In an English-speaking country , Standard English ( SE ) is the variety of English that has undergone codification to the point of being socially perceived as the standard language , associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service announcements and newspapers of record , etc. All linguistic features are subject to the effects of standardisation, including morphology , phonology , syntax , lexicon , register , discourse markers , pragmatics , as well as written features such as spelling conventions , punctuation , capitalisation and abbreviation practices . SE is local to nowhere: its grammatical and lexical components are no longer regionally marked , although many of them originated in different, non-adjacent dialects , and it has very little of the variation found in spoken or earlier written varieties of English. According to Peter Trudgill , Standard English is a social dialect pre-eminently used in writing that is distinguishable from other English dialects largely by a small group of grammatical "idiosyncrasies", such as irregular reflexive pronouns and an "unusual" present-tense verb morphology .
150-520: The term "Standard" refers to the regularisation of the grammar, spelling, usages of the language and not to minimal desirability or interchangeability (e.g., a standard measure ). For example, there are substantial differences among the language varieties that countries of the Anglosphere identify as "standard English": in England and Wales , the term Standard English identifies British English ,
300-426: A bridge language , common language , trade language , auxiliary language , link language or language of wider communication ( LWC ), is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages. Linguae francae have developed around
450-443: A pidgin or creole language blends English with one or more native languages. Although the standard Englishes of the anglophone countries are similar, there are minor grammatical differences and divergences of vocabulary among the varieties. In American and Australian English, for example, "sunk" and "shrunk" as past-tense forms of "sink" and "shrink" are acceptable as standard forms, whereas standard British English retains only
600-785: A vernacular language is the native language of a specific geographical community, a lingua franca is used beyond the boundaries of its original community, for trade, religious, political, or academic reasons. For example, English is a vernacular in the United Kingdom but it is used as a lingua franca in the Philippines , alongside Filipino . Likewise, Arabic , French , Standard Chinese , Russian and Spanish serve similar purposes as industrial and educational lingua francas across regional and national boundaries. Even though they are used as bridge languages, international auxiliary languages such as Esperanto have not had
750-640: A "standard literary language" was the West Saxon variety of Old English. However, Lucia Kornexl defines the classification of Late West Saxon Standard as rather constituting a set of orthographic norms than a standardised dialect, as there was no such thing as standardisation of Old English in the modern sense: Old English did not standardise in terms of reduction of variation, reduction of regional variation, selection of word-stock, standardisation of morphology or syntax, or use of one dialect for all written purposes everywhere. The Norman Conquest of 1066 decreased
900-756: A 55° thread angle and a thread depth of 0.640327 p and a radius of 0.137329 p , where p is the pitch. The thread pitch increased with diameter in steps specified on a chart. An example of the use of the Whitworth thread is the Royal Navy 's Crimean War gunboats. These were the first instance of "mass-production" techniques being applied to marine engineering. With the adoption of BSW by British railway lines, many of which had previously used their own standard both for threads and for bolt head and nut profiles, and improving manufacturing techniques, it came to dominate British manufacturing. American Unified Coarse
1050-525: A common language, and spread across the Arab and Muslim worlds. In Djibouti and parts of Eritrea , both of which are countries where multiple official languages are spoken, Arabic has emerged as a lingua franca in part thanks to the population of the region being predominantly Muslim and Arabic playing a crucial role in Islam. In addition, after having fled from Eritrea due to ongoing warfare and gone to some of
1200-598: A critique of Fisher's philological work, see Michael Benskin 2004, who calls his scholarship "uninformed not only philologically but historically". Gwilym Dodd has shown that most letters written by scribes from the Office of Chancery were in Medieval Latin and that petitions to the Crown shifted from Anglo-Norman French before c. 1425 to monolingual English around the middle of the century. Scribes working for
1350-531: A great degree of adoption, so they are not described as lingua francas. The term lingua franca derives from Mediterranean Lingua Franca (also known as Sabir ), the pidgin language that people around the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean Sea used as the main language of commerce and diplomacy from the late Middle Ages to the 18th century, most notably during the Renaissance era . During that period,
1500-404: A larger network and attracting more consumers to use the new technology, further enhancing network effects. Other benefits of standardization to consumers are reduced uncertainty, because consumers can be more certain that they are not choosing the wrong product, and reduced lock-in, because the standard makes it more likely that there will be competing products in the space. Consumers may also get
1650-413: A lower frequency of regionally-marked spellings were found in wills from urban York versus those from rural Swaledale ; and texts from Cambridge were less regionally marked than those from the surrounding Midlands and East Anglian areas. However, these late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century supralocal varieties of English were not yet standardised. Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman and mixed-language set
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#17327662362311800-441: A measuring instrument or procedure is similar to every subjects or patients. For example, educational psychologist may adopt structured interview to systematically interview the people in concern. By delivering the same procedures, all subjects is evaluated using same criteria and minimising any confounding variable that reduce the validity . Some other example includes mental status examination and personality test . In
1950-504: A merger of two predecessor organizations (Bern and Paris treaties) that had similar objectives, but in more limited territories. With the advent of radiocommunication soon after the creation, the work of the ITU quickly expanded from the standardization of Telegraph communications, to developing standards for telecommunications in general. By the mid to late 19th century, efforts were being made to standardize electrical measurement. Lord Kelvin
2100-448: A metal fastening on the other side were usually fastened in non-threaded ways (such as clinching or upsetting against a washer). Maudslay standardized the screw threads used in his workshop and produced sets of taps and dies that would make nuts and bolts consistently to those standards, so that any bolt of the appropriate size would fit any nut of the same size. This was a major advance in workshop technology. Maudslay's work, as well as
2250-855: A minority language in the Baltic states and some other states in Eastern Europe, as well as in pre- opening China. It remains the official language of the Commonwealth of Independent States . Russian is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union , its use has declined in post-Soviet states. Parts of the Russian speaking minorities outside Russia have emigrated to Russia or assimilated into their countries of residence by learning
2400-551: A native language. In medical practices and hospitals, nurses typically communicate with other professionals in English as a lingua franca. This occurrence has led to interest in researching the consequences of the medical community communicating in a lingua franca. English is also sometimes used in Switzerland between people who do not share one of Switzerland's four official languages , or with foreigners who are not fluent in
2550-513: A precedent model, as Latin and French had long been conventionalised on the page and their range of variation was limited. Supralocal varieties of English took on this uniformity by reducing more regionally-marked features and permitting only one or two minor variants. Later fifteenth- and sixteenth-century supralocalisation was facilitated by increased trade networks. As people in cities and towns increasingly did business with each other, words, morphemes and spelling-sequences were transferred around
2700-664: A process of change the lingua franca and Portuguese lexicon was replaced with the languages of the people in contact. Portuguese remains an important lingua franca in the Portuguese-speaking African countries , East Timor , and to a certain extent in Macau where it is recognized as an official language alongside Chinese though in practice not commonly spoken. Portuguese and Spanish have a certain degree of mutual intelligibility and mixed languages such as Portuñol are used to facilitate communication in areas like
2850-1028: A regional level (e.g. Europa, the Americas, Africa, etc) or at subregional level (e.g. Mercosur, Andean Community, South East Asia, South East Africa, etc), several Regional Standardization Organizations exist (see also Standards Organization ). The three regional standards organizations in Europe – European Standardization Organizations (ESOs), recognised by the EU Regulation on Standardization (Regulation (EU) 1025/2012) – are CEN , CENELEC and ETSI . CEN develops standards for numerous kinds of products, materials, services and processes. Some sectors covered by CEN include transport equipment and services, chemicals, construction, consumer products, defence and security, energy, food and feed, health and safety, healthcare, digital sector, machinery or services. The European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC)
3000-507: A scientific basis, the robustness and applicability of a scientific basis, whether adoption of the certifications is voluntary, and the socioeconomic context (systems of governance and the economy ), with possibly most certifications being so far mostly largely ineffective. Moreover, standardized scientific frameworks can enable evaluation of levels of environmental protection, such as of marine protected areas , and serve as, potentially evolving, guides for improving, planning and monitoring
3150-498: A simplified version of mainly Italian in the eastern Mediterranean and Spanish in the western Mediterranean that incorporated many loanwords from Greek , Slavic languages , Arabic , and Turkish came to be widely used as the "lingua franca" of the region, although some scholars claim that the Mediterranean Lingua Franca was just poorly used Italian. In Lingua Franca (the specific language), lingua
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#17327662362313300-463: A standard English with a grammar, spelling and pronunciation particular to the local culture. As the result of colonisation and historical migrations of English-speaking populations, and the predominant use of English as the international language of trade and commerce (a lingua franca ), English has also become the most widely used second language. Countries in which English is neither indigenous nor widely spoken as an additional language may import
3450-430: A standardised dialect become associated with nonlinguistic social markers of prestige (like wealth or education). The standardised dialect itself, in other words, is not linguistically superior to other dialects of English used by an Anglophone society. Unlike with some other standard languages , there is no national academy or international academy with ultimate authority to codify Standard English; its codification
3600-591: A variant spoken in Riau specifically as the basis for " Indonesian " for national use despite Javanese having more native speakers; this standard is the sole official language spoken throughout the vast country despite being the first language of some Indonesians. Swahili developed as a lingua franca between several Bantu -speaking tribal groups on the east coast of Africa with heavy influence from Arabic. The earliest examples of writing in Swahili are from 1711. In
3750-562: A variety of English via instructional materials (typically British English or American English ) and consider it "standard" for teaching and assessment purposes. Typically, British English is taught as standard across Europe , the Caribbean , sub-Saharan Africa , and South Asia , and American English is taught as standard across Latin America and East Asia . This does, however, vary between regions and individual teachers. In some areas
3900-520: A variety of benefits and drawbacks for firms and consumers participating in the market, and on technology and innovation. The primary effect of standardization on firms is that the basis of competition is shifted from integrated systems to individual components within the system. Prior to standardization a company's product must span the entire system because individual components from different competitors are incompatible, but after standardization each company can focus on providing an individual component of
4050-607: A variety of fields and international organizations to communicate with one another. English is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the historical global influence of the British Empire and the United States . It is a co-official language of the United Nations and many other international and regional organizations and has also become the de facto language of diplomacy , science , international trade , tourism , aviation , entertainment and
4200-710: A widely studied language in Central Europe and the Balkans, especially in former Yugoslavia . It is recognized as an official language in countries outside of Europe, specifically Namibia . German is also one of the working languages of the EU along English and French, but it is used less in that role than the other two. Today, Standard Mandarin Chinese is the lingua franca of China and Taiwan , which are home to many mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese and, in
4350-462: A wider distribution". Over the later fifteenth century, individuals began to restrict their spelling ratios, selecting fewer variants. However, each scribe made individual selections so that the pool of possible variants per feature still remained wide at the turn of the sixteenth century. Thus, the early stage of standardisation can be identified by the reduction of grammatical and orthographical variants and loss of geographically marked variants in
4500-497: Is a Canadian Crown Corporation , DGN is a governmental agency within the Mexican Ministry of Economy, and ANSI and AENOR are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with members from both the private and public sectors. The determinants of whether an NSB for a particular economy is a public or private sector body may include the historical and traditional roles that the private sector fills in public affairs in that economy or
4650-569: Is attested across a wide geography beyond South Asia. Inscriptions and literary evidence suggest that Sanskrit was already being adopted in Southeast Asia and Central Asia in the 1st millennium CE, through monks, religious pilgrims and merchants. Until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese served as both the written lingua franca and the diplomatic language in East Asia, including China, Korea , Japan , Ryūkyū , and Vietnam . In
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4800-482: Is controversial, and which have sometimes been identified with each other. These are: Ajem-Turkic functioned as lingua franca in the Caucasus region and in southeastern Dagestan , and was widely spoken at the court and in the army of Safavid Iran . English is sometimes described as the foremost global lingua franca, being used as a working language by individuals of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds in
4950-569: Is equally applicable to a non-creole language native to one nation (often a colonial power) learned as a second language and used for communication between diverse language communities in a colony or former colony. Lingua francas are often pre-existing languages with native speakers, but they can also be pidgins or creoles developed for that specific region or context. Pidgins are rapidly developed and simplified combinations of two or more established languages, while creoles are generally viewed as pidgins that have evolved into fully complex languages in
5100-522: Is from the Italian for 'a language'. Franca is related to Greek Φρᾰ́γκοι ( Phránkoi ) and Arabic إِفْرَنْجِي ( ʾifranjiyy ) as well as the equivalent Italian—in all three cases, the literal sense is ' Frankish ', leading to the direct translation: 'language of the Franks '. During the late Byzantine Empire , Franks was a term that applied to all Western Europeans. Through changes of
5250-737: Is likely the sole member from that economy in ISO. NSBs may be either public or private sector organizations, or combinations of the two. For example, the three NSBs of Canada, Mexico and the United States are respectively the Standards Council of Canada ( SCC ), the General Bureau of Standards ( Dirección General de Normas , DGN), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). SCC
5400-522: Is no longer felt necessary to posit unevidenced migrations of peoples to account for movement of words, morphemes and spelling conventions from the provinces into Standard English. Such multiregionalisms in Standard English are explained by the fifteenth-century countrywide expansion of business, trade and commerce, with linguistic elements passed around communities of practice and along weak-tie trade networks, both orally and in writing. Although
5550-578: Is not limited to the domain of electronic devices like smartphones and phone chargers but could also be applied to e.g. the energy infrastructure. Policy-makers could develop policies "fostering standard design and interfaces, and promoting the re-use of modules and components across plants to develop more sustainable energy infrastructure ". Computers and the Internet are some of the tools that could be used to increase practicability and reduce suboptimal results, detrimental standards and bureaucracy , which
5700-666: Is often associated with traditional processes and results of standardization. Taxes and subsidies, and funding of research and development could be used complementarily. Standardized measurement is used in monitoring, reporting and verification frameworks of environmental impacts, usually of companies, for example to prevent underreporting of greenhouse gas emissions by firms. In routine product testing and product analysis results can be reported using official or informal standards. It can be done to increase consumer protection , to ensure safety or healthiness or efficiency or performance or sustainability of products. It can be carried out by
5850-707: Is the European Standardization organization developing standards in the electrotechnical area and corresponding to the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in Europe. The first modern International Organization ( Intergovernmental Organization ) the International Telegraph Union (now International Telecommunication Union ) was created in 1865 to set international standards in order to connect national telegraph networks, as
6000-526: Is the preferred and dominant language used for inter-communication between different ethnic groups of Pakistan. Malay is understood across a cultural region in Southeast Asia called the " Malay world " including Brunei , Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand , and certain parts of the Philippines. It is pluricentric , with several nations codifying a local vernacular variety into several national literary standards: Indonesia notably adopts
6150-519: Is the primary medium of education and serves as the lingua franca among citizens. Even in countries not associated with the English-speaking world , English has emerged as a lingua franca in certain situations where its use is perceived to be more efficient to communicate, especially among groups consisting of native speakers of many languages. In Qatar , the medical community is primarily made up of workers from countries without English as
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6300-426: Is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization can help maximize compatibility , interoperability , safety , repeatability , or quality . It can also facilitate a normalization of formerly custom processes. In social sciences , including economics ,
6450-474: Is thus only by widespread prescriptive consensus. The codification is therefore not exhaustive or unanimous, but it is extensive and well-documented. Although standard English is usually associated with official communications and settings, it is diverse in registers (stylistic levels), such as those for journalism (print, television, internet) and for academic publishing (monographs, academic papers, internet). This diversity in registers also exists between
6600-456: Is time to lay the types to rest". Simon Horobin examining spelling in Type 3 texts reported "such variation warns us against viewing these types of London English as discrete … we must view Samuels' typology as a linguistic continuum rather than as a series of discrete linguistic varieties". Samuels's Type IV, dating after 1435, was labelled by Samuels 'Chancery Standard' because it was supposedly
6750-766: Is used as a lingua franca in Switzerland to some extent; however, English is generally preferred to avoid favoring it over the three other official languages. Middle Low German used to be the Lingua franca during the late Hohenstaufen till the mid-15th century periods, in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea when extensive trading was done by the Hanseatic League along the Baltic and North Seas. German remains
6900-793: The Carpathian Mountains , the Danube and the Black sea , corresponding to Wallachia and Moldavia . Nowadays, the Cyrillic writing system is used for various languages across Eurasia, and as the national script in various Slavic, Turkic , Mongolic , Uralic , Caucasian and Iranic -speaking countries in Southeastern Europe , Eastern Europe, the Caucasus , Central, North, and East Asia. The Mediterranean Lingua Franca
7050-596: The French Caribbean , French is the lingua franca in professional sectors and education, even though it is not the native language of the majority. French continues to be used as a lingua franca in certain cultural fields such as cuisine , fashion , and sport . As a consequence of Brexit , French has been increasingly used as a lingua franca in the European Union and its institutions either alongside or, at times, in place of English. German
7200-507: The Internet . When the United Kingdom became a colonial power, English served as the lingua franca of the colonies of the British Empire . In the post-colonial period, most of the newly independent nations which had many indigenous languages opted to continue using English as one of their official languages such as Ghana and South Africa . In other former colonies with several official languages such as Singapore and Fiji , English
7350-838: The Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English did not support the possibility of an East Anglian or East Midland migration, and he replaced it by hypothesising a migration of people from the Central Midlands, although without historical evidence. Like Ekwall, Samuels was not dogmatic and presented his work as preliminary. Samuels classified fifteenth century manuscripts into four Types. These divisions have subsequently proved problematical, partly because Samuels did not specify exactly which manuscripts fall into which class, and partly because other scholars do not see inherent cohesiveness within each Type. Matti Peikola examining Type 1, ('Central Midland Standard') spelling ratios in
7500-648: The Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries. A world language —a language spoken internationally and by many people—is a language that may function as a global lingua franca. Any language regularly used for communication between people who do not share a native language is a lingua franca. Lingua franca is a functional term, independent of any linguistic history or language structure. Pidgins are therefore lingua francas; creoles and arguably mixed languages may similarly be used for communication between language groups. But lingua franca
7650-669: The Received Pronunciation accent, and the grammar and vocabulary of United Kingdom Standard English (UKSE); in Scotland , the variety is Scottish English ; in the United States, the General American variety is the spoken standard; and in Australia, the standard English is General Australian . By virtue of a phenomenon sociolinguists call "elaboration of function", specific linguistic features attributed to
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#17327662362317800-570: The Silk Road , which is why native speakers of Sogdian were employed as translators in Tang China . The Sogdians also ended up circulating spiritual beliefs and texts, including those of Buddhism and Christianity , thanks to their ability to communicate to many people in the region through their native language. Old Church Slavonic , an Eastern South Slavic language, is the first Slavic literary language . Between 9th and 11th century, it
7950-543: The standard unit of electric current . R. E. B. Crompton became concerned by the large range of different standards and systems used by electrical engineering companies and scientists in the early 20th century. Many companies had entered the market in the 1890s and all chose their own settings for voltage , frequency , current and even the symbols used on circuit diagrams. Adjacent buildings would have totally incompatible electrical systems simply because they had been fitted out by different companies. Crompton could see
8100-496: The wh- pronouns, and single negation, multiple negations being common in Old and Middle English and remaining so in spoken regional varieties of English. In the twenty-first century, scholars consider all of the above and more, including the rate of standardisation across different text-types such as administrative documents; the role of the individual in spreading standardisation; the influence of multilingual and mixed-language writing;
8250-774: The 12th century AD. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bangalore . Latin , through the power of the Roman Republic , became the dominant language in Italy and subsequently throughout the realms of the Roman Empire. Even after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire , Latin was the common language of communication, science, and academia in Europe until well into
8400-593: The 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Classical Māori is the retrospective name for the language (formed out of many dialects, albeit all mutually intelligible) of both the North Island and the South Island for
8550-632: The 800 years before the European settlement of New Zealand . Māori shared a common language that was used for trade, inter- iwi dialogue on marae , and education through wānanga . After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi , Māori language was the lingua franca of the Colony of New Zealand until English superseded it in the 1870s. The description of Māori language as New Zealand's 19th-century lingua franca has been widely accepted. The language
8700-574: The Continent from the 1370s onwards until the language fell out of use in Britain in the 1430s. After the last quarter of the fourteenth century Anglo-Norman written in England displayed the kind of grammatical levelling which occurs as the result of language acquired in adulthood, and deduces that the use of Anglo-Norman in England as a spoken vehicle for teaching in childhood must have ceased around
8850-581: The Crown committed to writing in monolingual English so that the first English royal letter of 1417 did not signal a wholesale switchover. Latin was still the dominant language in the second half of the fifteenth century. As Merja Stenroos put it, "the main change was the reduction in the use of French, and the long-term development was towards more Latin, not less. On the whole, the output of government documents in English continued to be small compared to Latin." Standardization Standardization ( American English ) or standardisation ( British English )
9000-504: The Crown wrote in Latin, but scribes working for individuals petitioning the king – it is likely that individuals engaged professionals to write on their behalf, but who these scribes were is not usually known – wrote in French before the first third of the fifteenth century, and after that date in English. As with mixed-language writing, there followed decades of switching back and forth before
9150-610: The Danelaw in general. Thus his dataset was very limited, by 'standard' he meant a few spellings and morphemes rather than a dialect per se, his data did not support migration from the East Midlands, and he made unsupported assumptions about the influence of the speech of the upper classes (details in Laura Wright 2020). Michael Louis Samuels criticised Ekwall's East Midlands hypothesis. He shifted Ekwall's hypothesis from
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#17327662362319300-514: The East Midlands (in which he included East Anglia) migrated to London between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and 1360. By this method, he found that most Londoners who bore surnames from elsewhere indicated an origin in London's hinterland, not from East Anglia or the East Midlands. Nevertheless, he hypothesised that East Midlands upper-class speakers did affect the speech of the upper classes in London. He thought that upper-class speech would have been influential, although he also suggested influence from
9450-632: The East to the Central Midlands, he classified late medieval London and other texts into Types I-IV, and he introduced the label '"Chancery Standard'" to describe writing from the King's Office of Chancery, which he claimed was the precursor of Standard English. Samuels did not question Ekwall's original assumption that there must have been a migration from somewhere north of London to account for certain ⟨a⟩ graphs and ⟨e⟩ letter-graphs in stressed syllables, present plural suffix -e(n , present participle suffix -ing , and pronoun they in fifteenth-century London texts, but his work for
9600-510: The National Standardizing Associations (ISA) was founded in 1926 with a broader remit to enhance international cooperation for all technical standards and specifications. The body was suspended in 1942 during World War II . After the war, ISA was approached by the recently formed United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) with a proposal to form a new global standards body. In October 1946, ISA and UNSCC delegates from 25 countries met in London and agreed to join forces to create
9750-455: The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards ( OASIS ). There are many specifications that govern the operation and interaction of devices and software on the Internet , which do not use the term "standard" in their names. The W3C , for example, publishes "Recommendations", and the IETF publishes " Requests for Comments " (RFCs). Nevertheless, these publications are often referred to as "standards", because they are
9900-430: The Portuguese Empire, Africa, South America and Asia in the 15th and 16th centuries. When the Portuguese started exploring the seas of Africa, America, Asia and Oceania, they tried to communicate with the natives by mixing a Portuguese-influenced version of lingua franca with the local languages. When Dutch, English or French ships came to compete with the Portuguese, the crews tried to learn this "broken Portuguese". Through
10050-520: The benefit of being able to mix and match components of a system to align with their specific preferences. Once these initial benefits of standardization are realized, further benefits that accrue to consumers as a result of using the standard are driven mostly by the quality of the technologies underlying that standard. Lingua franca A lingua franca ( / ˌ l ɪ ŋ ɡ w ə ˈ f r æ ŋ k ə / ; lit. ' Frankish tongue ' ; for plurals see § Usage notes ), also known as
10200-520: The border area between Brazil and Uruguay. The Hindustani language , with Hindi and Urdu as dual standard varieties, serves as the lingua franca of Pakistan and Northern India . Many Hindi-speaking North Indian states have adopted the three-language formula in which students are taught: "(a) Hindi (with Sanskrit as part of the composite course); (b) Any other modern Indian language including Urdu and (c) English or any other modern European language." The order in non-Hindi speaking states is: "(a)
10350-405: The breakup of much of the empire in the Americas, its function as a lingua franca was solidified by the governments of the newly independent nations of what is now Hispanic America . While its usage in Spain's Asia-Pacific colonies has largely died out except in the Philippines , where it is still spoken by a small minority, Spanish became the lingua franca of what is now Equatorial Guinea , being
10500-428: The case of Taiwan, indigenous Formosan languages . Among many Chinese diaspora communities, Cantonese is often used as the lingua franca instead, particularly in Southeast Asia, due to a longer history of immigration and trade networks with southern China, although Mandarin has also been adopted in some circles since the 2000s. Arabic was used as a lingua franca across the Islamic empires, whose sizes necessitated
10650-433: The commercial interest of Indus merchants as smaller weight measures were used to measure luxury goods while larger weights were employed for buying bulkier items, such as food grains etc. Weights existed in multiples of a standard weight and in categories. Technical standardisation enabled gauging devices to be effectively used in angular measurement and measurement for construction. Uniform units of length were used in
10800-491: The context of customer service , standardization refers to the process of developing an international standard that enables organizations to focus on customer service, while at the same time providing recognition of success through a third party organization, such as the British Standards Institution . An international standard has been developed by The International Customer Service Institute . In
10950-635: The context of supply chain management and materials management , standardization covers the process of specification and use of any item the company must buy in or make, allowable substitutions, and build or buy decisions. The process of standardization can itself be standardized. There are at least four levels of standardization: compatibility, interchangeability , commonality and reference . These standardization processes create compatibility, similarity, measurement, and symbol standards. There are typically four different techniques for standardization Types of standardization process: Standardization has
11100-683: The context of information exchange, standardization refers to the process of developing standards for specific business processes using specific formal languages . These standards are usually developed in voluntary consensus standards bodies such as the United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business ( UN/CEFACT ), the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C ), the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and
11250-550: The context of social criticism and social science , standardization often means the process of establishing standards of various kinds and improving efficiency to handle people, their interactions, cases, and so forth. Examples include formalization of judicial procedure in court, and establishing uniform criteria for diagnosing mental disease. Standardization in this sense is often discussed along with (or synonymously to) such large-scale social changes as modernization, bureaucratization, homogenization, and centralization of society. In
11400-526: The contributions of other engineers, accomplished a modest amount of industry standardization; some companies' in-house standards spread a bit within their industries. Joseph Whitworth 's screw thread measurements were adopted as the first (unofficial) national standard by companies around the country in 1841. It came to be known as the British Standard Whitworth , and was widely adopted in other countries. This new standard specified
11550-626: The country by means of speaker-contact, writer-contact and the repeat back-and-forth encounters inherent in trading activity, from places of greater density to those of lower. Communities of practice such as accountants auditing income and outgoings, merchants keeping track of wares and payments, and lawyers writing letters on behalf of clients, led to the development of specific writing conventions for specific spheres of activity. English letter-writers 1424–1474 in one community of practice (estate administrators) reduced spelling variation in words of Romance origin but not in words of English origin, reflecting
11700-727: The country, and enabled the markets to act more rationally and efficiently, with an increased level of cooperation. After the First World War , similar national bodies were established in other countries. The Deutsches Institut für Normung was set up in Germany in 1917, followed by its counterparts, the American National Standard Institute and the French Commission Permanente de Standardisation , both in 1918. At
11850-799: The course of adaptation by subsequent generations. Pre-existing lingua francas such as French are used to facilitate intercommunication in large-scale trade or political matters, while pidgins and creoles often arise out of colonial situations and a specific need for communication between colonists and indigenous peoples. Pre-existing lingua francas are generally widespread, highly developed languages with many native speakers. Conversely, pidgins are very simplified means of communication, containing loose structuring, few grammatical rules, and possessing few or no native speakers. Creole languages are more developed than their ancestral pidgins, utilizing more complex structure, grammar, and vocabulary, as well as having substantial communities of native speakers. Whereas
12000-420: The development stage of that economy. Standards can be: The existence of a published standard does not necessarily imply that it is useful or correct. Just because an item is stamped with a standard number does not, by itself, indicate that the item is fit for any particular use. The people who use the item or service (engineers, trade unions, etc.) or specify it (building codes, government, industry, etc.) have
12150-597: The dialect in which letters from the King's Office of Chancery supposedly emanated. John H. Fisher and his collaborators asserted that the orthography of a selection of documents including Signet Letters of Henry V, copies of petitions sent to the Court of Chancery, and indentures now kept in The National Archives, constituted what he called "Chancery English". This orthographical practice was supposedly created by
12300-549: The early 19th century the use of Swahili as a lingua franca moved inland with the Arabic ivory and slave traders. It was eventually adopted by Europeans as well during periods of colonization in the area. German colonizers used it as the language of administration in German East Africa , later becoming Tanganyika , which influenced the choice to use it as a national language in what is now independent Tanzania . Swahili
12450-784: The early 20th century, vernacular written Chinese replaced Classical Chinese within China as both the written and spoken lingua franca for speakers of different Chinese dialects, and because of the declining power and cultural influence of China in East Asia, English has since replaced Classical Chinese as the lingua franca in East Asia. Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the Hellenistic culture. Koine Greek (Modern Greek : Ελληνιστική Κοινή , romanized : Ellinistikí Kiní , lit. 'Common Greek'; Greek: [elinistiˈci ciˈni] ), also known as Alexandrian dialect, common Attic, Hellenistic, or Biblical Greek,
12600-400: The end of the fourteenth century. An examination of 7,070 Hampshire administrative (episcopal, municipal, manorial) documents written 1399–1525 showed that Anglo-Norman ceased to be used after 1425. The pragmatic function for which Anglo-Norman had been used – largely administering money – became replaced by monolingual English or Latin. Anglo-Norman was abandoned towards the end of
12750-879: The following hypotheses have now been superseded, they still prevail in literature aimed at students. However more recent handbook accounts such as those of Ursula Schaeffer and Joan C. Beal explain that they are insufficient. Bror Eilert Ekwall hypothesised that Standard English developed from the language of upper-class East Midland merchants who influenced speakers in the City of London. By language , Ekwall stipulated just certain ⟨a⟩ graphs and ⟨e⟩ letter-graphs in stressed syllables, present plural suffix -e(n , present participle suffix -ing , and pronoun they , which he thought could not be East Saxon and so must be from eastern Anglian territory. He, therefore, examined locative surnames in order to discover whether people bearing names originating from settlements in
12900-420: The former being first-listed or only-listed in major dictionaries. The use of lingua francas has existed since antiquity. Akkadian remained the common language of a large part of Western Asia from several earlier empires, until it was supplanted in this role by Aramaic . Sanskrit historically served as a lingua franca throughout the majority of South Asia. The Sanskrit language's historic presence
13050-574: The fourteenth century, though the consequent absorption of many of its written features into written English paralled the socio-economic improvement of the poorer, monolingually English-speaking classes over that century. When monolingual English replaced Anglo-Norman French, it took over its pragmatic functions too. A survey of the Middle English Local Documents corpus, containing 2,017 texts from 766 different locations around England written 1399–1525, found that language choice
13200-501: The frequency of consistent usage). English is the first language of the majority of the population in a number of countries , including the United Kingdom , the United States , Canada , Republic of Ireland , Australia , New Zealand , Jamaica , Trinidad and Tobago , the Bahamas and Barbados and is an official language in many others , including India , Pakistan , the Philippines , South Africa and Nigeria ; each country has
13350-439: The government of Henry V, and was supposedly the precursor of Standard English. However, this assertion attracted strong objections, such as those made by Norman Davis, T. Haskett, R. J. Watts, and Reiko Takeda. Takeda points out that "the language of the documents displays much variation and it is not clear from the collection what exactly 'Chancery English' is, linguistically" (for a critique of Fisher's assertions, see Takeda.) For
13500-403: The grammatical basis, adding in nouns, noun-modifiers, compound-nouns, verb-stems and - ing forms from Anglo-Norman French and Middle English. This mixing of the three in a grammatically regular system is known to modern scholars as mixed-language , and it became the later fourteenth and fifteenth-century norm for accounts, inventories, testaments and personal journals. The mixed-language system
13650-491: The idea of standardization is close to the solution for a coordination problem , a situation in which all parties can realize mutual gains, but only by making mutually consistent decisions. Divergent national standards impose costs on consumers and can be a form of non-tariff trade barrier . Standard weights and measures were developed by the Indus Valley civilization . The centralized weight and measure system served
13800-630: The influence of the Book of Common Prayer ; standardisation of the wordstock; evolution of technical registers; standardisation of morphemes; standardisation of letter-graphs, and the partial standardisation of Older Scots . After the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great and his successors, the West Saxon variety of Old English began to influence writing practices in other parts of England. The first variety of English to be called
13950-471: The international level . Standardization is also used to ensure safe design and operation of laboratories and similar potentially dangerous workplaces, e.g. to ensure biosafety levels . There is research into microbiology safety standards used in clinical and research laboratories. In the context of defense, standardization has been defined by NATO as The development and implementation of concepts, doctrines, procedures and designs to achieve and maintain
14100-630: The lack of efficiency in this system and began to consider proposals for an international standard for electric engineering. In 1904, Crompton represented Britain at the International Electrical Congress , held in connection with Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis as part of a delegation by the Institute of Electrical Engineers . He presented a paper on standardisation, which was so well received that he
14250-487: The language of communication between European academics, merchants, and diplomats. With the expansion of Western colonial empires, French became the main language of diplomacy and international relations up until World War II when it was replaced by English due the rise of the United States as the leading superpower . Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles
14400-465: The late fifteenth century were still regional, but less so than fourteenth-century Middle English had been, particularly with regard to morphemes, closed-class words and spelling sequences. As some examples: less regionally-marked features "urban-hopped" in texts from Cheshire and Staffordshire ("urban-hopping" refers to texts copied in cities being more standardised than those copied in smaller towns and villages, which contained more local dialect features);
14550-454: The lingua franca for most of ancient Tamilakam and Sri Lanka . John Guy states that Tamil was also the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. The language and its dialects were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century AD. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in the southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until
14700-486: The local language and using it preferably in daily communication. In Central European countries that were members of the Warsaw Pact , where Russian was only a political language used in international communication and where there was no Russian minority, the Russian language practically does not exist, and in schools it was replaced by English as the primary foreign language. Portuguese served as lingua franca in
14850-591: The local language. In the European Union , the use of English as a lingua franca has led researchers to investigate whether a Euro English dialect has emerged. In the fields of technology and science, English emerged as a lingua franca in the 20th century. The Spanish language spread mainly throughout the New World , becoming a lingua franca in the territories and colonies of the Spanish Empire , which also included parts of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. After
15000-482: The main language of government and education and is spoken by the vast majority of the population. Due to large numbers of immigrants from Latin America in the second half of the 20th century and resulting influence, Spanish has also emerged somewhat as a lingua franca in parts of the Southwestern United States and southern Florida , especially in communities where native Spanish speakers form
15150-433: The main royal courts of Europe, and among intellectuals. This lasted from the 14th century to the end of the 16th, when French replaced Italian as the usual lingua franca in northern Europe. Italian musical terms, in particular dynamic and tempo notations, have continued in use to the present day. Classical Quechua is either of two historical forms of Quechua , the exact relationship and degree of closeness between which
15300-697: The major language of the state or region; (b) Hindi; (c) Any other modern Indian language including Urdu but excluding (a) and (b) above; and (d) English or any other modern European language." Hindi has also emerged as a lingua franca in Arunachal Pradesh , a linguistically diverse state in Northeast India. It is estimated that nine-tenths of the state's population knows Hindi. Urdu is the lingua franca of Pakistan and had gained significant influence amongst its people, administration and education. While it shares official status with English, Urdu
15450-434: The majority of the population. At present it is the second most used language in international trade, and the third most used in politics, diplomacy and culture after English and French. It is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world and is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations . French is sometimes regarded as the first global lingua franca, having supplanted Latin as
15600-645: The manufacturer, an independent laboratory, a government agency, a magazine or others on a voluntary or commissioned/mandated basis. Estimating the environmental impacts of food products in a standardized way – as has been done with a dataset of >57,000 food products in supermarkets – could e.g. be used to inform consumers or in policy . For example, such may be useful for approaches using personal carbon allowances (or similar quota) or for targeted alteration of (ultimate overall) costs . Public information symbols (e.g. hazard symbols ), especially when related to safety, are often standardized, sometimes on
15750-533: The many indigenous languages spoken in their territory. Notably, in most Francophone West and Central African countries, French has transitioned from being only a lingua franca to the native language among some communities, mostly in urban areas or among the elite class. In other regions such as the French-speaking countries of the Maghreb ( Algeria , Tunisia , Morocco , and Mauritania ) and parts of
15900-403: The mixed-language stage, with no knowledge that monolingual English would be the eventual outcome and that it was in fact a stage of transition. For much of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, writing in mixed-language was the professional norm in money-related text types, providing a conduit for the borrowing of Anglo-Norman vocabulary into English. From the 1370s, monolingual Middle English
16050-438: The national varieties of SE are characterised by generally accepted rules, often grammars established by linguistic prescription in the 18th century. English originated in England during the Anglo-Saxon period , and is now spoken as a first or second language in many countries of the world, many of which have developed one or more "national standards" (though this does not refer to published standards documents , but to
16200-533: The nearby Arab countries, Eritrean emigrants are contributing to Arabic becoming a lingua franca in the region by coming back to their homelands having picked up the Arabic language. Russian is in use and widely understood in Central Asia and the Caucasus , areas formerly part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Its use remains prevalent in many post-Soviet states . Russian has some presence as
16350-484: The new International Organization for Standardization (ISO); the new organization officially began operations in February ;1947. In general, each country or economy has a single recognized National Standards Body (NSB). Examples include ABNT , AENOR (now called UNE, Spanish Association for Standardization ) , AFNOR , ANSI , BSI , DGN , DIN , IRAM , JISC , KATS , SABS , SAC , SCC , SIS . An NSB
16500-524: The nobility and lower commoners, were the main users of French suffixes in a survey of the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence, 1410–1681. This finding that the middling classes uptook French elements into English first is in keeping with estate administrators' reduction of spelling variation in words of French origin: in both cases, the literate professional classes ported Anglo-Norman writing conventions into their English. Standard English
16650-754: The onset of the Industrial Revolution and the need for high-precision machine tools and interchangeable parts . Henry Maudslay developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800. This allowed for the standardization of screw thread sizes for the first time and paved the way for the practical application of interchangeability (an idea that was already taking hold) to nuts and bolts . Before this, screw threads were usually made by chipping and filing (that is, with skilled freehand use of chisels and files ). Nuts were rare; metal screws, when made at all, were usually for use in wood. Metal bolts passing through wood framing to
16800-555: The orthography of 68 hands who wrote manuscripts of the Later Version of the Wycliffite Bible, concluded: "it is difficult to sustain a 'grand unifying theory' about Central Midland Standard". Jacob Thaisen analysing the orthography of texts forming Type 2 found no consistent similarities between different scribes' spelling choices and no obvious overlap of selection signalling incipient standardisation, concluding "it
16950-419: The particular language) was first recorded in English during the 1670s, although an even earlier example of the use of it in English is attested from 1632, where it is also referred to as "Bastard Spanish". The term is well established in its naturalization to English and so major dictionaries do not italicize it as a "foreign" term. Its plurals in English are lingua francas and linguae francae , with
17100-399: The past-tense forms of "sank" and "shrank". In Afrikaner South African English, the deletion of verbal complements is becoming common. This phenomenon sees the objects of transitive verbs being omitted: "Did you get?", "You can put in the box". This kind of construction is infrequent in most other standardised varieties of English. In the past, different scholars have meant different things by
17250-556: The phrase 'Standard English', when describing its emergence in medieval and early modern England. In the nineteenth century, it tended to be used in relation to the wordstock. Nineteenth-century scholars Earle and Kington-Oliphant conceived of the standardisation of English in terms of ratios of Romance to Germanic vocabulary. Earle claimed that the works of the poets Gower and Chaucer , for instance, were written in what he called 'standard language' because of their amounts of French-derived vocabulary. Subsequently, attention shifted to
17400-660: The planning of towns such as Lothal , Surkotada , Kalibangan , Dolavira , Harappa , and Mohenjo-daro . The weights and measures of the Indus civilization also reached Persia and Central Asia , where they were further modified. Shigeo Iwata describes the excavated weights unearthed from the Indus civilization: A total of 558 weights were excavated from Mohenjodaro, Harappa, and Chanhu-daro , not including defective weights. They did not find statistically significant differences between weights that were excavated from five different layers, each measuring about 1.5 m in depth. This
17550-420: The pragmatics of law and administration, which had previously been the domain of Anglo-Norman and mixed-language. This shows that the reduction of variation in supralocal varieties of English was due to the influence of Anglo-Norman and mixed-language: when English took over their pragmatic roles, it also took on their quality of spelling uniformity. Members of the gentry and professionals, in contradistinction to
17700-544: The prestige language of politics, trade, education, diplomacy, and military in early modern Europe and later spreading around the world with the establishment of the French colonial empire . With France emerging as the leading political, economic, and cultural power of Europe in the 16th century, the language was adopted by royal courts throughout the continent, including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Russia, and as
17850-497: The products of regular standardization processes. Standardized product certifications such as of organic food , buildings or possibly sustainable seafood as well as standardized product safety evaluation and dis/approval procedures (e.g. regulation of chemicals , cosmetics and food safety ) can protect the environment. This effect may depend on associated modified consumer choices , strategic product support/obstruction, requirements and bans as well as their accordance with
18000-457: The protection-quality, -scopes and -extents. Moreover, technical standards could decrease electronic waste and reduce resource-needs such as by thereby requiring (or enabling) products to be interoperable , compatible (with other products, infrastructures, environments, etc), durable , energy-efficient , modular , upgradeable / repairable and recyclable and conform to versatile, optimal standards and protocols. Such standardization
18150-576: The publication of the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, which aims to describe dialectal variation in Middle English between 1350 and 1450. The final date was chosen to reflect the increasing standardisation of written English. Although as they note, "The dialects of the spoken language did not die out, but those of the written language did". A number of late-twentieth-century scholars tracked morphemes as they standardised, such as auxiliary do , third-person present-tense -s , you/thou ,
18300-470: The regional distribution of phonemes. Morsbach, Heuser and Ekwall conceived of standardisation largely as relating to sound-change, especially as indicated by spellings for vowels in stressed syllables, with a lesser emphasis on morphology. Mid-twentieth-century scholars McIntosh and Samuels continued to focus on the distribution of spelling practice but as primary artefacts, which are not necessarily evidence of underlying articulatory reality. Their work led to
18450-627: The required levels of compatibility , interchangeability or commonality in the operational, procedural, material, technical and administrative fields to attain interoperability. In some cases, standards are being used in the design and operation of workplaces and products that can impact consumers' health. Some of such standards seek to ensure occupational safety and health and ergonomics . For example, chairs (see e.g. active sitting and steps of research ) could be potentially be designed and chosen using standards that may or may not be based on adequate scientific data. Standards could reduce
18600-591: The responsibility to consider the available standards, specify the correct one, enforce compliance, and use the item correctly: validation and verification . To avoid the proliferation of industry standards, also referred to as private standards , regulators in the United States are instructed by their government offices to adopt "voluntary consensus standards" before relying upon "industry standards" or developing "government standards". Regulatory authorities can reference voluntary consensus standards to translate internationally accepted criteria into public policy . In
18750-409: The shift in the meaning of Lingua Franca from a single proper noun to a common noun encompassing a large class of pidgin languages. As recently as the late 20th century, some restricted the use of the generic term to mean only mixed languages that are used as vehicular languages, its original meaning. Douglas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term Lingua Franca (as the name of
18900-607: The size and weight of a girder to employ for given work." The Engineering Standards Committee was established in London in 1901 as the world's first national standards body. It subsequently extended its standardization work and became the British Engineering Standards Association in 1918, adopting the name British Standards Institution in 1931 after receiving its Royal Charter in 1929. The national standards were adopted universally throughout
19050-460: The spoken and the written forms of SE, which are characterised by degrees of formality; therefore, Standard English is distinct from formal English, because it features stylistic variations, ranging from casual to formal. Furthermore, the usage codes of nonstandard dialects (vernacular language) are less stabilised than the codifications of Standard English, and thus more readily accept and integrate new vocabulary and grammatical forms. Functionally,
19200-465: The system. When the shift toward competition based on individual components takes place, firms selling tightly integrated systems must quickly shift to a modular approach, supplying other companies with subsystems or components. Standardization has a variety of benefits for consumers, but one of the greatest benefits is enhanced network effects. Standards increase compatibility and interoperability between products, allowing information to be shared within
19350-451: The term in literature, lingua franca has come to be interpreted as a general term for pidgins, creoles, and some or all forms of vehicular languages. This transition in meaning has been attributed to the idea that pidgin languages only became widely known from the 16th century on due to European colonization of continents such as The Americas, Africa, and Asia. During this time, the need for a term to address these pidgin languages arose, hence
19500-566: The usage of Old English, but it was still used in parts of the country for at least another century. Following the changes brought about by the Norman Conquest of 1066, England became a trilingual society. Literate people wrote in Medieval Latin and Anglo-Norman French more than they wrote in monolingual English. In addition, a widely used system developed which mixed several languages together, typically with Medieval Latin as
19650-411: The variety of products and lead to convergence on fewer broad designs – which can often be efficiently mass-produced via common shared automated procedures and instruments – or formulations deemed to be the most healthy, most efficient or best compromise between healthiness and other factors. Standardization is sometimes or could also be used to ensure or increase or enable consumer health protection beyond
19800-420: The workplace and ergonomics such as standards in food, food production, hygiene products, tab water, cosmetics, drugs/medicine, drink and dietary supplements, especially in cases where there is robust scientific data that suggests detrimental impacts on health (e.g. of ingredients) despite being substitutable and not necessarily of consumer interest. In the context of assessment, standardization may define how
19950-436: The world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade), but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca , a Romance -based pidgin language used especially by traders in
20100-451: The writing of individuals. The rise of written monolingual English was due to the abandonment of Anglo-Norman French between 1375 and 1425, with subsequent absorption into supralocal varieties of English of much of its wordstock and many of its written conventions. Some of these conventions were to last, such as minimal spelling variation, and some were not, such as digraph ⟨lx⟩ and trigraph ⟨aun⟩ . Anglo-Norman
20250-535: Was abandoned over the fifteenth century, and at different times in different places, it became replaced by monolingual supralocal English, although it was not always a straightforward exchange. For example, Alcolado-Carnicero surveyed the London Mercers' Livery Company Wardens' Accounts and found that they switched back and forth for over seventy years between 1390 and 1464 before finally committing to monolingual English. Individual scribes spent whole careers in
20400-464: Was an important figure in this process, introducing accurate methods and apparatus for measuring electricity. In 1857, he introduced a series of effective instruments, including the quadrant electrometer, which cover the entire field of electrostatic measurement. He invented the current balance , also known as the Kelvin balance or Ampere balance ( SiC ), for the precise specification of the ampere ,
20550-545: Was asked to look into the formation of a commission to oversee the process. By 1906 his work was complete and he drew up a permanent constitution for the International Electrotechnical Commission . The body held its first meeting that year in London, with representatives from 14 countries. In honour of his contribution to electrical standardisation, Lord Kelvin was elected as the body's first President. The International Federation of
20700-567: Was conditioned by the readership or audience: if the text was aimed at professionals, then the text was written in Latin; if it was aimed at non-professionals, then the text was written in Anglo-Norman until the mid-fifteenth century and either Latin or English thereafter. More oral, less predictable texts were aimed at non-professionals as correspondence, ordinances, oaths, conditions of obligation, and occasional leases and sales. The supralocal varieties of English which replaced Anglo-Norman in
20850-405: Was evidence that strong control existed for at least a 500-year period. The 13.7-g weight seems to be one of the units used in the Indus valley. The notation was based on the binary and decimal systems. 83% of the weights which were excavated from the above three cities were cubic, and 68% were made of chert . The implementation of standards in industry and commerce became highly important with
21000-556: Was initially vital for all European and Chinese migrants in New Zealand to learn, as Māori formed a majority of the population, owned nearly all the country's land and dominated the economy until the 1860s. Discriminatory laws such as the Native Schools Act 1867 contributed to the demise of Māori language as a lingua franca. Sogdian was used to facilitate trade between those who spoke different languages along
21150-529: Was largely based on Italian and Provençal . This language was spoken from the 11th to 19th centuries around the Mediterranean basin, particularly in the European commercial empires of Italian cities ( Genoa , Venice, Florence , Milan, Pisa , Siena ) and in trading ports located throughout the eastern Mediterranean rim. During the Renaissance , standard Italian was spoken as a language of culture in
21300-455: Was not to settle into its present form until the early nineteenth century. It contains elements from different geographical regions, "an urban amalgam drawing on non-adjacent dialects". Examples of multiregional morphemes are auxiliary do from south-western dialects and third-person present tense -s and plural are from northern ones. An example of multiregional spelling is provided by the reflex of Old English /y(:)/ – Old English /y(:)/
21450-938: Was originally based on almost the same imperial fractions. The Unified thread angle is 60° and has flattened crests (Whitworth crests are rounded). Thread pitch is the same in both systems except that the thread pitch for the 1 ⁄ 2 in. (inch) bolt is 12 threads per inch (tpi) in BSW versus 13 tpi in the UNC. By the end of the 19th century, differences in standards between companies were making trade increasingly difficult and strained. For instance, an iron and steel dealer recorded his displeasure in The Times : "Architects and engineers generally specify such unnecessarily diverse types of sectional material or given work that anything like economical and continuous manufacture becomes impossible. In this country no two professional men are agreed upon
21600-775: Was originally used at both schools, though the Cyrillic script was developed early on at the Preslav Literary School , where it superseded Glagolitic as the official script in Bulgaria in 893. Old Church Slavonic spread to other South-Eastern, Central, and Eastern European Slavic territories, most notably Croatia , Serbia , Bohemia , Lesser Poland , and principalities of the Kievan Rus' while retaining characteristically South Slavic linguistic features. It spread also to not completely Slavic territories between
21750-584: Was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic period , the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire . It evolved from the spread of Greek following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, and served as the lingua franca of much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries. Old Tamil was once
21900-501: Was the lingua franca of a great part of the predominantly Slavic states and populations in Southeast and Eastern Europe , in liturgy and church organization, culture, literature, education and diplomacy, as an Official language and National language in the case of Bulgaria . It was the first national and also international Slavic literary language (autonym словѣ́ньскъ ѩꙁꙑ́къ , slověnĭskŭ językŭ ). The Glagolitic alphabet
22050-589: Was the variety of French that was widely used by the educated classes in late medieval England. It was used, for example, as the teaching language in grammar schools. For example, the Benedictine monk Ranulph Higden , who wrote the widely copied historical chronicle Polychronicon , remarks that, against the practice of other nations, English children learn Latin grammar in French. Ingham analysed how Anglo-Norman syntax and morphology written in Britain began to differ from Anglo-Norman syntax and morphology written on
22200-410: Was used increasingly, mainly for local communication. Up until the later fifteenth century, it was characterised by great regional and spelling variation. After the middle of the fifteenth century, supralocal monolingual varieties of English began to evolve for numerous pragmatic functions. Supralocalisation is where "dialect features with a limited geographical distribution are replaced by features with
22350-470: Was written as ⟨i⟩ in the north and north-east Midlands, ⟨u⟩ in the south and south-west Midlands, and ⟨e⟩ in the south-east and south-east Midlands. Standard English retains multiregional ⟨i, u, e⟩ spellings such as cudgel (Old English cycgel ), bridge (Old English brycg ), merry (Old English myrig ). Unlike earlier twentieth-century histories of standardisation (see below) , it
22500-401: Was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language. Nevertheless, it remains the second most used language in international affairs and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations . As a legacy of French and Belgian colonial rule, most former colonies of these countries maintain French as an official language or lingua franca due to
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