English 470
The Printing Press, Punctuation and the Standardization of English Spelling
The Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg generally gets credit for the invention of the printing press around 1450.
However, scholars now know that China (and later, Japan), had printing technology, possibly as early as 600
A. D. The Chinese first used the block printing method, which consists of carving a relief of the material
which they wanted to print into a block of wood, inking it, laying paper or other material over it, and then
rubbing the paper to transfer the image to the paper. Later, but still before Gutenberg, the Chinese
developed movable type. Movable type is considered essential to efficient printing because it allows
characters to be reused. In Japan, printing caught on for a while, but then died out until reintroduced from
the West.
Even before the Chinese, the Mesopotamians, as well as virtually every complex culture which
followed, had stamps and seals which could be used to reliably and permanently imprint the owner's mark
on items. These were commonly used by royalty and other people with a lot of property to protect and
identify. These stamps and seals can be considered an early form of printing.
It is important to remember that an invention must wait for the appropriate time to be introduced. If
it is introduced before the culture is ready for it, nothing happens. This is apparently what happened in
Japan. Movable type was introduced in the 16th century and was briefly popular, but the culture didn't
sustain its use, and it died out. So, in order to understand the development of the printing industry in
Europe, it is useful to look at what was going on in the culture.
Europe During the First Millennium 1 A.D. to 1000 A. D.
It took about 500 years for Christianity to become established as a respectable religion. After about
600 A. D., Christianity rapidly became the acceptable and in fact preferred religion of what had been the
western portion of the Roman Empire, as well as some of the eastern portions. During this time, the Roman
Empire fell. Ironically, Rome itself fell to heathens (non-Christians). Some of the unifying functions of the
Roman Empire were taken over by what was called the Holy Roman Empire, headed by the Catholic
Church.
The era after the fall of Rome is often referred to as the Dark Ages, both because of the political
chaos which ensued and because of the reduction in education and learning. An important aside to this is
that one of the earliest experiments in widespread literacy occurred in Greece during the rise of democracy.
The Roman respect for literacy was borrowed from the Greeks. Literacy is a cultural artifact which occurs
when the culture needs it. An important aside to this is that there is a theory, which seems to be supported
by history, that democracy inevitably develops after literacy becomes widespread; knowledge is indeed
power. Most European societies had never developed a tradition of widespread literacy, and after the fall of
Rome, there was no impetus for widespread literacy for many centuries. In addition, the Dark Ages were
marked by very rigid social strata. Most people outside the church were serfs, peasants or nobility (although
the Scandinavian countries and Anglo-Saxon England had a certain rough land-holding class). The middleclass was virtually non-existent, although some rudimentary conditions (trade, trade routes, trading centers,
specialization of tasks, etc.) necessary for the development of the middle class already existed or began to
develop.
As a result of the reduction in education and learning, virtually all scholarship for several hundred
years occurred under the auspices of the church. Because Latin was the language of the church, most
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learning and writing were in Latin. In order to be an educated person, one had to learn Latin. Most of the
people who learned Latin were clergy, so the system was self-perpetuating.
Although it had not been the intent of the very early Christian Church to exclude ordinary believers
from rituals and knowledge, this is in fact what developed. Because church functions took place in Latin,
which by that time was no one's native language, most church members relied on the priests for all religious
functions. This increased the power of the priests. Eventually, the church wound up with a lot of religious
and secular power, so much so that some people began to rebel against the church, with varying degrees of
success.
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Europe in the Second Millennium A. D. 1000-Present
As the Second Millennium began, changes were taking place which would have enormous effects on
Europe over the next centuries. One change was the gradual increase in trade across Europe and even
beyond. With the increase in trade came the development of towns as centers of trade. Many of the cities of
Europe can trace their beginnings to their location on trade routes. With the development of towns came
small businesses and artisans. The common people of Europe were no longer exclusively agricultural nor
necessarily tied to manors. As the importance of trades increased so did the importance of literacy and
numeracy.
With trades people and artisans came the development of guilds. Medieval guilds were a little bit
like a cross between professional associations like the AMA, and labor unions. Guilds regulated
memberships, apprenticeships, standards, and trade practices within a particular profession, such as
goldsmithing or weaving. The guilds represented perhaps the first small glimmering of personal power for
the common people of Europe. The growth of the middle class, the spread of literacy, religious and political
reforms, perhaps even modern democracy can be traced in part to the medieval guilds and the growth of
trade.
An immediate result of these changes was the growth of the middle class. The middle class can be
thought of as non-royal people with money and the means to achieve a certain level of personal power. One
of the first things people wanted to do was to ensure that their children's lives were better than their own.
This meant their children needed an education. For the first time in European history, children who were
not the offspring of nobility or the very rich learned to read.
The result of this was a demand for books. At this time, books were very expensive and very rare
because they had to be copied by hand. Even an educated person might own only one book, if that, and a
single book might be a family's most prized possession. It was at this point that Europe was ready for the
printing press.
Between 1430 and 1450, Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, recognized the possibilities of
several existing technologies, including the screw press, used for pressing wine, olive oil and linen; metal
stamps and casts, such as were used in goldsmithing; oil-based inks; and the process of replica casting.
Gutenberg put these together to create the printing press using movable type. In 1455, he published the
Gutenberg Bible, which many consider the most beautiful book ever printed. Unfortunately, he had
borrowed money to develop his printing press, his creditor called in the loan, and Gutenberg lost everything.
Fortunately, his technology was not lost.
The social and cultural conditions of Europe were such that the printing press spread extremely
rapidly across Europe. For example, the printing press, introduced by William Caxton, reached England by
1476. By comparison, paper manufacturing was introduced to Europe by the Moslems in Spain around
1150 A. D., but the first paper factory wasn't established in England until 1494. Apparently, prior to 1494,
printers in England had to import their paper. Anyway, the printing press was among the first of many
technological advances for Western society. It predated the Industrial Revolution by some 300 years, but it
foreshadowed the kinds of changes which the Industrial Revolution would bring.
Two of the major forces interacting from then on were the availability of books and people able to
read them. This resulted in the widespread and rapid dissemination of ideas which previously might have
gone essentially unnoticed. Martin Luther's theses on indulgences is representative. Martin Luther, an
Augustinian monk, wrote a series of theses, or statements, regarding the Church practice of indulgences,
which he nailed to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. Through the use of mechanized
printing, these were widely disseminated, and the Protestant Reformation began, reaching Switzerland by
1519 and Scotland by 1528. In 1531, Henry VIII of England declared himself the head of the English
Church. Again, Europe was ready for the Reformation because of various problems which had developed in
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Catholicism, but Luther's writings acted as a catalyst, and the printed book as the medium of
communication.
One of the first things that religious reformers did was to start translating the Bible into the
vernaculars, such as German, French and English. (This was not without risk. At least one English
translator, William Tyndale, was burned at the stake). This gave literate people who were not clergy the
opportunity to read the Bible for themselves. They no longer had to rely solely on the priesthood for their
knowledge of the Bible. This contributed to the growing notion of personal autonomy which we take for
granted today.
The development of the printing press in Europe played an integral part in the social, cultural and
educational changes which were taking place. It is possible to speculate that without the printing press, the
re-emergence of scholarship, the development of modern science and the philosophies which have led to our
society might never have occurred.
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The Printing Press and Punctuation
Writing is descended in part from the formal use of oral language, in, for example, speeches, plays
and histories. ( It also reflects our practical need to keep records.) Our early examples of these are from the
Greek and Latin rhetorists, such as Homer and Ovid. When these speeches and plays were written, the
punctuation served to show where dramatic pauses should occur. Basically, these were determined by
where the speaker would need to breathe. The ‘period’ ('.') signaled a long group of words between pauses
(either 3 or 4 beats), the ‘colon’ (':') signaled a shorter group of words (2 beats), and the ‘comma’ (','
)signaled the shortest group of words (1 beat). Of course, all this writing was done by hand. It is this
historical process which has led to English teachers who tell you to put commas in wherever you breathe.
This may have been effective for Greek plays, but it doesn't work for modern writing.
Old English writers adopted this system, which worked adequately, since they were often
transcribing epic poems and suchlike, which would have been spoken and performed aloud. Therefore, there
is very little punctuation in Old English manuscripts. When it got to the point where people were writing to
transmit information for widespread dissemination, (history, for example, or political tracts) it began to
become a little confusing.
Johannes Gutenberg perfected the printing press in Germany in the 1450's. William Caxton
introduced the printing press to England in 1476. This made it possible to produce quantities of books.
This, along with the rise in the middle class, meant that books began to be read by people who weren't
necessarily trained in Latin and Greek rhetoric. The punctuation system based on rhetoric just wasn't
adequate any more. People needed punctuation which would help them understand written material. They
needed punctuation which provided them with syntactic information (syntactic pauses) rather than dramatic
information. This need developed into our modern system of punctuation, which is based on the syntax of
the sentence. Although it doesn't always seem like it, our punctuation system is supposed to mark syntactic
units such as clauses and phrases so they will be easier to understand. Good punctuation should help, not
hinder, comprehension.
The printing press played a vital role in the standardization of the English system of punctuation.
Printers began to adopt the same punctuation conventions. As printers adopted certain conventions, these
conventions were published and put in front of large numbers of people in relatively permanent form.
Ordinary writers began using these conventions in their own writing. Ultimately, these conventions became
the standard.
The Printing Press and the Spelling System
The printing press also played an important role in the standardization of the English spelling
system. The printing press was brought to England before the Great Vowel Shift and several other
pronunciation changes had been completed. Printers began to adopt conventional spellings; many of these
spellings are still in use today. Unfortunately, these spellings frequently do not reflect the actual sounds of
modern English.
For example, because of the Great Vowel Shift, our pronunciation of long vowels no longer reflects
the European vowel values, but our spelling system does reflect the European vowel values. This is why a
word in English, such as 'professor' is pronounced so differently from the Spanish word 'profesor' even
though it is spelled almost identically.
Our modern spelling system is quite complex. It reflects information about the sound, etymology
and phonetic history of the words. Modern English spelling continues to retain spellings such as 'knight',
'though', and 'comb', even though these spellings have long since ceased to reflect the sounds of these words.
This is one of the reasons that we say that modern English spelling partially reflects the history of the word.
Because it is complex, it is a difficult system to learn, especially for auditory learners and second language
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learners. As teachers, it is a good idea to remember that there is no good evidence that skill in spelling is
necessary for competent reading and writing. Correcting spelling errors is an editing problem, which should
be taken care of after writing is completed. However, our spelling system is essentially phonetic and rulebased. About 80% of English words follow rules and phonetic patterns. Learning just a few important
spelling rules can greatly improve the average person’s spelling.
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