Assess William Caxtons contribution to the English Language

For his second contribution we need to look at some of the historical events that took place in and around Caxton’s lifetime. From this we can see that Caxton was born around the time of King Henry V’s death. King Henry V’s reign had linguistic significance because he defeated the French at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, consequently becoming the first English King since before 1066. Therefore this marked the first time that the English language was not competing with French (Harris & Taylor 1989). When Caxton chose to print in English, for the first time English could be transformed into a language of learning (Mcintyre 2009) as it meant that the works of Greek and Roman scholars could be translated into “local languages” (Graddol, Leith, Swainn, Rhys & Gillen 2007). When he translated some of the classics, he bought in vocabulary that is still used in present day English for example from Jason (1477) we get abandon and from Eneydos (1490) we get abolish and absorb (Hogg & Denison 2006). Printing also meant that literature was made more accessible for everyone. However this meant Caxton was left with the problem of how to spell the language he had chosen (Harris & Taylor 1989), this was because before Caxton there were no dictionaries or grammars of the English language and no universally, agreed and assigned alphabet (Harris & Taylor 1989). Words had been spelt in a way that reflected pronunciation (Mcintyre 2009), as mentioned previously this meant that different regions had different spellings because of the conflicting dialectal variation, but “printing is a communications technology that requires uniformity.” (Harris & Taylor p.91 1989) Therefore he needed standardisation to make sure that the printing press would be a success. Therefore as part of his contribution Caxton made people for the first time think about the way in which their language should be spelt. 

However, despite making people think about their language and the way in which it was written, his contribution may have not as been as great as what we would see at first glance. Since although attempting the standardisation of English, there is still evidence of visible inconsistencies in English up to 50 years after Caxton’s death (Crystal 2003). We can find many different reasons for this, one of the reasons found is that people were encouraged to use additional ‘e’s were added to the end of words that finished a line in order for the texts to be aligned neatly (Mcintyre 2009). Another is that when copying the scripts onto the printing press, these letters could be misinterpreted by the printer this could mean that there were differences in the spelling of words from writer to writer within the same printing press (Singh 2005). They could also be because of the different pronunciations from overseas employees, some of the spellings which we have in the present day english have survived from these employees. There are some people who believed that Caxton could not be trusted as an authority on the spelling of the english language as he had spent most of his life living abroad (Singh 2005). Because of these inconsistencies his contribution could have been seen as more of a hinderance than a help as he had some critics. These included Richard Mulcaster who complained that printing had made it more difficult to learn the English language because it had made books more accessible to the public, as numbers of books greatly increased after Caxton’s death (Baugh & Cable 2002). But the fact that spellings were so inconsistent from one book to another caused a great deal of confusion in the language.

Secondly, although I and other sources have claimed that Caxton can be credited with starting the process of the standardisation of the english language. This is not justified since when Caxton chose to standardise the dialect of London and the East Midlands. It would appear that this would have been an obvious choice; on first appearances it would appear that he had set himself a challenge; however before Caxton, the Chancery standard had already been established. The Chancery Standard was a first attempt at making this dialect a standard. It had come into use during the reign of King Henry V when his government needed a language that was clear and unambiguous that they could use to record official documents (Crystal 2003). 

To conclude, in my opinion I think it is unfair to say that Caxton can be credited with contributing a lot to the english language as he did also cause some problems along the way. However, I think it is very important that Caxton realised how important it was that we as a country were all using the same words and spellings as it was essential for all the regions to move forward together. Instead of all the different regions moving forward at different paces in order to reach the same eventual goal. I think that although Caxton can not be credited with the invention of the printing press, by bringing it to England he helped us advance as “printing was the technological foundation of the European Renaissance”. (Harris & Taylor p.91 1989) From this quote we can see that it not only helped our societies but others in the rest of Europe.

Bibliography

Harris R & Taylor T J 1989: Landmarks in Linguistic Thought, Routledge, London

McCrum R, Macneil R & Cran W 1986: The Story of English, Faber & Faber

Graddol D, Leith D, Swann J, Rhys M & Gillen J 2007; Changing English, Routledge, Abingdon

Culpiper, J 1997; History of English, Routledge, London

Singh I 2005; The History of English: A students guide, Hodder Arnold, London

Mcintyre D 2009; History of English, Routledge, Oxford

Hogg R & Denison D 2006; A history of the English Language, Cambridge University Press, London

Crystal D 2003; Cambridge Encylopedia of the English Language, Cambridge University Press, London

Baugh A C & Cable T 2002; A History of the English Language, Routledge, Abingdon