• The common element of all different influences (Chancery English, Chaucer, and the Bible) is the East Midlands dialect and the dialect of the London area in particular

• The influence of a capital city is always critical in the emergence of a standard

• London was the place where three dialect areas met – Southern, South-Eastern, and East Midlands

• The written “London dialect” which emerged from around 1400 was far closer to the writing characteristic of the East Midlands area than of any other

• The East Midlands had always been the most populated and the most prosperous part of the country

• Strong agricultural and textile centres developed there during the early Middle Ages

• The capital opened up prospects for a better quality of life for people from other parts of the country

• People travelled to London from all over the country, but the majority would have been from the Midlands area

• After the series of plague outbreaks between 1348 and 1375 there was an employment vacuum in London

• During the 1400s the dialect character of London became increasingly Midlandish

• The Midlands dialect was easier for most people to understand, as a communication conduit between Northern and Southern speech

• An East Midlands accent in 1400 would not have sounded as provincial as the corresponding rural accent would today

• It would have prestigious associations with the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford

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