The Linguistic Background

Abstract

During the Middle English period three languages were current in England: the various dialects of English itself, Anglo-Norman which had given way to Central French, and Latin. By the end of this period the latter two had become second languages which had to be learned, and the triumph of English as the national language was guaranteed. Although French may have been familiar to certain classes, especially nobles, lawyers and merchants, the nationalist spirit generated through the Hundred Years’ War meant that it was never going to be accepted by the general population. For its part, Latin underwent an important transformation during the fifteenth century in that the Latin of the Middle Ages was Vulgar Latin, the spoken variety of Latin especially associated with the Catholic Church. The humanists from the fourteenth century in Italy and from the fifteenth in England set about recreating classical Latin as that variety of the language which should be taught and used for all purposes. This had several important implications. The first was that Latin ceased for all practical purposes to be a spoken language and so was no longer a competitor with English as the language of spoken communication in England. English could develop unchallenged as the spoken and ultimately the written language of England. But a second result of the reinstatement of classical Latin as the taught form was that Latin was no longer a living language; it was taught in the dead form of the language.