Appendix Map
The History of the English Language
Appendix · Map
Two sketches. The first shows England with the four main Middle English dialect areas of Chapter 3 and the places the chapters name. The second shows the countries Chapter 9 gives as examples of Kachru's three circles, as a labelled grid. I drew both myself as schematics.
These are simplifications
The England outline is rough and not to scale, and the dialect boundaries are straight lines I chose. The Middle English article names the four dialects but gives little detail on their boundaries, so the areas are my approximation. Kent is shown because the Ayenbite of Inwyt is described as Kentish. The second sketch is not a map: its boxes are placed by continent for readability and do not show size or true position.
England, about 1300
Key to the England sketch
| Mark | What it shows | Where the chapters say it |
|---|---|---|
| Orange area | Northern dialect | Chapter 3 |
| Green area | West Midland dialect (the Ancrene Wisse is linked to the West Midlands) | Chapter 3 |
| Blue area | East Midland dialect (the East Midlands-influenced London speech behind the Chancery Standard) | Chapters 3, 4 |
| Yellow area | Southern dialect | Chapter 3 |
| Purple area | Kentish: the Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340) | Chapter 3 |
Places on the England sketch
| Place | Why it is here | Ch. |
|---|---|---|
| Hastings | The battle of 14 October 1066 | 2 |
| London, Westminster | Coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1066; London English; Caxton's press at Westminster in 1476 | 2, 4, 5 |
| Peterborough | The Peterborough Chronicle, ending in 1154 | 3 |
| Lincolnshire | The Ormulum, probably composed there in the second half of the 12th century | 3 |
| Oxford | English became the language of instruction in 1349; Oxford Convocation vote on translations in 1407 or 1408; one of the places where the King James translators' committees sat | 2, 4, 7 |
English around the world: the three circles
Key to the circles sketch
| Mark | What it shows | Where the chapters say it |
|---|---|---|
| Blue boxes | Inner Circle, "norm-providing": the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and anglophone Canada | Chapter 9 |
| Green boxes | Outer Circle, "norm-developing": India, Nigeria, Kenya, Singapore, the Philippines and Jamaica | Chapter 9 |
| Grey boxes | Expanding Circle, "norm-dependent": China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, much of Europe and the Middle East | Chapter 9 |
Two caveats from the World Englishes article are worth repeating here: the categories are not fixed (Singapore may be shifting toward the Inner Circle), and the Expanding Circle total is "the most difficult to estimate", with estimates from 100 million to one billion. South Africa, which the article lists among the places of the first diaspora, is not among its circle examples, so I do not place it.
Note on sources
The England sketch is drawn from the dialect list in Chapter 3 (Wikipedia's Middle English) and the places named in Chapters 2 to 5; the circles sketch uses only the countries listed in Wikipedia's World Englishes article, as Chapter 9 gives them. The outline of England, the boundaries between dialects and the positions of towns are mine, drawn from my general knowledge and checked against no map, and the circles sketch is a labelled grid, not a map. The chapters' sources do not give coordinates. The Oxford marker is a rough position I chose.