The standardisation of spelling in Middle English

Abstract

Abstract The standardisation of English spelling is widely assumed to have happened, or at least started, during the fifteenth century, with a variety of theories about the location and spread of the process. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of a single spelling feature: the vowel in the word said. It demonstrates that there were four main variants used across the country during the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, with preference for the modern standard form 〈ai〉 in Cambridgeshire, Middlesex and the Northern counties but for 〈ei〉 elsewhere. The analysis further raises serious questions about the claim that standardisation of the spelling system was well underway by the end of the fifteenth century, clearly showing that there was no reduction in either intra- or inter-document variation during the period covered by the MELD corpus, 1399–1525.