Dialects in the Classroom
The Evolution of English Writing
Early English writing was variable – both regionally and between writers in the same region. It is possible to identify the regional origin of English documents prior to standardization by the spelling – people employed a direct “speech to print” process, using the symbols to represent their own pronunciation, regardless of how someone somewhere else would spell it. In fact, writing was so variable prior to standardization that even individual writers did not necessarily spell a word the same time every time they wrote it. Consider that Shakespeare, possibly considered the greatest writer in the history of the English language, couldn’t even decide how to spell his own name consistently!
With the Norman invasion of England in 1066 and subsequent French control of the British government, the English writing system underwent some important changes (as did the spoken language). Gone were the symbols representing interdental fricatives, ð and þ; these were gradually replaced by TH. Likewise, the Ʒ symbol (representing the /x/ phoneme) was replaced by the digraph GH (in turn, the /x/ phoneme also disappeared from almost all dialects of English – Scottish being the exception – replaced by /f/ in some contexts and by nothing at all in others). The æ disappeared in favor of a simple A. Variation in spelling remained, however, and in the fifteenth century the situation came to a head and a move to standardize the written language was put into motion.
