The Chancery is seen as the early standardized version of English. The Chancery standard form was used in government documents from around the time of 1430. Although people believe that it is seen as a dialect solely from London, this is not the case. The Chancery standard includes characteristics from Northern and Midland dialects, which shows that the development was affected by writers from other regions whom had an influence on incorporating their own dialects into this standard.
Fisher (1996)[1] claims that the Chancery standard was deliberately cultivated, the features of the Chancery standard ‘did not necessarily originate from the Chancery itself’ (McIntyre, 2009)[2].
A district in Merseyside that is influenced by the Chancery standard and the standardization of English is the area of Edge Hill. This area of Merseyside, around the 18th Century, had a growing need for homes for merchants and wealthy families, as it was far away enough from the city center to avoid the hustle and bustle of daily life.
Parts of the standardization of English that would have clearly affected the names of the districts in Merseyside are the Great Vowel Shift and the change of stress patterns.
The Great Vowel Shift was a change in vowel sounds that affected the long vowels in words, taking place between the fifteenth to eighteenth Centuries. The long vowel changed, shifting upwards, meaning that instead of taking place lower down in the mouth, it would now take place higher up in the mouth. Nowadays, this results in many complications with regards to pronunciation of English-language texts from before the shift, as we can sometimes struggle to understand what was trying to be said. Examples of this being place names in Merseyside.
[1] Fisher, J.H. (1995). The Emergence of Standard English. University Press of Kentucky.
[2] McIntyre, D. (2009). History of English: A Resource Book for Students. Abingdon: Routledge.
Researched by Sasha Snowden-Leak
Language of Merseyside 3 