An amalgam that had no single identifiable parent

From E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy.

To put this point in perspective, consider a historical moment remote enough in time from the current American scene to provide a clear and disinterested insight into the inherently classless character of cultural literacy. In the England of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, long before dictionary makers began a conscious effort to standardize the national language, there existed a very strong tendency toward standardization of public discourse in the great towns. The big cities of Europe and Asia were the first cultural melting pots; America has no historical monopoly on that phenomenon. Within these growing cities, neither diversity of social class nor diversity of regional dialects could inhibit the inexorable process of linguistic and cultural standardization that occurred when great numbers of people moved to town from the provinces.

This process, as it then occurred in London, is an illustration of Patterson's observation that mainstream culture is not a class culture and that outsiders and newcomers influence its forms as much as they are influenced by them. Provincial newcomers of all classes who migrated to London gradually changed the local London speech as much as they themselves were changed by it. In the documents preserved from that era, we can find, even from one decade to another, evidence that local London forms were being "driven out by forms previously only found in other districts, especially those of the North." Even the place names of London - and place names are perhaps the most conservative cultural forms of any words in ordinary use - show effects of the new eclectic speech. Isemonger Lane became Ironmonger Lane, Crepelgate became Cripplegate, and so on, all under the influence of the provincial immigrants.

Dialects rubbed up against each other in the public streets and halls of London. The great city was a meeting place for public interactions of all sorts. There, people of all types - artisans, tradespeople, and aristocrats - were attracted by the magnetism of London's money, amusement, and excitement. The need for a common medium of intercourse among all these different classes of people gradually pulled into use a common, composite speech for use in public discourse. The local London dialect actually disappeared and was gradually replaced by something that had never existed before - an amalgam that had no single identifiable parent. It did not represent the speech of any particular location, class, or ethnic group.

The old claim that this London speech, which became the basis of our standard written English, was just the upper-class dialect of the royal court is incorrect. The members of that court itself came from all parts of England and spoke different native dialects. King and courtier alike had to learn the common London speech; it formed the upper-class speech of the court, not vice versa. The dialect that formed the basis of our own national language was, in origin, the democratic speech of the marketplaces and alleyways of the big melting pot of London.