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SPREADING THE WORD
Дата добавления: 2014-10-24 | Просмотров: 1539
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Many people say that the British read millions of books, newspapers and magazines each day. Most of us read at least one newspaper a day and often pick up a copy of a book that is being read by hundreds of people, perhaps at the same time in the same language. I wonder how many people stop and think back to that day in the not-so-distant past when the first sheet of printed paper came off the first printing press used in England. That was in the year 1477 when William Caxton brought his printing press from Flanders, set it up at Westminster in the shadow of the old Abbey and set to work to produce the first books in English.
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, who lived from 1340 to 1400, was among the books he printed, together with many translations from Latin and French.
Canterbury Tales was very popular among the people who could read at that time. These educated people who lived mainly in London could easily understand the language of Canterbury Tales because it was written in the dialect of London. But people from other parts of England couldn't understand very much because at that time each county had its own dialect. So the people of Kent, the West Country, the Midlands, London, the North and other parts of England could not easily understand each other.
Because Caxton printed his book in one dialect, the educated English had a common dialect, and as education spread, this dialect became the language of England.
Of course, if you read one of Caxton's original books you won't understand it very well because of the great changes in English grammar and spelling since Caxton lived. Caxton himself wrote in one of his books about the many changes in his lifetime.
«And certainly our language now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken when I was bourne».
As you can see it varies very much in spelling and structure from the English you are reading, but you certainly recognize it as English of Caxton to whom we owe so much.