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From: Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: John Evelyn proposes an English Academy (20-6-1665)
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 21:49:01 +1200
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Well actually, a number of members of the Royal Society had formed a 
committee to discuss "the improvement of the English tongue". The 
Académie Française already existed (1635), and was an obvious model to 
consider. Evelyn was part of the group, but couldn't attend their 
Tuesday afternoon meetings; so he wrote up his ideas in a letter to the 
chairman, bearing this date.

He thought that some body ought to lay down rules for grammar, improve 
the spelling system, give guidance on pronunciation, and oversee the 
development of the vocabulary. It all sounds a little like 20th-century 
"language planning" proposals. At any rate, it came to nothing in 
Evelyn's lifetime. We saw Swift making a similar proposal half a century 
later (see 22 February). But still no English Academy.

Evelyn is primarily remembered as a diarist. He was roughly a 
contemporary of Pepys (also lived through the Plague and the Fire), but 
kept at it for longer (1640-1706, though not every day).