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ever come to such a long period of stability is the beginning of the
Old English period, from the fifth century to the beginning of the

ninth, and even then it is rather a stretch to put together four
hundred years without a major change.

Undoubtedly the most significant political development in the
history of English after the Norman Conquest was the spread of

English to the new world. And just as the development of the British

Empire was a process of happenstance, England was not effective at
amassing territories. By the time the settlements on the east coast of

America were founded, England ended up settling in North America

and India, putting down institutions and the English language.
Colonies in Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa and East

Asia came later. The colonies did three important things for the
language:

First, they increased the spread of English (increasing both the
number of English speakers and the regions in which English was

spoken);

second, they brought English into close contact with a wider variety
of other cultures;

third, they created more opportunities for variation.
All of these processes led to the evolution of different English

dialects.

Dialects and Dialectology

There have always been English dialects. Even in the Old

English period we can recognize Anglian, Kentish, and Saxon

variations of Old English (from, respectively, the northern, the
eastern, and the western sections of England).

Although there was broad dialect mixing after the Black Death,
we know that there were recognizable dialects in Middle English.

Much of the humor of Chaucer’s The Reeve’s Tale, for instance, is
based on the accents of the two main characters, Allen and John,

who are northerners at Cambridge. This is the same sort of joke that

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