Which variety of English should he follow, given the existence of major regional differences?

· Which literary style should be used as a model?

· How the language should be spelled and punctuated, given the scribal variations of the previous centuries?

· In publishing native writers, should he change their language to make it is more widely understood?

Nevertheless, printing provides a way to reduce these variations in the language. As Caxton himself showed, publishers would set their own system of spelling and somewhat codify the language [28].

Hence, the introduction of the printing by William Caxton gave an unprecedented impetus to the formation of a standard language and the study of its properties. Apart from its role in fostering norms of spelling and punctuation, the availability of printing provided more opportunities for people to write, and gave their works much wider circulation. As a result, more texts of the period have survived. Within the following 150 years, it is estimated that nearly 20,000 books appeared. The story of English thus becomes more definite in the 16th century, with more evidence available about the way the language was developing, both in the texts themselves, and in a growing number of observations dealing with such areas as grammar, vocabulary, writing system, and style. In that century, scholars seriously got down to talking about their language [20; 23; 26; 28; 34; 38; 45].