What Can We Know about Shakespeare's Own Accent?

In this video, I explore the limits of how far we can reconstruct the personal accent of William Shakespeare. Reconstructing an individual person's accent is impossible unless they left explicit phonetic descriptions or an audio recording, but reconstructing broad trends in regional accents is a lot easier - so in this video, I aim for a Warwickshire accent that a speaker living in Shakespeare's time might have had, with some phonetic features being more easily reconstructible than others.
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[@beepboop204]

i remember the "reading Shakespeare in the real accent" stuff first blew up, it was fascinating to me how much of Shakespeare actually rhymed, or had double entendres, when the accent was shifted.

[@GaiusCaligula234]

How is it surprising that poems rhymed?

[@beepboop204]

@@GaiusCaligula234 not sure if you are being ironic or unironic. or, honestly, if there is even a difference anymore. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYHPoaOeiZyhb9Usi=_bjvOv98TfCfJFEf&t=290

[@Safetysealed]

@@GaiusCaligula234 Most poetry in most languages doesnt rhyme. English only developed that in the early middle english period and got it from the French. Use of rhyme is only one possible artistic choice in the poetic medium. And even in English poetry, most doesn't rhyme once you get past a high school level.

[@GaiusCaligula234]

@@Safetysealed Untrue - most poetry in most languages rhymes to a significant degree - as opposed to prose

[@beepboop204]

@@GaiusCaligula234 rhythm and rhyme are not the same thing, but hey, you keep on virtue signalling about your smertts. u r poretty smert afgter all

[@TheTedder]

The bit at the end was priceless.

[@AllanCWechsler]

He soundeth as a hackney costermonger which hath had a stroke. Forsooth.

[@InsoIence]

As a Pole, I always look forward to your videos. They help me understand British accents and their origin. :)

[@Anonie324]

I've been interested in Polish history for a long time. I've watched some videos about reconstructed pronunciations of Old and Middle Polish, but they're all in Polish. Do you have any recommendations for videos?

[@derka90]

Same ;) 🇵🇱

[@goranatanasovski6463]

@@Anonie324 Would be interested myself! 🙂 Especially since it is the "most divergent" big slavic language for me and I would like to know how much easier to understand it would be for me.

[@WilliamCelandine]

Nice. Poland is awesome

[@user-td4do3op2d]

AZ Foreman is the first person to go to when it comes to reconstructions of Shakespeare’s English. His channel is incredible and so underrated. Simon - I would love to hear you reconstruct more of the 19th century dialects from Ellis. I’m surprised nobody appears to have done it. You could do a whole video where you read the dialects and show where they come from on a map. I would happily pay you for this video if I wasn’t poor.

[@Anonie324]

Couldn't agree more. Was addicted to his SoundCloud back in 2020, didn't realize he's moved to KZbin til about a month ago!

[@RheaDawnLanguage]

even if the amazing Simon doesn’t get around to it, I’ll be making a video like that sometime soon!

[@user-td4do3op2d]

@ Amazing! I love your channel - already subscribed. That video on rhoticity in Australian English was on par with Simon. Keep it up and you will continue to grow

[@leebalmforth2269]

A far better accent than now 😀

[@RikimaruNobunaga]

So lucky we have Simon making these videos for us, please don't stop

[@helenamcginty4920]

Linguist David Crystal has also done a lot of work on the accent of Shakespeare's plays and the London accent of the time. When one play (might have been Midsummer Nights Dream) was put on for London School children using his accent some expected it to be a failure. The opposite happened. The children 'got' the jokes. And the consensus of audiences in general is that it makes the plays easier to understand.

[@t3v3w]

David Crystal‘s son Ben has also done a lot. Unlike David, he‘s a working actor.

[@Wisdomcucco]

I've heard the Crystal reconstructions aren't really historical reconstructions. It's more like a blend of modern accents, as his goal is to popularise Shakespeare to a larger audience, not an exact replication. I'm not an expert though

[@chris12321246801]

A video on Issac Newton's accent would be really interesting.

[@incurvatus]

Can you tell me why you think so? He didn't work with words so I'm not sure why it would particularly matter, but maybe I'm missing something...

[@RobertFisher1969]

@incurvatusWhy would you think that being interested in how someone spoke would depend on them working with words. Given that we have evidence of how he spoke and given that he is a person many of us still find fascinating is surely enough of a reason. And considering that he wrote books-important books-in Latin that I find interesting to read, I'd also be interested if there is any evidence of how he might have pronounced Latin. (Absence evidence, I'd assume he'd pronounce it the same an English, which seems to have always been a fairly common thing.)

[@two_tier_gary_rumain]

@incurvatus It has a certain gravitas.

[@AttilatheNun-xv6kc]

​@RobertFisher1969 There are indications that the pronunciation of Latin in England differed markedly from the continental pronunciation. In Patrick O'Brian's series of "Aubrey-Maturin" novels set in Napoleonic times, the Stephen Maturin character - an Irish doctor who grew up in Spain and studied in Paris - finds the Latin pronunciation of his British colleagues "barbaric". Also, Paul Gambon, the incoming French ambassador to London ca 1900, described the pronunciation of the Latin he heard during a ceremony at Oxford University as "laughable" (although Monsieur Gambon was openly unimpressed by everything in Britain).

[@AttilatheNun-xv6kc]

​@@two_tier_gary_rumain Good one.

[@bigaspidistra]

The ending reminded me of a comedy sketch which featured a group of cavemen saying that they amused themselves by burying monkey and human bones together to confuse archaeologists.

[@jayemmsea]

The skit at the end is so good 😂

[@AdDewaard-hu3xk]

I guess I now have to keep watching.

[@joshuasims5421]

The pair of segments at the end were truly glorious.

[@yusuftor]

This is super interesting. I’m from Stratford-upon-Avon and for the bit at 10:22 pondering whether those vowel qualities apply for people of Stratford today - yes but only really the older generation above 50 from what I’ve experienced. It sounds slightly more countrified than how you say it, especially how people would pronounce mouth. Younger people either have modern RP or more of a brummy accent, possibly depending on class.

[@ronkalinovsky6898]

At last, I’ve been waiting so long for this video!

[@randomguy-tg7ok]

One of the first things that jumps out at me is that he rhymes "glass" and "was" - which the reading of the opening poem doesn't.

[@incurvatus]

Those words rhyme in my accent :)

[@qwertyasdfg2219]

​@incurvatus where are you from?

[@greenockscatman]

King of peaceful b-reel. I love the little critters crawling around.

[@caramelldansen2204]

I love that end skit! 😊

[@jacobparry177]

Had no idea that name, shame and lane had a long o at one point. Explains why the Welsh borrowings of Shame and Lane and man are Siom /ʃɔm/ and Lôn /lo:n/ Mon (In words like Plismon, plismones, hwsmon, hangmon. Mon isnt used as a standalone word. We use the actual Welsh word, dyn, for that) Love it when different languages fossilize archaic pronounciations of other languages' words.

[@seamusoblainn]

Yeah, the Irish for shop is siopa presumably from shoppe, line is líne

[@WGGplant]

21:46 this exact palatization also happened in southern US english, and though it has mostly died out, you can still hear remnants of young speakers doing it, even if not consistently. Though southerners diphthongize many short vowels, you can sometimes hear a yod in word like "get" [gjɪt] [gjɪət] and the like.

[@PrinceHerbsStrongestSoldier]

This is so true for my part of the South (rural VA). It’s actually funny because I had a conversation with one of my ESL students about this very topic earlier. He spelled the word “still” as “steal”, which is exactly how we say it around here. His misspelling really made me realize something about my own accent today

[@trinity_null]

it also survives in northeastern ontario :D in both cases from irish english

[@ChristChickAutistic]

Very true, especially here in the Deep South.

[@overlordnat]

The Glaswegian comedian Kevin Bridges says many words with a ky- or gy- at the beginning, so it survives in some Scottish speakers too. I’ve never heard rednecks say it that way though, fascinating!

[@chrisball3778]

This was especially fascinating to me as someone who loves Shakespeare and Early Modern history who's lived in the West Midlands most of my life. I've been trying to teach myself a bit or Early Modern English precisely so I can read Shakespeare in it as a particularly nerdy party trick. I've sometimes wondered how different the West Midlands accent of the past was both from the better documented London accent and from the accent of my region today, so I'll probably be rewatching parts of this video more than once. I'm very slightly disappointed that Shakespeare probably didn't use our much maligned Brummie vowels, but that's more than made up for by hearing his poetry read like this, and finally having some of my questions answered. Also, I don't know how useful a data point this is,( as you seem to have nailed down the appropriate sound anyway), but a few times when I've been mooching around old churchyards in Warwickshire I've noticed 19th century headstones with rhymes on them, and that the word 'grave' is frequently rhymed with 'have'. Unfortunately I don't know when they stopped rhyming.

[@theogeitondasamphilochos5630]

The fact that Issac Newton wrote about English accent from his perspective sounds so like Newton to me😂

[@dooleyfussle8634]

Yeah, you can read about it in a fascinating book about our use of notebooks called The Notebook: a history of thinking on paper, by Roland Allen.

[@Discotekh_Dynasty]

They should get you to help out with the new Robert Eggers film set in 13th c England with period accurate dialogue

[@scottnyc6572]

As someone who’s born and raised in one of New York City’s boroughs Staten Island.I’ve often been asked where I’m from when traveling to other parts of the city.Regional and local accents like you mention are very relevant.Im only minutes from Brooklyn however for someone who’s native to the area it’s amazing how accents as subtle as they be are noticeable to people traveling from borough to borough.

[@hikingpete]

The skit at the end was amazing!

[@villalactea]

The production level of your videos is really starting to shine Simon. I loved your videos before, so im quite excited to see deeper topics like these in the future🌸✨️

[@RJFF77]

The palatalization is also what's behind the slang word "gyatt" from aave 22:35

[@Muritaipet]

Brilliant!! And the sound of your recreated Shakespeare (to me) is very believable. It has a rhythm and cadence, that feels like that's how Shakespeare may have said it. He would have written in his voice.

[@irtnyc]

Muritaipet? Why would he have written in his (own) voice? He is not a character in any of his plays. Rather they include characters from all over Britain, France, Italy, the Roman Empire, Scotland, Denmark, imaginary fairy queendoms and notably during the Henriad for example feature English monarchs who spoke *French* (and Latin) not English their entire lives. When Henry V for example is calling for "once more into the breach" for example, do you think Shakespeare would have him saying that in a Warwickshire accent? Ahh, no. Goodman Puff of Barson Warks (Hen. IV Pt. 2) is one of few characters in the entire works of Shakespeare who speaks with a Warwickshire accent. See also William and Audrey (ca. Touchstone) from As You Like It. For example, do this line in a Warwickshire accent fine: 10 V,1,2202 "William. Good ev'n, Audrey. Audrey. God ye good ev'n, William." In comparison, Hamlet, absolutely not.

[@Muritaipet]

@@irtnyc I think you've misunderstood what I meant by written in his voice. What I mean is the use of words, structure, cadence and rhyme would be created in a way that made sense to Shakespeare, and would reflect the way he spoke. You seem to be mainly writing about accent. I didn't use that word, as it has a different meaning to me. An example of 'written in his own voice" is what you've just written. If I had written those same concepts, it would be very, very different. There's all sorts of things you "say" that I would never use. For example "fairy queendoms" "Ahh, no." "do this line in a Warwickshire accent fine:" "In comparison, Hamlet, absolutely not." That is not how I would have said exactly the same thing. What you wrote, reflects the way you speak, reflects the way you think, and those things feed back into each other. The way you wrote that, is unique to you. It is your voice.

[@erickcapitanio1957]

now I want a video on Newton's english

[@incurvatus]

You're the second person to say this. Can you tell me why? He wasn't a writer/didn't work with words so I don't understand why that would be interesting... I feel like I'm missing something.

[@talideon]

He wouldn't have sounded radically different from this, so it wouldn't be a terribly interesting video.

[@Muritaipet]

Yes!!! I'm behind this, and starting a campaign for Simon Roper to make a video on it.

[@dooleyfussle8634]

​@incurvatushe kept notebooks, some of which we have, full of incredible investigations of all sorts of things, including his own pronunciations.

[@cat_luvr6895]

A.Z. Foreman has done one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2HJq3x_o86Vp5I

[@Chris_from_yealand]

Sorry to be pointing a mistake out but Ian Mckellen is a Lancastrian. He was born in Burnley but is most associated with Bolton.

[@stevenholt4936]

I can confirm that as all my family come from Bolton.

[@bonesf200]

Definitely. He was in my dad's year at Bolton School.

[@fugithegreat]

Patrick Stewart is from Yorkshire though. I enjoyed his audiobook narration of his memoirs when he would use his natural Yorkshire accent for much of the narration of his youth.

[@stevenholt4936]

@@fugithegreat 'Uddersfield, if memory serves.

[@Nooticus]

Phenomenal video. So entertaining and easy to understand. Some beautiful nature too

[@marymactavish]

I've been really looking forward to another video from you, thank you.

[@voltairedentotalenkrieg5147]

"Double, double!! Toil and trouble. Gunpowder, treason, and plot. I see no good reason in this fair season, One oughtn't to add some snot" One of my favourite verses from Shakespeare

[@jonen2]

Thank you for making this. Fascinating.

[@evanmiracle2945]

I think the pronunciation of ‘phonological’ and ‘phonetician’ with /ɒ/ in the first syllable is very recent. Fowler’s 1925 Pocket Dictionary has /əʊ/ (transcribed as ō) in these syllables, and I never heard it with /ɒ/ until I started watching your videos!

[@antonyreyn]

The West Midlands is closer to Wales and remnant Celtic population in the West of England, see the distinct accents of the West Country Devon Cornwall which were independent celtic Kingdoms for longer, so could there be any influence there? Just asking, cheers from NorthMercia

[@badjemima]

Absolutely fascinating, as always.

[@overlordnat]

Brilliant stuff as always Simon, the Claverdon man saying ‘wrong’ as ‘wrung’ (almost with a PUT vowel) and the Middle English ‘mon’ for ‘man’ is a lot like broad Black Country accents today. It’s before nasals that ‘o’ becomes ‘u’, so ‘monster’ becomes ‘munster’ and ‘bonfire’ becomes ‘bunfire’. This doesn’t survive in Warwickshire today. The vowels wouldn’t typically be fully diphthongised in a Birmingham manner (especially not ‘oh’) and some speakers would say ‘I parked my car in the car park’ as ‘I paaked my caa in the caa paak’ a bit like Bostonians talking about parking their cars in the Harvard yard.

[@Gabriel-wz3ni]

I'm from Warwickshire. I have no foot-strut split, but the vowel is not [ʊ], but actually unrounded [ɤ]. No Trap-Bath split either.

[@Gabriel-wz3ni]

I should point out that [ʊ] is not common in Birmingham or Leicester. The KIT vowel being tense also sounds very south-east to me (e.g. the stereotypical pronunciation 'Isseex' for Essex) - nothing I've come across in the West Midlands in the modern day (though there certainly could be). FLEECE is very diphthongised though esp in Birmingham and Dudley.

[@Gabriel-wz3ni]

16:52 'grandma' is still pronounced as 'grondma' in Warwickshire

[@clerigocarriedo]

@@Gabriel-wz3niI think /ɪ/ is indeed tense in Birmingham but not in the Black Country. I used to live in the Black Country and tense /ɪ/ [i] and a very open somewhat rounded /ɒ/ were the two shibboleth sounds to tell a Brummie from a West Country person.

[@Gabriel-wz3ni]

@ Interesting!

[@overlordnat]

@@clerigocarriedothe KIT vowel sounds a lot like the FLEECE vowel in Stoke, that’s the main place for it - I’d say the phenomenon is progressively less common as you go towards Birmingham, with pronunciations like ‘biskeet’ for ‘biscuit’ said by more Yam Yams than Brummies

[@mapwiz-sf5yt]

Throughout the video I kept being reminded of the Massachusetts accent used by Atun-Shei Films' character, the VVitchfinder-General.

[@BenBebbington]

Because thou art a hatefulle sinner

[@joshuasims5421]

As a phonologist, I agree that vowel systems tend to be symmetrical. They can often change to lose their symmetry, and when they do, they naturally tend to undergo vowel shifts to fill those gaps. However, this symmetry may be only phonological, with the narrow phonetic values being somewhat skewed, while the underlying features of the vowel system are still rather symmetrical. By the way, once you notice palatalization of velars+front vowels in English, you can't stop hearing it. For most varieties I hear in the US, it's not the strong offglide we heard in the video, but the velar stops are definitely palatalized themselves.

[@TheOakleysworld]

I've always heard the black country accent has resisted a lot of change. And I have to say that it does sound close to the reconstruction for Bill. I like to believe he spoke like a mon from Dudley

[@bonuscheesemilk]

1:26 you are so funny sometimes Simon 😂😂😂

[@talideon]

22:25 - this iotisation (for want of a better term) is mostly a thing on Cavan and Meath, though you'll hear it in some neighbouring counties, such as Tyrone, which is where Kevin McAleer, who you showed, is from. However, it's not something you'd find in Derry or Donegal, unless somebody's moved there from further south. It's very much a South Ulster and North Leinster thing.

[@therealzilch]

Typically fascinating, thanks again, Simon. I used to have a bit of a Washington state accent from my mother, exemplified by "warshing clothes" and "waint for me". Alas, my English is now pretty boring '60s California smush. Here in Austria, regional dialects are holding out a bit longer than in the US, but they are also disappearing, with the onslaught from social media. I just came back from a vacation in East Tyrol, where there is still quite a difference from my Viennese German, but not so much nowadays that I had trouble understanding them. Thirty years ago was a different story. Lunch is still on me if you're in town. _Grüße aus kühlem Wien, Scott._

[@offaofmercia3329]

I live in Coventry and can identify a Birmingham conurbation accent instantly as separate to my own, yet find it much harder to tell Leicester, Coventry and Northampton apart, you need much more spoken speech data to tell the differences with those three. South Warwickshire, is flatter than West Midlands Brummie, much less see saw in the voice. A West Midlands accent does have quite a variation. Listen to football phone ins today and you get a sense of the range. I guess it will never stop BBC tv depictions of anyone from the West Midlands having a strong black country accent.

[@Battker]

THOSE SKITS AT THE END BRO EXCELLENT

[@TheEggmaniac]

Listening to your reading at the start, your reconstruction of a London accent in the 1600s. It sounds to me, generally like a mixture of west country and Irish accents. Not what I was expecting.

[@benmaloney5434]

Just a thought: If the KIT vowel was to be as tense as [i] in the West-Midlands at that time, pre-fortis clipping cannot have been active (or there would be no way for the vowel of 'grit' to contrast with the short [i] of 'greet'). This contrast is maintained today precisely because the West-Midlands FLEECE vowel [ǝj] is so diphthongal, but that diphthong must have been roughly the quality of the PRICE vowel in the 17th century. So, if pre-fortis clipping was active (and I think it was, since Cooper (1688) lists meet-need and foot-food as short-long pairs), then the KIT vowel can really only have been lax [ɪ].

[@crystaldottir]

The gang of actors Shakespeare hung out with must have had a big influence on each other to move toward a common accent. I wonder if Shakespeare's plays were written to fit in with that common accent and his sonnets, more personal, were written in his own natural voice.

[@dialecticsjunkie7653]

Possible, but considering that the Sonnets were explicitly dedicated to an upper class patron, I'd assume he consciously thinks about what the posh accent would sound like when composing them

[@crystaldottir]

@dialecticsjunkie7653 I can imagine it either way, depending on their relationship, but what got me thinking was how he described himself in the poems. Playing up an old-fashioned country accent could be part of the persona he was presenting. If he wrote them to speak in person, they could have had some of each, for actor-y effect. And how were they edited before the version we have was published? We'll probably never know.

[@dialecticsjunkie7653]

@@crystaldottir I love that theory. I'm not an expert but it intuitively feels like the Sonnets have many voices and characters implied in it. It's probably a safe bet that Shakespeare who started his career as an actor would be skilled at imitating many accents

[@SidBlackheart]

I love conservative Simon.

[@l8th8mx]

beautiful video

[@bendthebow]

Love the end 😂

[@yes_head]

Brilliant. Thank thee!

[@AurorasWorld]

Love this video, just one thing I wanted to ask because I have very little knowledge of English phonetics and phonology, but how do you "pick" a couple of words for comparison, for example with the vowel in cut and put, which in the video is in turn associated with the distinction between "up" and "drunken" etc in the 1820s speaker, like how do distinguish the similarities and differences between a set of words that are structural and relevant from those that aren't in a specific dialect? Is there some criteria like for example which types of phonemes precede/follow the vowel?

[@dsbromeister1546]

Late to the party but that skit at the end was great 😂

[@jamesburke2094]

The isogloss roughly at Richmond in north Yorkshire is a good topic for a simon roper special

[@frankharr9466]

That was interesting, thank you. Yeah, I get that last bit.

[@princerupert6161]

As a child we went to pick hopes in Kent each year. I remember the delightful accent the locals had. Now, it's almost vanished entirely. Even in villages in the weald, the kids sound like they're from South London. Such a shame.

[@badjemima]

He soundeth as a Hackney costermonger which hath had a stroke. Genius :-)

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Does Shakespeare’s accent in the texts tell us anything about his social class? Does it differ significantly from other writers of the time - Ben Jonson, Kit Marlowe?

[@rufioh]

The end was great

[@Aureus_]

I aim to recite it as this from now on!

[@mehitabel1290]

I love the way your own final Ts are gradually disappearing..!

[@bomagosh1252]

Shakespeare's name was spelled a variety of ways, with two of the more frequent spellings "Shakespeare," and "Shakspere." In the 19th Century, the latter spelling was more common, but today mostly the former spelling is used. I'm curious whether these two spellings might really reflect different regional pronunciation at the time when the great vowel shift was affecting pronunciation of long and short vowels.

[@AttilatheNun-xv6kc]

Although we shouldn't lose sight of the way people's spelling of their own names back then was so inconsistent. Christopher Marlowe, for example, was baptized with that name but was known to spell his surname as Marley. This was despite his surname being printed on the title pages of some of his works as Marlowe, Marlow, Marloe and Marlo.

[@GreatCdn59]

19:47 i get a big Jamaican/Caribbean vibe. i assume there's a link.

[@sidarthur8706]

that con, mon, honds and so on pronunciation is still used in the black country. in upstart crow they give shakespeare's family a birmingham accent i guess because it's meant to be close enough. i often wonder about that

[@marinanguish9928]

5:29 Correct me if I am wrong, but this would also suggest the "trap"-"bath" split was, yes, North American English doesn't have that while also having the "put"-"cut" split?

[@Julia-ql9ix]

Something interesting I noticed about my own American accent, is that I have the put-cut split, but not the trap-bath split. I’m kind of split down the middle there.

[@tyanite1]

Simon, not being from Britain, I am not familiar with the localized accents. I follow a few British KZbinrs who use an F or V sound for TH, like "wiff it" or "wivv it" in place of with it. What specific accents might I be hearing? My son picked up our generalized American accent, which is changing over time, and I noticed he says things like "dih-ent" instead of didn't. The regional southern Ohio accent I grew up with is highly idiosyncratic. It's unlike the accents in neighboring Kentucky, Tennessee or Indiana. My mother said "worsh" instead of wash. She pronounced special as "spay-shul". Dish was "deesh". Dentist was "dennis". Instead of I'm going to, it's "aahm ownna". "Aahm ownna (I'm going to) do sump'm (something) spayshul (special). Aahm ownna (I'm going to) worsh'sha (wash-the) deeshus (dishes) nn (in) cowd (cold) wawdur (water). My in-laws from India, fluent in Indian English of course, can't understand a thing when we visit Ohio. I act as a translator.

[@chandir7752]

"They sounded different from today? no only my current way of speaking is correct and always has been >:("

[@pigeon_the_brit565]

as somebody from Stratford upon avon, i would say that stratford doesn't really have a single accent. it is so frequently a place to move to from all over the country that i only share my accent with one freind of mine and we all grew up here

[@ivanconnolly7332]

Must ask my cousins in bogtrotter Monasterevin County Offaly to read a sonnet , the resonance of the r's is like reverb.

[@SamuelWatkins-j2o]

I'm from North Warwickshire and can confirm some older people still pronounce "man" as "mon".

[@curtinj98]

I don't know the qualification of the Reddit user who made a comment in relation to the Coventry accent, but they stated that the Forest of Arden split the Warwickshire accents. Most towns in the county are to the east of the area that the forest covered. Birmingham, which most people associate with the "West Midlands" accent today, was a small town relatively isolated to the west, and that area of the county was more influenced by Worcestershire and Staffordshire than the towns in the east.

[@Humptydumpty_5]

While watching “the king” I heard the line ‘you are all well met’ as a greeting, could have this been another version of the “you are well come” or am I misunderstanding how “welcome” was born?

[@Book-bz8ns]

..had a stroke.. 😂😆👍

[@FarberBob678]

If the vowel in 'mouth' in Seventeenth-Century London was [ow], how come it didn't merge with the vowel in 'show'? Had 'toe' and 'tow' already merged into a monophthong [o:]?

[@FarberBob678]

Perhaps [kj] and [gj] were actually [kʲ] and [gʲ] or alternatively [c] and [ɟ]

[@DabbertjeDouwe]

I need to hear this in the original Klingon, though

[@benjaminhaise7317]

Yes to all of this.

[@mathieudehouck9657]

Linguistics deniers hahaha ! A very niche form of humour, but just sooo enjoyable. My hat to the grround sir, my hat to the grround.

[@nostur4984]

I am not too familiar with public speech norms of that time but wouldn't Shakespeare have put up that time's version of an RP accent just for when he was going to perform?

[@Steve-v5j8r]

I'd like to know where that singsongy brummy intonation comes from , also found in the Black Country, Coventry and Warwickshire. Did Shakespeare speak like that? Also, this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGmYgHqEarJghMk

[@seamusoblainn]

Easy to hear the 17th century English influence on the Irish accent

[@marmac83]

On the other hand, the Irish accent is largely influenced by the Irish language...

[@jellybebe2753]

*Aggressively makes the sign of ‘the fig’* Despite him only being a couple of centuries younger than Chaucer, I’m astonishingly astonished at the thought that Shakespeare would’ve still heard and perhaps even used “gh” word endings still pronounced as “ff.” 😅

[@vampyricon7026]

If you watch his Northern vs Southern accents through the ages video, Northerners were saying "thof" up until the 1940s

[@carolinejames7257]

Fascinating, Simon. Bravo!

[@zapre2284]

25:35 dis-tar-lartion ... hints of Brumie there

[@dayalasingh5853]

Does the Warwickshire dialect given here pronounce 'though' as something like /ðəf/?

[@SnowMonkeyCantSing]

West Counties lad in his latter teens moves to the American Midwest, seven years pass, and he reads Shakespeare aloud. 😂

[@jamesgardner5149]

19:48 Sounds Jamaican

[@cellgrrl]

The Shakespearean interpretation sounded to this American ear like a Scot reading Chaucer.

[@caramelldansen2204]

I wonder if Shakespeare used accents to demonstrate certain ideas or personalities, playing off cultural ideas? I have no knowlege of this personally ngl

[@AttilatheNun-xv6kc]

His "Henry V" has a Welsh character whose accent was his main defining feature.

[@chrisinnes2128]

One of his plays has a Scottish character as well i can't remember which one

[@MacRiocaird]

@@AttilatheNun-xv6kc An Irish character, Captain Macmorris, whose pronunciation Shakespeare attempts to represent in writing, appears in the same play.

[@AttilatheNun-xv6kc]

@MacRiocaird You're right. I'd forgotten about Macmorris. Thank you.

[@160rpm]

Din't think I'd hear "Piss off!" on this channel haha

[@sststr]

You can't figure out an individual's accent, unless you are Henry Higgins! BYSTANDER: Yes - tell HIM where he come from if you want to go fortune-telling. HIGGINS: Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and... India.

[@thirdperson6802]

The “Warwickshire “ accent for the sonnet sounded sweet, brought more joy to the ear, and I can believe this sound to be truer to the poetry of the man. I hate that ‘Shakespearean’ actors have southern 40s voices, this horrible RP ? Emulating Olivier/Guilgud… which for me has no cadence. I have enjoyed Northern Broadsides, who do his work in northern accents, which makes the words sing. So this “original “ Warwickshire accent lifts more off the page than even your London one of the time. I’m wondering if this cadence and it’s locality to Warwickshire make the Welsh such good actors?

[@PrinceHerbsStrongestSoldier]

Wow, this reconstructed accent sounds a bit like the Tangier Island Accent from the coast of Virginia

[@seinmstudio]

Tolkien accent breakdown when? I half promise this is the last time I'll ask.

[@BinkyTheElf1]

Accents hang on longer in isolated and rural areas, and the working class. What survivals of ye olden Warwickshire are still out there? Also, the descendants of immigrants to Canada still have some vowel variations according to their country of origin, and time of immigration.

[@undeadbassman]

You might get a bit of stick for suggesting Ian McKellan is from Yorkshire. Patrick Stewart certainly is but Sir Ian is from the wrong side of the border

[@edhaworth8151]

You mean the right side of the border ;)

[@afzalhossain1429]

How did you know all the accents?

[@Travis-l2n]

24:35

[@davidchapman356]

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