From Dialect to Standard: English in England 1154-1776 is the second volume of a set of three offering a comprehensive survey of what by the author is seen as the most interesting aspects of the long history of English from its embryonic stages to the language spoken today in England and America.The present book spans the period up to 1776, the year of the American Declaration of Independence and the year in which Adam Smith published his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The title of the first volume from 1998 was The Continental Backgrounds of English and its Insular Development until 1154, the third and final volume being scheduled for publication later under the title The Development of American and British English from 1776 to the Present Day.