David Graddol

Summarized by Mark Vawter

The earliest written form of English was done in Runic script, which features letters based on simple lines that could be easily cut with a blade.  The exact origins of Runic writing are unclear but it is known to have been used by various Germanic languages in third century AD, and came to England from mainland Europe (43).

The majority of English books and manuscripts produced in England before the printing press arrived were written in either Latin or French.  Administrative documents written in English began to appear in the fourteenth century (49).

Few documents from the periods of Old and Middle English have survived to modern times.  Early manuscripts were expensive and rare because production was very labor intensive and required skills, materials, and tools that were scarce.  Most early manuscripts were copied in monastery scriptoriums by monks and nuns and often included elaborate, colorful illuminations on the opening page of texts (49-50).

Uncial was the standard book hand script used throughout the Roman empire in the fourth century AD.  It was made up of the Roman square capital adapted for work done on parchment with a pen.  After the Roman empire broke up, different parts of Europe developed different national book hand scripts.  Insular majuscule is a development of Uncial and the first distinctively British script.  Insular minuscule was developed over time out of the need for an easier, quicker, and therefore cheaper book hand for use in the main body of texts. Old English script is based on the insular minuscule Roman alphabet plus a few extra letters added for Old English sounds not found in Latin (52-54).

               The carolingan book hand came into prominence as the language of record during a resurgence of Latin under Norman rule in the middle English period.  In the twelfth century carolingian script evolved into the 'gothic' or black letter script as preferences in writing instruments shifted from the quill pen to the reed pen (59).

               William Caxton printed the first book in English in 1473. With the rise of the printing press, the need for book hand scripts declined.  "After the fifteenth century handwriting was used almost exclusively for commercial, legal, and personal purposes" (64).  Two forms of handwriting were common in the early modern English period, italic and secretary, but after about 1700 the secretary hand was largely dropped in favor of the italic hand.  The development of handwriting manuals and handbooks featuring copperplate engravings of model handwriting scripts further influenced the way handwriting looked by promoting a way of manipulating the pen that was markedly different from the methods used by monks with quill pens in previous centuries (64-67).

By the nineteenth century writing had become a useful and necessary skill for ordinary people in everyday life, and how children in public schools should be taught to write became an issue of debate (68-71).

               Orthography--correct writing--embraces not only the idea of what the shape of handwriting or typeface should look like, but also how letters are arranged in words.  Spelling has varied over time in part due to differences in pronunciation and differences in spelling habits.  The development of printing helped to standardize spelling through mass producing uniformity.  There have been numerous attempts to reform the orthography of English (72-73).

Summarize the seven ages of English as presented by Graddol in chapter two.

Briefly describe the development of written English from the pre-English period through the late modern English period.

What were some of the gender and social attitudes associated with various types of handwriting from the 16th century onward?