[...]... part in the earlier history of English; the catalogue of languages which later came to inXuence it is far wider still The focus in the Wnal three chapters of the volume is, in various ways, placed on English looking a history of the english language 5 outwards, with reference in particular to the diVusion of English (and Englishspeakers) outside the British Isles—and to the complex intersection of extralinguistic... Standard English, there must be a hundred who do not, and another hundred who speak other varieties as well as the standard Where is their a history of the english language 3 story told?’.1 The history of the English language in the following pages engages with both domains—documenting the rise of a standard variety, but also continuing to examine the import of regional speech, not only in Middle English. .. diversity of the speakers who make up the English language’ Rather than a seamless synecdoche of the history of English with the history of the standard variety, the image of the past that is explored over the course of this volume is therefore one characterized by its heterogeneity, and by the ebb and Xow of a language (and language-varieties) continually on the move As David Crystal has recently... aspect of a history of English tracing the multilingual history of English from the Renaissance (and before), he adds too the salutary reminder that, for much of this past, it was the skill of the English in assuming new languages which was celebrated (rather than that linguistic incapacity which has come to form a sad part of their modern stereotyping) ‘No one man’s English is all English , wrote the. .. which included those of the Native American inhabitants of the continent as well as the non -English languages of immigrants from other European countries and elsewhere around the globe As a result of their geographical separation, the language of the Englishspeaking migrants began to differ from that of their previous neighbours in Britain Given what we know of the natural development of languages, we... is the subject and which the object of the verb superavit (‘overcame’) The order of the words the sole means of indicating the 14 terry hoad diVerence between the equivalent sentences in modern English is here more susceptible of variation for stylistic eVect In Latin, therefore, provided the forms of the words remain unchanged, the sense too will be unaltered, irrespective of the order in which the. .. fragmentary; if the primary form of language is speech, only with the advent of sound recording (and the invention of the phonograph in 1877) do we begin to 2 lynda mugglestone have a record of the actual voices of the past—and even this evidence is necessarily partial and selective The majority of speakers through the history of English have left not a single trace to document the words they spoke, or the conversations... time) For these and other reasons, the emphasis throughout the following volume is placed on the construction of ‘a history rather than the history , recognizing that many other pathways could be navigated through the past—and present of the English language The wider emphasis throughout is, however, placed on the twin images of pluralism and diversity, and on the complex patterns of usage which have... retained their ancestral languages (German or Italian, for example) in full and active use alongside the English which they had also acquired These new speakers of English included many of the previous inhabitants of the continent and their descendants the Native American peoples—who came to use English preliminaries: before english 9 alongside or, in many cases, instead of the languages which they and their... HE English language is at more than one point in its history a language which is being carried from one part of the world to another This is true at the beginning of its existence as a recognizably distinct language the phase which this and later chapters refer to as Old English Migration of people and the consequent relocation of the languages they speak will therefore be one of the major themes of . (amongst others) emphasize the diversity of the speakers who make up the English language’. Rather than a seamless synecdoche of the history of English with the history of the standard variety, the. languages they speak will therefore be one of the major themes of this chapter, which will focus on the pre -history of English and the various developments which underpin the creation of English as. for the diversity of the history of English, enabling a variety of perspectives on the reconstruction of the past to be adopted and applied. The examination of social networks and chains of linguistic