On 19/09/05, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
What is this "English English" to which you refer then, if it is only "more or less the same" as actual existing varieties of English? Who speaks or spoke it? You? Your wife? William Shakespere?
An idle thought: there is a family of four currently living in this house, all lifetime residents of the UK. Every single one speaks a different dialect of English...
"Proper English" is a meaningless term. The first systematic efforts to standardise English to any extent came with the invention of the printing press, when it became possible to distribute documents en masse all across the country (William Caxton wrote an oft-quoted "prologue" regarding the difficulties of making printed material understandable by all its readers).
Several, indeed. For those who've not encountered them, they bear reading. One rather endearing anecdote:
(Some merchants have stopped beside the Thames to buy lunch) "And one of theym named sheffelde, a mercer, came in-to an hows and exed for mete; and specyally he axyd after eggys; And the good wyf answerde that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry for he also coude speke no frenshe but wold haue hadde egges and she vnderstode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or eyren; certaynly it is harde to playse euery man by cause of dyuersite & chaunge of langage."
Mutual intelligibility of dialects leaped ahead through printing, and again from the railways. Then another with radio and television, and modern communications generally - the Internet is simply just the next step.
Like I say, read some books about the history of English - it's really quite fascinating, and should correct any misapprehensions you have of a "pure" English ever having existed, even if you still remain on the side of the "prescriptivists" who wish to create such a thing.
Especially Mencken. It's wonderful.