Ben Crystal talks about Original Pronunciation

[@markheffernan3433]

I’m a 45 YO ex British soldier of some 20 years. I’ve tried so many times to read, watch and listen to Shakespeare so many times but could never really get it. When you did Sonnet 18 in OP it finally made sense and sounded so beautiful. It actually moved me tears. Just amazing and beautiful.

[@jraven4994]

I teared up too. It does make far more sense that way

[@electrictroy2010]

As an ex-soldier I enjoyed the sex joke. This would have made the boys laugh. (Note I changed some words to modern terms.)

[@electrictroy2010]

The fool drew a watch from his pocket, And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see how the world wags: ‘Tis but an whore ago since it was nine, And after one whore more 'twill be eleven; And so, from whore to whore, we rut & rut And then, from hour to hour, we rot & rot. .

[@daydays12]

I respect you so much fo that post Welcome to the world of Shakespeare

[@grumpysanta6318]

I feel like I've never heard Shakespeare before.Great stuff.

[@nomekop777]

My teacher played part of this in class, and I liked his voice so much I wrote the title down. And here I am. I am fascinated by the way he played with the accents. They're his toy. And they're very good, too. I really enjoy listening to him travel the world by pronouncing his Rs the right way or with a glottal stop. It's really quite beautiful.

[@ScottVSpiroIII]

Here in the USA many high school students would be so lucky with a decent "English Lit" class - and Mr. Crystal's lectures should be a part of it!

[@brookenjonas]

Scott Spiro I wanna be an English teacher and this video is what I want to teach students.

[@wolf1066]

What a fantastic lecture. Witty, humorous, accessible to a wide audience, informative and fun, eminently watchable. We need to Xerox Ben and replace 90% of the world's English teachers with the copies - perhaps then Shakespeare classes will be taken off Amnesty International's list of "cruel and unusual punishments". Had to pause the video after his discourse on his own accent in which he took us phonemically around the globe within a couple of minutes - just so I could sit back and fully savour the "WOW! Just fuckin' WOW!" moment. Shakespeare sounds great when the actors take the sticks out of their arses and start speaking like humans. The contrast between RP and OP "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." is nothing short of astounding. The latter brought tears to my eyes and I *felt* the emotion of the poem that had previously been stripped from it by the artificial, nay superficial, tones of RP. It's got me desiring to watch an entire play - even 'Romeo and Juliet', with which I was tortured *twice* in High School and for which I therefore developed a passionate hatred - in OP just to experience the rhymes and puns. "Natural accent" productions - such as Brannagh's 1993 "Much Ado About Nothing", and Nunn's 1996 "Twelfth Night or What You Will" - are great - and far preferable to the pretentious posturings of RP - but I'd love to hear what OP restores to the plays. Hell, make that 'especially Romeo and Juliet', just so I can hear what it was supposed to be as opposed to the stilted crap that we had inflicted upon us (this was prior to 1996, so our 'options' did not include DiCaprio and Danes)

[@itopus1]

Far more than a lecture which in itself brings a completely new and deeply interesting approach to Shakespeare, this presentation is a brilliant piece of acting. I was hooked til the end. How could the audience not burst in applaud after the soliloquy To be or not to be...?

[@voluntaryismistheanswer]

My little children were so enchanted when the Players from A Midsummer Night's Dream came and interacted. Ah, I miss Shakespeare in the park.

[@maria-xosejones-phillips6075]

Ben, you do Shakespeare absolute justice, and listening to you recite his works in OP is deeply moving and makes me smile from ear to ear because it suddenly makes absolute sense. But I think were Shakespeare here today he too would be sat in wonder at your delivery and your passion and the way that you masterfully engineer your engagement with the audience so that we experience your passion for ourselves. It's you who is the genius, Ben. It's all you. Very well done!

[@electrictroy2010]

Shakespeare: “You don’t spake my words properly at all.” Chaucer had similar complaint in his writings. It’s hard to recreate an accent that died ~400 years ago

[@mephostopheles3752]

That was the quickest hour ever. I was sitting there like “How’s he gonna keep this going, it’s only been 20 minutes and he’s covered so mu-it’S OVER?????”

[@IrishRunningVlog]

Ah Ben, how wonderful . I remember spending one very long train journey with you from Holyhead to London, gosh it must have been 10 years ago now. So great to hear your passion for Shakespeare alive and well !

[@linayvan]

IrishAisling I

[@itiscujo]

Dude, this guy's voice is incredible. I remember when I auditioned for Edmond in the Lion the witch and the wardrobe, the kids in the playhouse actually thought I was British. If only they could here the control this guy has over his voice. Holy crap.

[@nancyavalon4150]

40 years ago (egad), I had the fortune of being an interpretive park ranger with the US National Park Service. I was "stationed" as an Elizabethan musician at the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. It is the site of the the first English colony in the New World, sent by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587. All the rangers dressed in period clothing (as authentically made as possible), and we were trained in Original Pronunciation! I was SO amazed, after listening to every KZbin video of Ben's wonderful performance lectures, that we had amazingly been doing the "dialect" correctly in all of our first-person living history portrayals of the Elizabethan's. I want to thank Ben for bringing the nuances of the Shakespearean dialect to light and re-training me in the the most delightful way to speak it again in my upcoming music & culture program of the 16th century. This will occur (along with academicians from around the world, presenting talks on Sir Walter Raleigh and naturalist, Thomas Hariot) at the upcoming International History Symposium on Roanoke Island, NC, November 2-8, 2021.

[@pagantalks5993]

Am I just wishful thinking in wishing you could get together with local Shakespeare societies in the us and bring some more OP state side lol.

[@RichardDCook]

I saw a local (California) production of MacBeth. The director made the decision to have the actors use their natural (Californian) accents. For the first few minutes it sounded strange and horrible...but soon enough I wasn't aware of it any more. Instead, I was involved in the thoughts and feelings of the characters. For the first time the language of Shakespeare sounded like natural dialogue, and the actors reached depths of meaning and emotion I'd not experienced before. Afterwards I complimented the director, telling him how entirely successful his approach was. He said he had taken a risk and was happy it worked so well.

[@Clothahump1]

The study of the English language is fascinating, and this lecture is brilliant!

[@themightyeek1]

It suddenly becomes so much more understandable in OP! I'm no longer trying to pick apart the words to comprehend them, I seem to understand it at a natural, guttural level, I can't explain it but it sounds 'right' to hear it in OP.

[@michaelgask]

I've come a little late to this, but I love how Shakespeare sounds in OP. Like Ben says, it's sexy, grounded, earthy. I'm keen to find out more. Thanks for posting this talk: it was completely fascinating.

[@Azulmine]

Ben crystal has the perfect balance of love and respect for the original work, and encouraging people to own it as their own

[@r0b0coffee]

This man is completely correct. Shaekspeare DOES NOT belong in an English class, or a literature class. It is meant to be heard!

[@ThatRomyKate]

I can’t believe for so long I’ve heard the ‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ And stopped at the first line never understanding what he was actually saying. It makes so much sense now and is more lovely than I thought! Thanks Ben, mind blown! 🤯

[@Epiphany31415]

Great lecture! I would love to hear an entire play.

[@websnoop1]

Same! Is there anyone stateside doing OP performances? More specifically southern Ca.

[@ronyncato7206]

I would love to watch all of Coriolanus in this accent!

[@electrictroy2010]

Another youtuber said California has Shakespeare in natural accents

[@kevthecontrarian1614]

After hearing Shakespeare in OP for the first time it brought everything into context for me. I don't want to hear it in any other way anymore.

[@bazzaah]

Absolutely fascinating. It makes so much more sense to hear Shakespeare spoken like that.

[@PhilipJacksonesq]

His performance of the Hamlet soliloquy in OP is stunning. It changes dramatically - in both senses of the word!

[@moveslikemacca]

Ben talking about his Modified RP is actually really encouraging for me as someone who learns English as a foreign language, because I pick up on so many different accents and dialects and constantly feel like I have to choose between one of them in order to be taken seriously as a learner (which is obviously nonsense)

[@levischorpioen]

Same. I sound like an American who has spent time in London, Ireland, Canada, US, Australia as well as trekked across Sweden, The Netherlands and Italy. I wouldn't want it any other way.

[@alistairmcelwee7467]

The thIng is that you will never sound like a native English speaker if, in fact, you’re not a native English speaker. Thus you don’t need to worry about which English accent you have. The important thing is to be fluent and to be understood without taxing your listener. I’m a Kiwi who lived my first 20 years in New Zealand and then the last 36 in California. I still can’t get the American idioms correct. Getting humor correct in a different language is tough, and I think matters way more than your accent. It’s really a good thing to learn from people who speak in all kinds of English accents. It’ll really help with comprehension. Good luck!

[@cigh7445]

@@alistairmcelwee7467 I've heard people of other languages who could pass for native speakers. Some people just have an ear for it and work hard on it. The younger people pick it up easier too

[@RapKrider]

I think Ben would say, "as long as people are understanding you, you're speaking your English." One of my international friends is a musician and extremely interested in pronunciation. He can "adjust" his accents, but he is always careful to consider who he is talking to and to choose an accent that will be well-received. Americans have many regional and class accents. Not everyone speaks with a "broadcast" voice! Because of racial inequities in the USA, many Americans do what is called "code switching." It is really valuable to be able to choose an accent to fit a situation! Good for you.

[@electrictroy2010]

I don’t practice code-switching, but studies show White Democrats/ liberals will “dumb down” their language when speaking to black people. They just automatically assume the blacks are uneducated .

[@McNab1986]

Sounds like emotion is harder to portray in RP compared to OP

[@aerobolt256]

Someone said comment on OP Hamlet To Be or Not To Be that in RP it sounded like a whiny brat, but OP sounded like genuine questions

[@LoveLee_Dreamer]

Our idea of a pirate's accent is almost identical to OP Shakespeare.

[@whiskyngeets]

First time I ever enjoyed Shakespeare. Awesome.

[@glennchartrand5411]

I've noticed that nobody in America has trouble understanding OP. Nor do any of us find the accent to be annoying. Thats what convinced me that they are very close.

[@robertowiliamo2809]

I really appreciate and believe that every single English language lecturer and or teacher might resort to this style and OP as the unique way to lift up or improve language learners four major English language's skills.

[@brookenjonas]

I can watch this on repeat and it's still great every time.

[@scottroberts5511]

I could listen to this mans voice all day long

[@atvalleau]

I agree that OP sounds, to me at least, a lot like the way 16th/17th century pirates are potrayed as speaking, without all the arrrrrs, of course. Makes some sense, if you think about it. The English pirates were from that time and so probably were speaking some form of OP. I've heard actors playing pirates pronounce words like "I" and "strife" very similarly to how Ben does in this lecture. Think about it.

[@monkeymox2544]

The 'pirate' accent is only associated with pirates because Robert Newton portrayed Long John Silver in a 1950s adaptation of treasure island, that's really the start of the 'pirate accent' in popular culture. Of course what Americans think of as the 'pirate accent' is actually just how people in the Southwest of England speak, and that's where Newton was from. To be fair though, quite a few pirates were actually from the West country, so probably would have actually sounded like that.

[@mcgibs]

OP is the clear choice. By far. Shakespeare in RP is like a bad dub of an anime in comparison. It's kind of blowing my mind that there's this whole world of nuance getting buried by it.

[@nellisssima]

Looked in for five minutes and stayed for the whole thing. Wonderful speaker. Fascinating.

[@yvonnewalesuk8035]

Brilliant presentation, Ben, and I loved listening to the ease in which you changed from accent to accent. Just one thing, though, and that's your Welsh accent. I'm from north Wales....and you were definitely slipping into a south Wales accent there, cariad!

[@ImCarolB]

But when he slipped into Lancashire, I heard my grandmother's family loud and clear! My dad was born in the US and obviously thought his family was so English-perfect. We never let on that we knew it was not nearly RP.

[@Px828]

He has a wonderful natural voice.

[@ritacummings2310]

Wonderful . Witty . Thought provoking . Digging into myself . Finding my own uniqueness . Finding this and my kindred spirits . The concepts . Love this . Thank you . Thank you so very much . I feel happy and closer to finding more like this . I regret now, letting go of my peace here on earth not pursuing my soul . This gives me hope that young people will find the treasure in this video.

[@ritacummings2310]

I think this is great . So interesting . Glad I came across this ..

[@tayyabpirzada146]

What a wonderful lecture

[@kaylamcook696]

The proved/loved bit--I once knew an Irishman who pronounced "lovely" as "loovely." So as much as "pruv'd" sounds better than "looved," I suppose either could definitely be possible.

[@ScotchIrishHoundsman]

Kayla M Cook Hmm 🤔 interesting

[@cigh7445]

Irish dialects retained a lot of archaisms from older English. Less so as time goes on of course

[@jeanvanderstegen]

what a wonderful lecture !!!!

[@hellomello258]

Thank you so much. I'm a linguistics student with an eye towards pronunciation and accent training. The focus on accent and identity, empowerment, home, land, roots... It's incredibly valuable to me. The point on the "10%" filled in with the actor's voice is excellent. I've been interested in David and Ben Crystal and OP for years now, before I ever considered going back to school for linguistics, because of the video of the two of them discussing OP at a theater, so it's interesting to come back from a different perspective.

[@thurstonxander]

this man is so entertaining! I love his passion. I'm a new fan

[@questionsq9031]

That is my teacher ! Ben . Glad to took him lesson today !

[@pagantalks5993]

American here, when I studied Shakespeare, a dr who’s focus was Shakespeare’s Romances agreed with the premise that the American English accent has its own dna to this era, due to this, encouraged the owning of “your own” Voice in the language. But the OP!difference in physicality and register wow! Wondering what text he is using to deal with deleted punctuation and capitalization changes? Oxford? Great talk.

[@electrictroy2010]

“dr who”. Ehhh, what’s that? I think you meant “a doctor whose focus”. Correct spelling helps with communication .

[@allandoyle4942]

Many Thank for your work, Mr. Crystal. You go from strength to strength in your lecture-presentations. Consider taking US citizenship, which would make you a shoo-in for a MacArthur Fellowship Award.

[@LisaB_12204]

What a wonderful video. Could someone please correctly match more of the standard English spelling when this wonderful man changes his accent? Why? I teach ESL and would love to use this and standard English spelling is needed. Thank you again.

[@lhistorienchipoteur9968]

Thanks Atun Shei for mentionning to learn me about this great video and this great actor.

[@MySerpentine]

Terry Pratchett mention! Yay!

[@user-oo8xp2rf1k]

Rp Is like Wind in the Willows. I love it. Rp speakers, should niether apologise nor crow. I am liverpool-yorkshire-cardiff-radio 4. The speakers versatility is great fun.

[@gergalvin1312]

Hi Ben, I'm new to this video, and thanks for posting it. I'm not new, though, to the vowel sounds of original pronuciation. Being Irish, oddities like 'quare' , (for queer), or indeed 'Jaysus' (for Jesus) are commonplace. Richard III's being 'cheated of feature by dissembling nature' might seem more of a piece were he to be 'chayted of fayture by dissembling nayture'. Modern la-di-daw Irish people would castigate such flattening out of vowels, of course, but Shakespeare is full of it. Brilliant presentation, by the way.

[@gergalvin1312]

pronunciation!

[@kaycee1076]

Thry need to teach OP Shakespeare in schools! I loved going through Macbeth back in High School, but after seeing a few of Ben's talks here on KZbin I feel like I missed out on a lot of the play and I'm left wondering what jokes or puns I missed or if parts of the plot that always seemed a bit odd would make much better sense in OP.

[@user-eh2yy4fc4i]

Как же это прекрасно звучит. Нас на уроках литературы учат именно такому произношению. Оказывается, что Вильям Шекспир человек с большим чувством юмора. И часто шутил на сексуальные темы. А может простым людям,работягам, крестьянам в 17 веке очень нравились именно такие пьесы...? Это позволяет по другому (по новому) воспринимать его творчество.😊 Большую роль в восприятии материала играют тембр голоса, интонация, паузы и произношение. Все это создает особую атмосферу.

[@Salmannilla]

I love this work you are doing

[@davidmargetts821]

OOh I love this. I'd love to 'ave a go at being Jhon Talbot before the gates of Ruin, however it is spelt. We commoners round 'ere drop our 'aches, hench the frequent use of the apostrophe.

[@ianhowlett4682]

This guy is brilliant!

[@InklingThe]

My husband slips into a different accent when we visit his family in rural Missouri. My mom, who's from Northern Illinois kept asking me why my in-laws have a "southern accent", which I had to explain was a totally different accent (it's like confusing a Welsh and a Cockney accent)

[@ScotchIrishHoundsman]

The Inkling Missouri was almost considered the south at one point in time though, so she’s not entirely wrong, haha.

[@tetsi0815]

I mean... technically from the point of view of northern IL MO is kinda south :-D

[@scottylilacleona9193]

Part of mid Missouri is still called little Dixie, and historically a lot of Missouri’s population came from Tennessee and Kentucky when they weren’t straight up Germans.

[@DTux5249]

41:00 Wait... So what's the point of "Coward" and "C(h)ord" rhyming? Just a fun tidbit or hold meaning in the text

[@mikesrandomchannel]

I think, but can't prove, that the word coward/chord (48.07) leads to the word "resolution" in the following line, a wordplay on resolve/resolution as a chord resolves, so the coward resolves to do something ... or thinks about it and does not.

[@berniemccann8935]

Goodness, what an Introduction! Are they language and communication professionals.

Awesome ! Cheers !

[@micheleheddane3804]

Thanks for sonnet 18 finally understood and wow

[@Penguin-Goat]

Came here, checked whether the auto-CC works well, writing a comment about that.

[@hankthepatriot3733]

In my opinion, I found Shakespeare to be stuffy and cold... this OP version i find warm, engaging and ENERGETIC!

[@sealyoness]

Once met, by candlelight? Being, as it were, a lingual chameleon, I just can't keep Pygmalion or A Midsummer Night's Dream out of my mind. But accents, like the cells created to be part of a heart, pulse arbitrarily until they get within reach of each other... and then begin to beat alike. Not one singular pulse, nor the other, but something new and unique. And together.

[@jarlbregadan914]

As a non native speaker of english I find the Shakespearean pronunciation much more comfortable and natural. Perhaps it's my romance mother tongue speaking, but it has more air, more space.

[@electrictroy2010]

The OP also shares many vowel sounds with the Romance languages .

[@johnnyfantaztic9279]

marvelous exquisite speaking.

[@williamreely4431]

That first original pronunciation literally sounds like Geoffrey Rush's pirate accent from PotC.

[@b00i00d]

Ben is a great presenter, stimulating, engaging, funny, he brings things to life! My only reservation is about claiming that _this_ or _that_ was the original accent of Elisabethan England. While we can make quite good linguistic conjectures, the final truth is that, unless we can build a time machine to travel back to the past, we will never actually know exactly what their language sounded like.

[@fionahawke6134]

Interestingly, the research he and other people have done into the history of the English language and the sounds therein is based partly on written accounts from throughout time ON speech patterns. We can also trace accents back through time via geography and how vowels in particular follow pathways that show us how the changes happened.

[@ConstanzeWeber]

I might ordinarily agree with your point about certainty except that Ben freely admits that they are only 90% sure they have the original accent and, not insignificantly, Ben is the son of David Crystal, the eminent linguist who's been involved in the authorship or editorship of over a hundred books in his field so I think I'm going to go with Ben and David on this one.

[@b00i00d]

@@ConstanzeWeber Yes, I know who he is, have even read some of father Crystal's books ( ;) - have you? There are a lot of holes in the theory and even the 90% sounds very much like finger in the air. Too much detail to discuss in text form

[@deo-max9229]

Wow! Just WOW!

[@edram4051]

What did professor Lynn say in the beginning?

[@scottplummer4734]

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa (Greetings, Greetings, Greetings to you all - 3 or more people) A Greeting in the Maori language. The University of Otago is in New Zealand.

[@drrd4127]

In my village in scotland, I talk like this "Hoo ir ye? Ir ye breekin' yer beck daein' aw tha' wurk?!" "Aye, a'm ir a bit, a hiv tae git it done or a wull be oot ae th' jab". ("How are you? Are you breaking your back doing all that work?!" "Yes, I am a bit but I have to get it done or I will be out of the job") One time a fella from my village said he refused to talk the local tongue because he didn't want to sound like a pirate. Hehehehe he is right, we sound like pirates especially with all the "Aye"s, "ye"s, "ir"s and "yer"s. LOL. But in reality it is the other way round, pirates just sounded like ordinary folk.

[@joebrinson5040]

Encore!

[@phail0]

Crowd so soft. Open that pit up

[@catsupchutney]

The venerable Dick Van Dyke. Also Ben tossed some New York City into his take on a transatlantic accent.

[@jeffreygao3956]

Oi am the Witchfinder General o' the Colenai o' Massachusetts Bay.

[@virginiahansen320]

Really sounds like an Irishman lived in the U.S. for a while and his accent became half-Americanized.

[@RichardDCook]

Both Ireland and North America had English introduced around the same time, the Elizabethan period, accounting for some similarities. Read Albion's Seed for a detailed look at the four different British regional accents which were brought to four different colonies in America, accounting for the differences in American regional accents.

[@PyckledNyk]

Was that Welsh at the start?

[@allanhunnicutt8887]

Tang poetry in Tang twang.

[@SocialJusticeAlchemyLive]

"Call me not fool til Heaven hath sent me Fortune." And maybe her sisters Hope and Chastity, too. ;P

[@thanos6346]

It reminds me of the Ocracoke Island accent

[@SuperDrLisa]

Here in New England we neither don't pronounce the "r" or we add them where they are not present.

[@muhilan8540]

Hagrid

[@jtaco4101]

What is that Chant they do before speaking?

[@ArcadiyIvanov]

Yeah I was wondering that too.

[@vinnycontini10]

18:39 accidental foreshadowing

[@keithduff6312]

OP sounds like Irish to me. (I'm American that's ignorant to regional dialects in the UK)

[@harrymetsally86]

So more like an amalgamation of an Irish/Yorkshire/Bristol accent?

[@Muguetsu]

46:18 Hamlet's speech

[@robertacomstock3655]

Philome made of vellum?

[@tensforme]

Can you do a California surfer Shakespeare accent? Like hey dude, how the waves today?

[@haraldisdead]

Im a Pennsylvanian. "American" accent was perfect. The only thing that would give it away would be word choice... and your "R" is not quite "R" enough lol

[@tangent94]

He sounded to me like he was from Boston!

[@sealyoness]

I hated Hamlet. And a person who should have become my friend but for circumstances not workable, gave me a favorite hoodie right before I had to go have surgery. She killed herself while I was recovering - unaware - several floors away in hospital. I hate Hamlet.

[@elmamounkhider8113]

[@ElvisTranscriber2]

37:23

[@donna30044]

5:10

[@shabirmagami146]

💌💌💌💌💌

[@cult_of_odin]

So basically Shakespeare sounded like someone from New England mixed with someone from Appalachia?

[@dimasgirl2749]

Ben Crystal sounds like Ian McDiarmid.

[@kvtassel]

The words (lyrics?) remain the same and the original accent is poetic and MEANT to be poetic, while the contemporary english ruins the poetry (the rhyming). You should say this FIRST.

[@radds2503]

Drudge Council?

[@chrisscorpio5651]

He sounds fairly American.

[@catzkeet4860]

Chris Scorpio Ben has a trans Atlantic accent as most English people who spend a lot of their time in the US develop. He has a pretty polyglot English accent in any case as he moved around a fair bit as a young man. Also never forget that even tho they sound entirely different now, US accents started out as English accents.....prob not unlike OP, in fact.

[@kaylamcook696]

He's Welsh. He said that in a Ted Talk he did a few years back.

[@micheinnz]

You have a tin ear.