17th century London Accent According to Robert Robinson

[@ABAlphaBeta]

Though Crystal presents an "overarching" way of pronouncing Shakespeare, this was obviously not the case, as people came from everywhere and knew how to do accents (Macbeth was probably played in Northern or even Early-Modern-Scottish-accented OP). It's also inaccurate in there being four sociolects (an "accent", a way of speaking linked more or less to one's social background) which meant that "queen" was kwi:n for some people (as here), but kwe:n for others (I'm not sure if it's posher or more working-class - I think mergers were poorer). So while Crystal gives kwe:n, Shakespeare probably actually had kwi:n. We're also held back by the idea rhymes were absolte - here Robinson quite clearly rhymes "air" in fair (a-ee-r) with air pronounced "ar", so obviously the i wasn't seen as an issue - while rhyming en and een might be a bit much, many Shakespearean rhymes DON'T need a merger, and Crystal has too many for sure (because his aim is to propose a universal accent for a time when there were... well, 4 million accents for 4 million people in Britain, and in London roughly four ways of speaking, bearing in mind not everyone was from London and Shakespearean actors might imitate (or naturally speak in!) the hundreds of other sociolects).

[@djparkermarshall]

I'm learning Norwegian alongside Crystal's reconstruction, and as a result, I keep wanting to trill my mid-word R's in OP. Thanks to this video, I now have a legitimate claim/excuse should I do it accidentally!

[@thebigcapitalism9826]

Have you ever thought of collaborating with another KZbin channel with similar content called AZForeman?

[@antichaos]

That’s just a hungover Irishman

[@ABAlphaBeta]

Actual Irish Gaelic pronunciation didn't have too much bearing on how Irish English was pronounced, not as much as Welsh (which is very affected by Welsh pronunciation) - so this is pretty much what the Irish learnt when they got invaded and had to start speaking English. Cumbrian, Ll Scots and Hl Scottish accents were also sort of part of the same area - in the future I'll be doing Robinson's Anglo-Latin transcription, but also investigating Northern EM English, which reputedly had a sociolect with the French r sound.

[@antichaos]

ABAlphaBeta idc tl;dr

[@hyacinpollo3424]

@@antichaos official bruh moment

[@Pragnantweggyboard]

@@antichaos It's time to jettison the newspeak, cretin.

[@timyingus5681]

@@antichaos b r u v

[@domrogg4362]

This is how I sounded when I started learning English as a kid! 😂👌

[@bellevrkm]

Same lmao. Turns out I was in the 17th century

[@ajaxamsterdamdeusvult]

Disrespect mate

[@Angeli28]

For real?

[@ShadowValleys]

You should’ve kept the accent then LOL

[@Johnm.499]

Are you British?

[@ABAlphaBeta]

Normal a sounded like how nut is pronounced today, I quite like that - sad is like sud (soap suds).

[@EpherosAldor]

To me, this sounds a bit like the older generation of Liverpudlians. It'd be interesting to get an idea of the sounds of different accents of various British folk around this time.

[@ABAlphaBeta]

I plan on doing Northern EME soon

[@HappySerafim]

Really? I think it sounds less like an old scouser and more like an old Lancashire man who lives in a little village, I know a few like that

[@smakarov24]

Liverpudlians? This made me think of Lilliputians and Blefuscudians. They could have spoken like this :)

[@kelli999343654]

Anyone else read "according to Robert Pattinson"? I knew I shouldn't have watched that new Batman trailer over and over again, lol.

[@ABAlphaBeta]

The movie looks good and he has some acting chops, but I'm not sure how much I like the emo Batman style. Will reserve judgement 'till I see it though. Still have no idea who the villain is either, lol

[@KalilIllinois]

I absolutely did up until seeing your comment

[@fran2thabadass543]

same omggg hahah

[@baronvg]

Lmao I know I did which was strangely specific.

[@AroundElvesWatchUrselves96]

English: "I made this" Irish: "You made this? I made this."

[@ninjacell2999]

Sounds more like Somerset than Irish tbh

[@C3lticlord]

@@ninjacell2999 Yeah I was thinking the same thing

[@ninjacell2999]

@Quack The Duck you say an Irish accent is globally known, yet people genuinely think this sounds Irish... Also people might not have heard of Somerset but they know the accent seeing as it's the pirate accent, and it turns up in other places like Sam in LotR

[@lindaeasley5606]

Interesting .My immigrant ancestor to the Virginia colony in the 1670s came from likely the London area as an indentured laborer and I've been wondering what accent he may have spoken with. William Byrd l issued a headright for him and he was mentioned by William Byrd ll in his secret diary in an unflattering way

[@ellehan3003]

You should read 'a burslem dialogue' In a book called the boroughs of stoke on trent written in 1843. Easy to read on google books for free. Although its not that long ago its shocking how differently they spoke. Its all written phonetically from i assume the writer of the book who wanted to preserve their way of speaking. The two men he is listening to also say 'heo' instead of 'she'. Also if anyone does see this comment and reads it, there is part of the dialogue where they talk about a witch. The witch was a real woman who was probably just eccentric but they did some strange burial things to her when she died since they really thought she was a witch. They buried her with her crow and her grave still exists.

[@user-td4do3op2d]

Do you have a link? I can't find it.

[@tylermassey5431]

Thank you very much for making this. I'm thinking about doing a recreation of the Trial of Charles and was interested in using an authentic accent. Would an upper-class accent be more recognizable to a modern ear, or less?

[@Abdullah_al-BaAlawi]

Ah yes the beautiful London Let's invade them :)

[@StephanusTavilrond]

Great work, as always! As far as I'm aware, English has had a compementary distribution between the alveolar trill and approximant (trill when followed by a vowel, approximant when not) ever since the Old English / Anglo-Saxon period, with the Trilled R being analogous to the Clear L, and the Approximant R being analogous to the Dark L.

[@ABAlphaBeta]

I don't give much credence to that theory of r distribution in OE, nor that there was a dark l, only that both were velarised in certain positions

[@johncashrocks221]

I honestly wish English people still spoke like this

[@johncashrocks221]

@The505Guys sounds snobbish now

[@johncashrocks221]

@The505Guys even they’re getting poshed and cockneyed out of existence

[@Wakesix12]

@The505Guys because shite das whye....

[@nemothakidd-4686]

_Everybody gangsta till 17th century roadmen pull up on horses_

[@lassebirkhenriksen]

Could you make a evolution of art?

[@Saturnia2014]

It's funny how cave paintings were better drawn than drawings in medieval manuscripts.

[@deano_bites]

Pretty dame scary what the London language and UK Accent will be like in 30 to 50 years probably full blown Arabic or cross between aft Rican and Jamaican

[@johngerardhealy]

It sounds Scottish ... So who is Robert Robinson and what authority does he have on this sound? Asking as I'm an actor looking for bonafide London accents of 17th Century. Thanks, J

[@C3lticlord]

sounds very somerset

[@CosmicDalmatian]

This sounds Scottish

[@luarn9176]

What is the language your username is written in? Its alphabet looks incredible

[@luarn9176]

@Rede Emitel - Afiliada RPS So that's why it looks a lot like the alphabet used in The Witcher. Kinda guessed it was Slavic in origin, but didn't know much about it. Thanks a lot for the info!

[@lucienmeunier2270]

@@luarn9176 Yeah CDPR used the glagolithic script as the Witcher's alphabet

[@luarn9176]

@@lucienmeunier2270 I had done research on the matter, but thanks for pointing that out for anyone who reads that. Spread the knowledge, so to speak. Love this about The Witcher.

[@dusk_ene]

I can hear the influence remaining in southern US accent

[@vil4038]

This is why Americans roll their Rs

[@Fummy007]

Early modern English?

[@ABAlphaBeta]

Yeah, only just

[@AutisticSpaceman]

Something that I’d love to hear that I don’t think anyone else has ever done: Greensleeves in it’s original pronunciation.

[@ABAlphaBeta]

I think I did this? I could swear I did this

[@AutisticSpaceman]

ABAlphaBeta You might be thinking of your video “Pastime with Good Company - Early Modern English of Henry VIII’s Court.”

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@AutisticSpaceman Sure, I could do Greensleeves. The tempo makes a lot more sense, you don't have to go "Alas my lo-ove you do me wrong" since you get the "love-uh"

[@maxmatthews2463]

Do Ancient Welsh

[@beatniksiren]

Love your voice you should do audiobooks

[@alovioanidio9770]

I wonder if North American English had been under influence of this stage of the Great Vowel Shift when the i would be pronouced /ej/ and things like that. Maybe it disappeared due to new waves of Brittish migration.

[@hugovangalen]

Typo in the thumbnail.

[@cmur078]

Sounds like he's from the West Country.

[@ReviveHF]

Sounds like Frisian

[@allmendoubt4784]

Yeah it was pretty parky.

[@ignotumperignotius630]

Sounds, impressively, slightly American

[@noclip_st]

It's quite the opposite I'd say. American accents remained similar to what English was like in the 17th-18th centuries, having developed in their own way as well, of course.

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@noclip_st It's often less useful to say things remain or don't - Benjamin Franklin spoke quite similarly to this, though with raised vowels (a: had become æ). He rolled his r's - both are radically different to Modern English, to be honest. æ wasn't the same quality either. I recommend checking out AZ Foreman's work on Ben Franklin's accent - as an American I'd say he's done the best job he could, and as a Brit I can't really imitate the American accent very well.

[@loadeddice4696]

@@noclip_st I've heard that before and frankly I do not believe a word of it. It just smacks of anglophilic Americans making something up to legitimise themselves.

[@noclip_st]

@@loadeddice4696 these were not some random dudes who liked Britain, but actual researchers instead. What was to become (a generalised) American accent was a melting pot of accents and dialects from all over the Britain, which have undergone an extensive leveling. They weren't similar to modern RP in any way, all of them being rhotic (just like Northern American English is today)

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@noclip_st Except for half of the country having a non-rhotic accent up to the 1950s...

[@thefantasticlevitatingsoma8481]

Ay tis soundin right en proper me ol mate.

[@francisgriffith462]

Sounds like scouser / liverpool accent

[@potatoegirl31]

'ooooooooh, derty Maggie May, they arr takin hehr awey...' 😆

[@SzymonWeiss]

Sounds like Irish countryside. Father Ted exactly

[@SzymonWeiss]

@Quack The Duck so Irish accent defends from colonisation, you suggest?

[@CannibaLouiST]

Interesting r pronunciation.

[@Urlocallordandsavior]

It sounds quite Scottish strangely enough, judging on my previous experiences of watching Outlander :P . Not entirely sure how truthful the series was to portraying Scottish English in the 18th century...

[@counterfeit6089]

How different would the 18th century accent sound compared to this?

[@ABAlphaBeta]

there wasn't any one set accent. The working class accent version of this became what Dickens presents and which I made a video on some time ago

[@counterfeit6089]

@@ABAlphaBeta is it fair to assume a working class 18th century London accent would've sounded sort of like a cross between this and the working class one in the Dickens video?

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@counterfeit6089 Yeah, definitely fair, though as usual with variation

[@allmendoubt4784]

Curly home counties (I'm just old enough to remember post war Essex famers) go to Peterborough, Bath or perhaps a bit of vague Kent) + Dutch. (Zodden (turf) sod) Moddelen mud/muddle. The 18th century was the actual birth of the metropolis and a stagnant working population. Reading through sources of the period durst sound cockneyed, and they were penned by the milieu.

[@johncashrocks221]

@@allmendoubt4784 It’s a shame that most accents in southern England today are being cockneyed seemingly, at least from my observation.

[@fyazsaom9751]

irish

[@anthonyehrenzweig1635]

Part of this pronunciation is completely wrong. In the 17th century long "A" was NOT "ah". It was "eh" & may be already diphthongized. You cannot have the Great Vowel Shift affecting some long vowels & not others. If he pronounces long "I" as "ai" & long "E" as "i" (continental orthography) you cannot pronounce long "A" as "ah". In any case the GVS started at the end of the 14th & at the beginning of the 15th century some 200 hundred years before this alleged version of English. "Faire" & "Prayse" were not pronounced like long "I" but like long "A" - more or less as they are pronounced today. I am shocked at this inaccuracy & this version is totally misleading.

[@barnsleyman32]

actually you can, as language change is never as simple as applying a rule to the entirety of speakers. there are plenty in which long a retains its original, pre vowel shift pronunciation to this day, let alone in the 17th century - the great vowel shift occured in specific segments of the english speaking world, became standard, and gradually left its imprint on the population, it did not occur everywhere at the same time

[@talkingtadpole3001]

I'd love for you to go back to the 1620s and tell Robert Robertson that he was pronouncing his own dialect wrong. This is a faithful interpretation of Robertson's speech that he transcribed with his own IPA-like system.

[@skyworm8006]

@@talkingtadpole3001 lmao. it's hilarious when contemporary people simply can't get over their black & white worldview and penchant for standardisation and conformism when looking at history.