What is an ANSI standard?

Each and every language needs a compiler to compile (or else we can say decoder) it to machine understandable language (binary executable code).
Let us assume a group of people started working to create a compiler for C and a other group of people somewhere else in the world started developing a compiler for C then depending on their requirement both of them may create some different kind of function prototypes, then code created for one compiler may not run (or compile) on the other compiler.
To diminish such type of errors, in 1983 ANSI- American Nationals Standard has started defining a standard for C. The standard was approved in 1989 and adopted by ISO in 1990 and it was called as C89.
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“The standard specifies the syntax and semantics of programs written in the C programming Language”

The C before the standardization was known as K&RC.
From then standard is being updated and are published. Thus we can say that C language has grown compared to the language at the time of its birth.
Anyone can access C standards from ANSI or ISO website’s web-store by mentioning the name of the standard at a particular cost. Older versions may not be available.

After a standard is published a technical corrigenda is published to rectify errors in the standard (if any).

Learn C programming language