What Shakespeare's English Sounded Like - and how we know

[@koontakentaylor]

I believe I was less confused not knowing what Shakespeare sounded like.

[@oyamsbabe4028]

Koonta me too. I got lost mid way 😞

[@kevinzhang3313]

Dont blame you. Comfort in knowing nothing. And you're fine with that in your life rather than aspiring for more, so be it.

[@TheOldSchoolGamer93]

The more you learn the less you know

[@avzarathustra6164]

@@TheOldSchoolGamer93 Arguably, that's a wise statement.

[@sophiemae4119]

Old School Gamer lmao

[@hiphopdood]

Travel around the UK a bit and you’ll still hear some of these pronunciations in the regional accents.

[@elsakristina2689]

The Northern English accent I think still preserves the old pronunciation of "sleep".

[@MaximumJoy]

@@elsakristina2689 which Northern English accent? I have one and I've no clue what you're referring to.

[@elsakristina2689]

@@MaximumJoy the one in Lancashire

[@MaximumJoy]

@@elsakristina2689 which one? Preston, Chorley, Burnley?

[@elsakristina2689]

@@MaximumJoy Pendle

[@ipetmycats99]

Everyone's saying he sounds Irish, Jamaican, Welsh or even Dutch when we CLEARLY all know what he really is... He's obviously a pirate.

[@infamyinfamy]

haha a pirate accent is a west country English accent!

[@ladybathshuamoshe1751]

😭🤣😂🤣🤣🙏🏽😂 I can’t stop my self from laughing 😝

[@Biggorgeousleo]

эч ким кам көрбөйт

[@rib_rob_personal]

Yup I got pirate more than anything else lol.

[@OoxB505]

Bristolian 😉

[@ganmerlad]

There's another video where two men do pieces of Shakespeare in the original accent/pronunciation and show how it completely changes the rhyming and often makes for puns and double entendres you wouldn't hear at all with modern accents. For instance "from hour to hour we rot and rot" (from As You Like It) with the correct accent ALSO sounds like "from whore to whore we rut and rut" and both fit perfectly with the rest of the dialogue. Very clever. Shakespeare obviously loved wordplay but you can't hear most of it now, *especially* not with the upper-class English accent that most people seem to think is the way Shakespeare should be done.

[@ganmerlad]

@The Anonymous Sir Backspace Yeah I do. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYHPoaOeiZyhb9U It's titled Shakespeare: Original Pronunciation by OpenLearn. The bit about old pronunciation bringing out rhymes and puns starts about the middle.

[@katevgrady]

Modern "hour" pronunciation + Shakespeare "hour" pronunciation = "I love bangin who-ers" -Frank Reynolds

[@jh-ec7si]

That was the same David Crystal mentioned in the vid

[@cejannuzi]

Good for you if you really think they figured out what the original accent(s) were.

[@notyourtypicalwatchreview2563]

Is it written “from hour to hour”, or “from whore to whore”?

[@talknight2]

Recipe for Modern English: 1) mix together Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old High German and Norman French. 2) pour into cultural soup mix 3) gradually add in a 2:1 mixture of Latin and Greek 4) allow to simmer for about half a millennium while occasionally stirring the vowels 5) spoon out the spelling but leave the pronunciation to simmer for a couple more centuries 6) serve with a dictionary... :D

[@bandotaku]

So beautiful, I'm stealing!

[@gabriellazavul3490]

Nice recipe! Lol.

[@theoderic_l]

Will try at home next time : )

[@iyayan_]

Kids loved it, will make again.

[@joeydaboss1001]

Tal Sheynkman this is perfect

[@James-si5et]

He sounds like he's a mix between a drunk Irish man and a drunk Scottish man

[@MCShvabo]

That sounds like a good fun.

[@CraftQueenJr]

I’m reminded of a particularly bad joke now...

[@pivo2k]

I was thinking the same thing 👍

[@mohammedfahad3564]

Thegoodstuff I wish Americans knew that there are 1000s of accents in the uk and that Shakespeare’s accent was actually east Anglian/West Country (England). Search them up and listen to them

[@WookieWarriorz]

wut its nothing like irsh or Scottish, youre american arent you

[@Doctor_Straing_Strange]

Ok, fine, but where are my egges?

[@Sammie1053]

France, apparently.

[@Doctor_Straing_Strange]

@@Sammie1053 cool I live in France.

[@FoxyBoxery]

Yur egges shaleth be inn Franse

[@dr.davidwho4053]

😄

[@slayerslayer7623]

What are egges? Do you mean eyren?

[@itsmecp]

"thou hast" = you have sounds like the German "Du hast" which means "you have". Mind-blowing.

[@googee3]

It would sound even more similar back in the day. People living in the region of modern Germany replaced all the "th" sounds like in "this" or "the" with "d" during the 9th and 10th centuries (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift). This shift also affected Dutch and Scandinavian languages but not Icelandic, which like English, still has the th sound! Germanic English started after Rome got sacked in 410 and the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain).

[@michaeltansey379]

Etymology bro

[@zcolney9215]

It's not actually. You do know that you guys were more or less from the same tribes, right? Anglo-Saxons were Germanic tribes. You guys have the same ancestors.

[@AP1455.]

*Rammstein intensifies*

[@Weazla-]

A lot of English phrases are Germanic, like "that's good"

[@tidebleach1253]

Normal people: Mom I'm hungry!! Shakespear: Let it be known to the birth giver that thy stomach consist of emptiness.

[@JohanaFlores13]

I staaaan :)))))

[@brrruuuh8287]

*My stomach Thy = your/your's

[@Aaron-hq4bu]

Shut up, pleb.

[@brrruuuh8287]

@@EpicnessYeet No

[@dhnsh1843]

Art thou fill'd with pangs of hunger

[@debrawhite751]

My mother grew up in a holler in southeast Kentucky and she swears that her grandmother spoke partly Elizabethan English, so isolated in the mountains were they. She would say "dee" for "die", "yarb" for "herb", money was "puss" ("purse?"). She was mocked by certain family members, and it wasn't until my mother went away to college that she realized that her grandmother was still speaking the English she had heard her parents and grandparents speak. Our family came to America from England in the early 1600s.

[@ravenlord4]

There is still something similar in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

[@Amare1919]

The Appalachian and southern states persevered the Kings English of King George better than anywhere in the world. They were isolated from outsiders unlike the northern states. While at that time England was the center of the world and influenced by French and other migrants.

[@andywilliams8540]

Wow. Pretty cool.

[@taterkaze9428]

Early 1600s? Unlikely. You're most likely descended from the Borderlands migration of 1670-1730. The clue is Kentucky. The three earlier migrations didn't go there.

[@debrawhite751]

@@taterkaze9428 We were living in Virginia in 1609. My ggggggggrandfather was church warden for a county in Virginia. I do not know offhand what year we migrated eastwards.

[@robertsides3626]

so basically hundreds of years of English speakers cutting corners in spelling and pronunciation have essentially ruined any sort of play on words Shakespear had originally intended.

[@KnzoVortex]

Robert Sides Not cutting corners, evolving and then standardizing.

[@rei6160]

now we can't get his puns that's sad

[@tyler9004]

noxious seraph : (

[@MCVessels]

And our current puns have no reasons at all.

[@calebsmith462]

All languages are in constant state of evolution.

[@ianrogerburton1670]

I always remember our English teacher back in the 70s saying that English has changed so much since the Baird´s time that most of his jokes, innuendos and hidden meanings are entirely lost on today´s audiences. In other words, while today´s audiences like to think they are being culturally with it as they quietly watch the masterpieces being acted out, Elizabethan audiences would have been either laughing their heads off or drowning in their tears.

[@sarahgraham4056]

What does the expression laughing head off mean?

[@clairenoon4070]

I still laugh my head off or sob my heart out watching Shakespeare acted well.

[@marknewbold2583]

Country matters

[@jaygandra]

@@sarahgraham4056 it means you laugh so hard that you might do that thing where toss you back, or really since its just an expression. Just laugh really loudly.

[@MarcusCato275]

In the spirit of Shakespeare I swear that one day I will go to the globe theatre and watch a Shakespeare play whilst being completely hammered - that's what his target audience was.

[@tinyalie1]

I spek no frensch Sounds like fuccin meme language No step on snek

[@wegood563]

Hello fren

[@ladyostanza]

🤣🤣🤣

[@dfgfdgdfgfdg2902]

@@wegood563 Hello fascist that got their sub deleted.

[@bathwater8937]

pp smol.

[@sirandrelefaedelinoge]

try again in English

[@dillbourne]

Is it just me, or did Shakespeare sound pretty Irish?

[@crovear1]

definitely me too

[@Robobagpiper]

I hear Cornish (as in the dialect of English, not Kernowek) or West Country. Or Tangier Island's dialect. Unlike everyone who heard a little of their own speech in OP, I hear none of my native Texas dialect!

[@PinkBunnyCorporation]

I can see now how American English developed so differently to British English. The first American English speaking settlers(set-lers or setl-rs?) came around the 1600s. This is over 100 years after Shakespeare sure, but still long ago from modern times to be sure. What I like is that we see how this earlier modern English split based on the enviornments they were in. In the English colonies, the language developed in isolation, developing freely. In Europe it was still being influenced by the exchange of language with Wales, Scotland and Ireland and other foreigners who spoke english as a second language and the influence of those other languages on English itself. Fascinating.

[@Robobagpiper]

No, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish are Celtic languages (Welsh is Brythonic; the others Goidelic). Old English is a West Germanic language of the "low German" variety - and this includes its decendents, including Hiberno-English (English as spoken in Ireland), Scots/Doric/Lallans, and all the other English dialects. English is as distant from Scottish Gaelic, Irish, and Welsh as it is from Romanian and Spanish. "Gallic" is an adjective that refers to the Celtic languages of pre-Roman France, whose precise relationship to the Insular Celtic languages is still debated.

[@ferguscullen8451]

Welsh, Scottish and Irish are Gaelic (or Celtic), but Old English is Germanic

[@brockfang]

I just found out that my joke pronunciation of reasons as raisins was never a joke. I don't know whether to feel vindicated or angry about being lied to

[@roseatdancingearthworms9642]

Well... It was a joke. The original joke that the writer intended, innit? 😂

[@kimmry9406]

Some Northerners in england still pronounce it like that, it’s nothing new

[@OnlyARide]

Isaac Swanson i'm sure shaky shaky spear boy would have been proud

[@phoebexxlouise]

You mean it was always a joke and you just perceived this line accurately

[@jamestheviking983]

Isaac Swanson I pronounce it the same way as a joke and now I feel really weirded out.

[@IronianKnight]

I didn't realize that studying shakespearian pronunciation would equip me to improvise in Pirate

[@lyrebird9749]

Haha, yes and the reason (raisin?) we think of pirates speaking like that is because the golden age of piracy was in the mid to late 1600's, only a few decades after Shakespeare's death. Many English speaking pirates would have had accents similar to what is heard in the above video.

[@Wayne_on_Wheelz]

@@lyrebird9749 Funny little fact. Shakespeare helped in the translation of the King James Bible, 1611. Often people think it is written in Shakespeare, but it is not. There is a reason they used Ts and Ys. That is not the purpose of my post, though. Shakespeare was excellent at reading Greek and helped to figure out what English word worked with the Greek word meaning. However, if you look at Psalms 46. It is said this is the one chapter he translated himself. If you start at verse one and count each word to 46, you get Shake. Then count backwards at the end of verse 11, 46 words, you will come to spear. Shakespear. He happened to be 46 years old that year. He thought it to be funny, I read.

[@mekagoxhira]

lord what should a man in these days now write? *E G G E S* or *E Y R E N*

[@dru4670]

I imagine the chiefs face 😂 like "shuteth upp your idiots faceth"

[@Deathtome.]

@@dru4670 I like your comment a lot. Just so you know. Shuteth upp never, please.

[@alexanderje8336]

Eyren still sounds like the Dutch "Eieren" today.

[@anthonyrowland1170]

The en on the end of eyren is an archaic way of expressing a plural. Henry VIII is quoted as saying "they drown like ratten (rats)" when he witnessed the Mary Rose warship sink. Shoo'n (shoe-en) was a common way of saying shoes long after the use of en had died out for most other things.

[@SC-hk6ui]

500 likes and nobody has pointed out the second word is still found in welsh. The oldest one is going to be eyren which is wyau in welsh. You can see that the "en" part is just there to mean more than one, and was added the danes and saxons, probably to help them trade in multiple eggs. That word is brythonic. The Egges is indeed from later settlers in england.

[@corb2555]

when you fall off your house in minecraft 2:43

[@anthonyp.3909]

😂

[@yourlocalplacebo3933]

yes!

[@FoxyBoxery]

Lmfal

[@gladyslopez1922]

😂😂😂

[@madmaddiegirl5424]

Roblox*****

[@davedonnie6425]

I'm learning german, and if you know some german (or other germanic language) you can unlock a lot of this older stuff, like how "eyren" reminded me of the german "Eier" (also means eggs) which is pronounced too similar to be passed of as coincidence.

[@frankk2231]

Interesting is thou hast = (mod. German) du hast

[@shachi-kun2275]

Bist du ein studenten?

[@6515cg]

In dutch we say eieren for the plural of an ei. It even keeps the plural “-en”!

[@princessdiana1229]

im a native english speaker who speaks both german and swedish and i noticed this as well! interestingly, the swedish word for egg is ägg. Eyren was the west germanic word which naturally evolved into English (noticable by how it's so similar to Eier in German), and an earlier form of ägg is what also gave English "egge" due to Norse contact with English speakers

[@shambhav9534]

Literally everybody knows the "other germanic language", which is English. And btw, for some reason, words starting with vowels tend to get retained through long amounts of time. Look at any Indo European language and the word for egg will be something between o a and e followed by a plosive, nasal, or anything to do with the top jaw. Nothing special.

[@natfoote4967]

Our Shakespeare class was fortunate in that our professor got his jollies by explaining every, single dirty joke in the plays.

[@brunodeprez4488]

In my home dialect (kind of Flemish) we still say 'eyren' (written as eieren) for eggs. I find that kind of cool

[@Arakhor]

As I recall, the German for _eggs_ is _eier_. I've heard it said that Flemish is English's closest relative.

[@stevekaczynski3793]

Dutch/Flemish are supposed to be the closest major languages to English, Frisian the closest minor language. If you regard Scots as a separate language, and certainly some do, then it would be considered the closest language to English.

[@Arakhor]

I've always assumed that Lowland Scots was a dialect of English, like Danish. Norwegian ans Swedish are of each other.

[@Parker8752]

Lowland Scots evolved separately from modern English, but from the same root. With effort, somebody who speaks one could learn to understand the other. But then, linguistically the line between dialect and language seems to be based more on politics than on actual linguistics. Hence why one can have mutually intelligible languages (like the Scandinavian languages) and mutually non-intelligible dialects of the same language (like the Chinese "dialects").

[@Philoglossos]

Frisian, not Flemish xP.

[@ItsTeaTimeCommentary]

WOW. I understood *none* of this.

[@vikklanministar8155]

Me being forced to read romeo and Juliet for English

[@dlb4299]

So What Shakespeare's English really Sound Like? He could have read a few sentences.

[@HotTakeAndy]

Imagine if English wasn't your primary language.

[@Dasbelg]

@@HotTakeAndy well it isn't mine but i understood everything

[@arnasarnas760]

Omg get on my nerd level

[@Scorp1u5]

I'm not even a linguist and this fascinates me! Fascinating stuff!

[@musicaltheatergeek79]

Me, too! I don't even have an interest in languages, but I love learning. I accidentally stumbled upon this channel last night and can't get enough of it. He should be a teacher, if he isn't one already.

[@ewthmatth]

We use language everyday. Why would you have to be a linguist to find this interesting? :p

[@mediocremaiden8883]

Well, boola boola

[@RateOfChange]

I'm a mathematician and I'm also amused by this.

[@Hasnain1F]

That's because English is your mommy tongue. Dummy.

[@everynamewastakenomg]

We still pronounce “says” as “sez” in North West England

[@MerkhVision]

That’s how it’s said in America as well, since American English was originally closer to Old Pronunciation.

[@r4tc0r36]

I still pronounce says as sez

[@barnsleyman32]

nah mate, we say sez, shakespeare said sehz with a long vowel

[@patriciakeats1621]

We says “sez” in Newfoundland.

[@Wenjo936]

You do what I say. I did what he sez. Never heard anyone say says

[@ahwabanmukherjee2206]

Soh pepple ein duh oldaen tymmes werre freeae tu ecxperrimente wytth syntacx, spyellinge andde ein fayct duh wholle Einglyishe lyanguyagge...! Noe dedductiones forh badde sppellinges tdhen!!!

[@abelardadebayor5642]

Gteat!

[@Pokemonleafmon]

I wish school could work that way now

[@cat7031]

Unicorn Rose same

[@programmingcafe7571]

Nice

[@AmazingErrChannel]

Eim ahsooming thet auld Eenglissh saundéd lak thet *Thet explens Shekspeers graev was spell ed lak thet*

[@ricksanchez1710]

Yea cool story and shit but- Di-Did the guy get his eggs?

[@patiencen1280]

Shut up you idiotic cucumber.

[@napoleonbonaparte8381]

Aye speech Frencshe and non,he did non gett hies egges...

[@Grumplebumple]

He did get a dozen eyren though

[@TVeldhorst]

'Eyren' is actually understandable for a native Dutch speaker: we say 'eieren'.

[@groggle_noggle3348]

Rick Sanchez “What, you egg?” [He stabs him.]

[@matthewcliffe4464]

2:37 you really missed a good opportunity to say 'vowel movement'

[@deedeealltheway1]

Hahaha

[@accidentallyclickedthegodd5813]

Nobody: Betacism: *childish pun*

[@soldierside365]

Such a shit joke 😏

[@gonzalo4658]

lmao

[@miloelite]

At least he said “vowel shit”, though admittedly “vowel movement” is much more clever.

[@chubbieminami3274]

I went to the Shakespeare's theatre actors' reading (not acting) session of Shakespeare. They all read their part of Shakespeare with so much grace, but when they all started discussing what things meant, their understanding was similar level to mine. I thought they all understood very well because they read it so beautifully.

[@Newfoundmike]

It's like the Bible every one interprets it different but it makes them feel good 🙂

[@gbrot001]

It's insane how much I love this. Linguistics and the evolution of the English language has been an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember. It would be so wild to see a film set in the 15th century with accurate language (since it's rather unlikely that I'll be able to attend an "OP" performance anytime soon). I really hope that happens one day. Terrific video, and THANK YOU for making it!

[@ruawhitepaw]

Crystal's OP performances of Shakespeare are pretty close to your wish. You just have to travel to London to see it.

[@evangelosnikitopoulos]

There's the recent horror movie called "The Witch" set in 17th century New England

[@shanesimpson4407]

It’s not classic English but I couldn’t understand anything anyone said in Dogwood

[@Beery1962]

Visit West Yorkshire. Some people there still use Yorkshire dialect (e.g. "Thee and Thou"), which is about as close to Early Modern English as you can get in today's world. Ralph Ineson, who plays the father in "The Witch", is from Leeds, which is why his 17th Century accent is so authentic (he's speaking in West Yorkshire dialect).

[@jurikonstantinschroer9141]

Me as a native german speaker, this Old English very reminds me of German. Knight - Knecht, Should - Sollte, Thou still existed - Like Du in german, Thou hast - You have are like Du hast - Ihr habt - This is all due to that german and english both are germanic languages and share the same roots.

[@Morrigi192]

Well, partially. As they say, English is half German, half Latin, and half French.

[@dragoncurveenthusiast]

Also a native German speaker here. I had the exact same thoughts. You can definitely see how Old English is more similar to German than modern English.

[@VintageLJ]

English is like 60% German, 30% French and 10% Britonic, so that makes sense.

[@ScrubNigel]

Half man, half bear, half pig. Manbearpig

[@livedandletdie]

VintageLJ, that isn't correct at all, it's 40% German 30% Romance, 20% Norwegian and a small mix of the rest. Britonic doesn't make up a lot of English, only Britonic word in English I can think of on the spot is Cider. Sistr. Other than that many words are so old that it's shared with all European languages, for instance Cook. Bad example but it's literally older than man and woman. It's so old that even Sanskrit has it. Brother should also be one of those old old words.

[@ki4345]

Your videos are always a treat to see in my notification box, keep up the great work!

[@michaelshaw511]

Just in England, British English is very diverse. Americans always think of RP (how the Queen speaks) or London "chav" ("innit bruv?"). But there are dozens of accents. Some sound Scottish, some even sound similar to this Shakespearean.

[@abbyelectric]

Shakespeare's accent sounds very West Country to me, with some Northern flavour to it as well. Very interesting that my own (admittedly diluted and amalgamated from living in different areas) somewhat received pronunciation was only on its way to becoming the basis of the language at the time.

[@neferpitou9662]

It's also important to remember that no one ever actually talked like the characters in Shakespeare: in rhyme and iambic pentameter.

[@namingisdifficult408]

Neferpitou understandably.

[@andrewsuryali8540]

Not strictly true. Rhetoric is a lost art nowadays, but in a time before audio recording, people in public discourse needed a way to make their voices heard and remembered. If you thought politicians today don't sound like normal humans, the Romans who went to the Fora Romana had to listen to their politicians banter in perfect dactylic hexameter. Speeches and debates were a performance art back then. Politicians needed a way to convey their views in a way that would make it easier for listeners to remember and replicate, so the tools of the poets and minstrels also became tools for public speaking. This persisted for as long as the art of rhetoric was practiced in the courts of kings and nobles and in the plazas of republics and city-states. In the time of Shakespeare, increasing gentrification and the formation of a politically active middle class meant that many of the newly-minted bourgeois of Europe were also practicing rhetoric in, yes, iambic pentameter, in the salons and pubs and the studies. Poets and playwrights taught rhetoric classes for young gentry who needed the art to progress in life. We are of course talking about the top 10% of society here, but that's definitely not no one. People did speak in rhyme and iambic pentameter in proper circumstances, and Shakespeare reflects this to a great degree in his plays, though he did admittedly overuse the tools.

[@gagaoolala9167]

That's true, but because he put it into rhyme and pentameter, this allows us to match pronunciations. No-one thinks they actually spoke in rhyme all the time!

[@RoboBoddicker]

Shakespeare's characters only speak in verse for important "mannerly" lines of dialog. A good bit of the dialog is in plain prose.

[@jasonmnosaj]

The act of speaking is a lair that acts of the actor to speak.

[@migitri]

I'm allergic to grapes. I don't know the raisin why that is.

[@minizksmi3947]

Space Doggo ayyyyyyyeeee!

[@operagirl0101]

OI THIS IS SO SMART I LOVE IT

[@michaelglass3906]

Wow, you will seriously come up with any raisin to wine, won't you?

[@markmauk8231]

Michael Glass awesome :-D

[@namingisdifficult408]

Mark Mauk agreed

[@yeetyeet-jb6nc]

It sounds like a russian speaking lithuanian trying to sound overly brittish without even knowing the orthography

[@nomadenview]

Ahahahahahaha

[@nareshkumarn2088]

This comment was done when there was no CoronaVirus

[@ronaldheussen2603]

'Eyeren?...eggs, in Flemish and in Holland also we say 'eieren'. I think, in early ages our language was far more simular.

[@DaudAlzayer]

I'd love to see you treat the British/American dialect split - there's a lot of misinformation out there in the same vein as "Shakespeare sounded like us"

[@TheJarOfJam]

Actually, American English is closer to old English than English English.

[@redcell9636]

@@TheJarOfJam I think it has to do with our multiple language influences from immigration in the beginning of the colonies. I think it is a combination of flatter pronunciation because of Italian, French, and german. French and German being more guttural than Italian, but italian is closer to latin. Then we have the Irish and a few scottish which can trace their version of the dialect to middle or old English and Celtic pronunciations and even some pragmatisms even though English is not a completely pragmatic language.

[@jbearmcdougall1646]

Americans speak a bastardised Irish.... Canadians speak with a Scots accent...

[@CrazyForFrogs]

@@TheJarOfJam no it doesn't. There are certain dialects in both the US and England which are more archaic. For example Appalachian in the US and West Country in the UK, but overall modern American accents are not more archaic.

[@leahparsuidualc666]

"British/American dialect split"? - As the Americans say: "Dose english ain't no spittin' english." - Where as what i observe let me wonder why (US)americans say that they speak 'english' isntead of 'american'; I mean let's be fair, 'american' is a 'Stir-it-up', that most of the brain power has to be used to translate the thranslation of the Translation of the … whatever that word meant in the first place, a.k.a. America-Only- -Syndrome, because Yes We Can (kill any Need for Grammar and Etymology in General); And put Always a smile on your face when you backstab a language … - USA! USA! USA! … the greatest trick? let it begone and make the world believe it never existed ... Don't worry … i have a smile on my face, yay!

[@SuperBararo]

That old English is so Frisian, my goodness.

[@namingisdifficult408]

Bararo Interesting .

[@Slashplite]

I read that in the past English and Dutch could understand each other without a problem.

[@GuerilleroX]

Bararo so you want eiyres o egges?

[@willemvandebeek]

hear hear

[@willemvandebeek]

Eggs in Dutch is: Eieren

[@AshArAis]

We say "ah ya poor cratur" in Ireland if someone says they feel sick. We say cray-thur, as we have a difference from gaeilge between hard and soft T's and D's. So we can say "drop" with the d sounding like the 'th' in 'though'. The Irish name Peadar rhymes with lather. I found that some Americans I met while working couldn't hear the difference I made between three and tree, making the joke about "turty tree and a turd". With tree, I bite the t and say the r straight away. With three, my tongue rests against my top teeth and I breathe over my tongue. My fluent Irish speaking friend pointed out that these pronunciations, like with chinese or german to me, might sound like there is no difference to an outsider, and sometimes can't hear it enough to copy the sound. It made me surprised that there could be such a difference I didn't think about as we speak the same language. There's also a myriad of accents, and that just expands the whole scenario again :p ya poor cratur...

[@RubixNinja]

I thought that word meant whiskey xD

[@jasperiscool]

No, that'd be uísce beatha.

[@VintageLJ]

My Nan has a Munster accent as does the same, but so do my Gambian and my Nigerian friends. Weird, huh?

Irish Missionaries.

[@k.umquat8604]

[tʰ] for [θ]

[@remembertheporter]

Great stuff! I love Shakespeare, once it opens up to you it's stunning. He must have encountered so many characters / dialects and accents travelling between London and Stratford upon Avon and you see it in the language. His character Holofernes in Loves Labours is a hilarious example of a language pedant. Shakespeare was a linguistic liberal, and he had a childish love of innuendo.

[@cdurkinz]

So basically if we went back in time right now we would literally not be able to understand each other.

[@thekaxmax]

not without some work. Look up Original Pronunciation Shakespeare, it's entirely learnable.

[@silvianaursu5275]

as a German, I feel I'd have it much easier to understand the English language back then :D many things sound soooo German!

[@progressionsessions99]

i would say you would be ok up to like year 1600/1700

[@garryferrington811]

You can get that in Liverpool or Scotland.

[@markfox1545]

Idiots who force the word 'literally' are hard to understand. 'I literally died' is a classic example. Wtf are they saying to me? You're a moron.

[@lilianmcleod7099]

It’s quite fascinating to me how English has evolved so much and so fast. When I was learning English, I couldn’t understand why the spelling didn’t match the pronunciation. Later, when I took History of English in college, it made a lot of sense. This is great content.

[@kevinclass2010]

I have plenty of Raisins to post here.

[@martiqueheisler5959]

lol

[@audreylamendola3340]

+Horseygirl85 aye, I know you ;P

[@martiqueheisler5959]

+Audrey Lamendola Oh hey, you're that person who roleplays as Undyne in that G+ community! Fancy meeting you here lol x3

[@audreylamendola3340]

Horseygirl85 Yeah XD Guess we're both nerds xP

[@martiqueheisler5959]

+Audrey Lamendola So it would seem lol

[@Eazy-ERyder]

3:03 GREAT job. That's a VERY good sounding and wholly accurate impression of Olde English and what Shakespeare and others like him would have spoken and sounded just like from what I have studied and researched. Most people still have that exaggerated British play accent assumption of them

[@bargainboondocker3420]

His real name was Willy Wigglestick, but his PR guy said that wouldn't do him any good in the long run and changed it to the now familiar William Shakespeare.

[@pergunnarvikmjlhus3597]

Willy wigglestick?! To me, that sounds kinda nasty. A "willy" and a wiggeling "stick".

[@Ben-rz9cf]

Yeah man he'll shake his spear at you

[@StormCOG]

He had enough to shake a stick at.

[@Mimi-mq2wj]

Bargain Boondocker willy? That means dick you know

[@aryyancarman705]

looool

[@notdaveschannel9843]

When my grandmother moved from the East End of London to Wiltshire during WW2, she was mystified as to why people kept ending sentences with what sounded like "doss-snow", using what I guess was a rising inflection because she realised it was a question. Apparently it was a contraction of "doest thou know?". As in "has the bus been dost-know?". That's pretty much died out now. Was it just a West Country thing dost know?

[@christinalim494]

That’s so cool!!

[@ocd000]

@@christinalim494 It's fascinating how the language seems to be changing but unlike science, not necessarily improving.

[@RicktheRecorder]

And of course ‘doest’ is pronounced ‘dust’, at least in Victorian English.

[@troodon1096]

@@ocd000 Change is directionless and is not necessarily either better or worse, when it comes to language. It just happens over time as languages continue to influence each other.

[@chesterdonnelly1212]

I live in north Wiltshire. The dialect has all gone now as far as I know. We have all been taught to use only standard English.

[@OceanEmbers]

Sounds more like a heavy english west country accent than anything else imo. Cornish maybe.

[@Wheres-my-toes-bro]

OceanEmbers It has that cornish vibe.

[@JRCSalter]

It's the rhoticity. RP and most other English accents don't always pronounce R. Westcountry accents are some of the few that do. H is often dropped in Cockney and others, as well as in Westcountry accents. So just those two alone can make it seem very like a cyder drinking farmer.

[@Robobagpiper]

That's also probably why most Americans (except Bostonians) perceive OP as sounding more "American" than RP - because almost all of our regional dialects derive from the rhotic dialects from Britain, from before non-rhoticity had taken over most of the island, save for the West Country... and a couple of identical twins from Leith who wouldn't know a single word to say, if they flattened all the vowels and threw the R away.

[@OceanEmbers]

Ah, makes sense.

[@kaitlyn__L]

i actually moved from oxford to scotland a few years ago, and my Rs slowly all became rhotic. and my a in bath switched. and a lot of other little things like that, actually. so, "most of the island" isn't quite right! as rhotic Rs are the norm here

[@pinkiesue849]

From one of the pilgrims' songs: "Hast thou not seen, how thy desires ere have been" about 1620. We were taught to say "ben" not "been".

[@EilsTheDaydreamer]

Schools ruin Shakespeare. It was never meant to be read. It was meant to be watched and heard. Reading it makes it boring and you don't get the full effect of it. It's much easier to understand if you're watching someone act it, with emotions and emphasis behind it. Shakespeare is also easier to understand, and sounds much more normal, when spoken with country English accents, like Yorkshire or West Country, rather than RP.

[@neilgriffiths6427]

Eils the Daydreamer - Try reading Shakespeare out loud with a strong Lancashire accent - awesome! ;)

[@gay_phoebe]

I love watching Shakespeare's plays but I honestly enjoyed reading Macbeth.

[@sagoo1346]

The only times I've had it in class the teacher read it aloud. Some teachers understand, at least.

[@Jessi-44]

Actually, my English teacher made us act out the parts xD It was a lot of fun, being able to discuss what the words meant and acting it out.

[@pbasswil]

Eils wrote: 'Reading it makes it boring and you don't get the full effect of it.' Every individual will have their own opinion on whether reading ShSp bores them or not. Personally I find it interesting to be able to pause and look up anything I don't understand - that's the fun of it for me. When I see a stage production of it, I may grasp the story; but I don't have time to figure out all the turns-of-phrase, or the older words & usages. Also, in most cases I find the conventions of ShSp'ian acting to strike me as stilted & strained. For one thing, this is often an actors big chance to shine, with 'pinnacle' material. So they've usually _way_ over-thought it, and try too hard. :^/ Fantastic if folks enjoy the real deal on stage; but it isn't everybody's cuppa.

[@youtubethrowaway9324]

So, it sounded more close to how it's spelled from a latin perspective. Closer to how a french, or spanish, italian, ... would pronounce the words when they first encounter them . Sea is not SEE but Seh ah. Which is ..kind of logical .

[@anabeatr1x]

yh

[@cult_of_odin]

Where I'm from we still pronounce many words the same way. Like eat. My wife who isn't from where I am likes to laugh at the way I say it. Like et, or like the way I pronounce root like rut.

[@bnobston]

Why is it you say logical? Isn't it totally dependant on whatever language rules you follow or are accustomed too. Maybe your right. It's hard for me to wrap my head around all this as I speak only one language and not even that well 😂

[@jackriver8385]

Watching this as a Dutch woman is pretty damn interesting. It seems like my language made all the different decisions and that's why it's similar to English, but far from the same. Like you guys say egges or, well, eggs. We say a modern version of eyren: eieren

[@handsomesquidward474]

It's like our language has diffrent dads but has the same mom

[@avzarathustra6164]

@@handsomesquidward474 Lmao.

[@avzarathustra6164]

I would say it's the other way around, actually.

[@StochasticUniverse]

@@handsomesquidward474 Or rather, the same parentage, but made different life choices. One went to college, the other fell in with the rough crowd in high school. I'll leave it to you to decide which is which!

[@dOVERanalyst]

And we say Andaa...🤣🤣🤣🤣 It's funny how tons of languages have different names for the same thing

[@brianbara3204]

Thank you. As a long-time Shakespearean actor, this was truly helpful!

[@tFighterPilot]

It's a pirate accent.

[@magister343]

Not exactly, but it closer to the stereotypical pirate accent than almost any other accent still used today.

[@John_Weiss]

Exactly. If you listen to David Crystal or Ben Crystal recite some Shakespeare in OP, it sounds like they're “talking like a pirate”. It's kind of amusing, really.

[@13tuyuti]

Shall I compAAARRRRR thee to a summer´s day

[@MrDUneven]

Great playwriter SheakspeAARRR

[@RagingInsomniac]

aaarrrrggghhhh

[@yosupscho]

I live in the south west U.K. and most of us still talk like this lol. Especially my grandfather aha.

[@jagdpanther1944]

not for long...it is dying...but that is how we evolve

[@elliykollek]

you should record how they speak, that dialect is going to die, soon...

[@dinosaurus598]

@@elliykollek In like 10-15 years

[@dinosaurus598]

@TiKKO Guevara I'am not from the UK

[@dinosaurus598]

@TiKKO Guevara And stop spreading hate towards The English , not all them are insane a**holes that want the British Empire back.

[@RCSVirginia]

A classic example of a rhyme that does not exist in modern English is in William Blake's "Tiger:" "What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

[@13tuyuti]

Respect my authority!!

[@Garrett1240]

How do we know that for certain? Blake's heyday was what the early 19th century? That seems a little late for a pronunciation like that given early modern English was what ended that style of speak.

[@Bartonovich52]

I think it was a forced rhyme. That's the trouble with reading to much into rhymes for clues to pronunciation... even with a massive lexicon, we are still limited in creative expression if words have to rhyme perfectly. I wish I found some better sounds no one's ever heard I wish I had a better voice that sang some better words I wish I found some chords in an order that is new I wish I didn't have to rhyme every time I sang

[@anoj06]

Waat imortaal handery Cud freme thy fearful simaatery?

[@j.s.c.4355]

English peasants first started moving into Ireland during Middle english times, so it’s possible that part of the Irish accent descend from them, as did Shakespeare’s.

[@slaughterround643]

"We all come as strangers to Shakespeare's sounds" Not if you're from the West Country!

[@garryshort5104]

It makes much more sense when a lot of these words are still annunciated and pronounced the same way in the the north of England. English dialects are very different between counties. In fact people can tell where people live by their accents in the next town only a few miles away. A lot of towns, villages have Norse village names ending in ham and by. We still say things like ‘nowt’

[@richardreinertson1335]

As an American tourist, I stopped once in a fast food joint in Yorkshire. When I told the server my order, she squinted at my mouth, like she was having trouble understanding me. I used to love watching "All Creatures Great and Small" and listening to the Yorkshire accents.

[@michaelstamper5604]

As someone born in South Yorkshire, may I just say "Ey up, ivvrybody. Ow tha doing? Y'oreyt? Avva champion day, wain't tha."

[@DrShaym]

I wonder what "fuck" will sound like five hundred years from now? 2000: Fuck 2100: Fook 2200: Fueck 2300: Fack 2400: Feek 2500: Fauk

[@JuanDVene]

Dr Shaym The consonants would probably change too. In Spanish, some words that used to have an "f" now have a soundless "h". So "fabular/fablar" became "hablar", "Falcón--->halcón", "foja--->hoja", etc. The "v" and "f" sounds, have also been known to switch. Also the "k" sound had been known to soften in many tongues, yielding sound like "ts, ch, or s". So maybe in the future it'll sound something like "vach" or "uhs". Who knows?

[@GdotWdot]

Just for fun, if I had to guess what would happen to General American based on what I can hear, I'd say this: /aɪ/ will become /aː/, /ɪ/ will become /ə/ like in Afrikaans, /ʌ/ will end up as /ɔ/, /i:/ will gradually move towards something like /e:/ or /ɪ:/ and plosives like /p/, /t/ and /k/ may start vanishing from some words (sometimes leaving a /ʔ/). Additionally something weird might be happening to /z/ but I'm not really sure what and I'd be very surprised if /d/ in between vowels didn't eventually end up always being some sort of /r/. So in 60 years 'fuck' might pronounced /fɔʔ/, or like 'fought' if someone vaporized you with a ray gun before you get to say the t. This is all of course wild speculation.

[@xxXthekevXxx]

fekk

[@leebennett4117]

Kevin Benoit. Drink,Girls,Fekk, That would be an acumenical matter,

[@jessicalee333]

Fuck. Fook. Fuke. Ficke. Wicke. Wikh (they might look back and giggle at our "Wikipedia"). Wegh. Maybe! But still spelled like "fuck" (or with only the c or only the k) and when people read older literature they won't realize how Fs used to be pronounced. "Aye, wegh ya, (r)Assle!" (adding a linking R they use in Boston and some English accents). I'd give that more like a thousand years though. Ubiquitous writing, standardized spelling efforts (and dictionaries), and sound recordings are bound to slow down the really wild changes languages have made in the past. Besides that though, it's hard to really say which direction things will go (I'd lean more towards "feck" as a near-future stage)... or if a word like "fuck" will even survive - though it has survived since the 14th century - originating from Scandinavian words for breeding, apparently.

[@wolvespunk]

I’m English and this actually makes a lot of sense to me because in the area I’m from we pronounce “here” as “eyre” and it’s common to drop “h” from words. Also in parts of the north people say “ows thaa” for “how are you “

[@Pookie1-q2w]

Eggs - Eyren! Dutch: eieren 😨🤯

[@1337penguinman]

English is actually Anglish. As in, the angles, a Germanic tribe. England is actually Angleland, the land of the Angles.

[@tacosmexicanstyle7846]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pXe7YqGYeZiXjJI If you speak Dutch then you may be surprised at how much of this ‘interview’ in Old English you can understand

[@martingarciaarvidson6684]

Old English, Old German, Old Dutch, they are all germanic languages. That's why there will always be small similarities. You won't be seeing any french, spanish or italian people finding any similarities since they are all latin languages.

[@montycubana951]

Afrikaans: eier!

[@GriesgramTV]

German: Eier

[@LogoFreak93]

So early Modern English sounded like........Dutch?

[@mohammedfahad3564]

Robin Brown I wish Americans knew that there are 1000s of accents in the uk and that Shakespeare’s accent was actually east Anglian/West Country (England). Search them up and listen to them

[@LogoFreak93]

@@mohammedfahad3564 Ah, thanks for the information. It's true that we often don't recognize the subtleties of accents from outside of our own country. Similar to how people outside of the UK are unaware of the accents beyond the regional accents, I've encountered people who are surprised that the US has so many accents (for example, mine has been guessed as everywhere from "southern" to "New England" to "Canadian" to "Pittsburgh", with the last one being the closest).

[@ninny65]

Actually, old english and dutch were very similar, it's not anything to do with accents

[@ninny65]

Accents in England are largely created from some regions adopting and not adopting the new sounds from the great vowel shift

[@LogoFreak93]

@@ninny65 I noticed even today English and Dutch have a lot of similarities. One language I heard about that's slightly mutually intelligible with both English and Dutch is Frisian (although the west Frisian dialect is most similar, north Frisian is more like Dutch and east Frisian has a little German influence). I know there's a sentence that's the same in both languages, something like "butter, bread, and green cheese is good to English as it is to Frisian".

[@yukaii0]

Omggg So Shakespeare was just reading how i used to when i started learning English! (ya know. when i didnt know what silent letters are. and just read out the words with letters i saw.)

[@cheemsdog7662]

queue has 4 of em! you only say q not qoo-e-oo-e

[@alansmithee419]

@@cheemsdog7662 I would think a q on its own would be pronounced like "ck" but maybe less harshly. The "cyoo" sound is the name of the letter, and does not represent how it sounds. I think queue has two silent letters: the last "ue" part (or maybe the middle two? But that would be absurd, much like the rest of English)

[@slayemin]

I remember someone mentioned that "whore" and "hour" were pronounced the same, so Shakespeare had a line about the "whore hour", which was probably pretty funny back in the day.

[@crusaderofthelowlands3750]

Early modern English words sound a lot like modern Dutch. "Eyern" = "Eieren". "Sea(sayh)" = "Zee". "her(harr)" = "haar". And "one:alone" also rhymes "een:alleen".

[@lazrussanschei5372]

It's like german (they're all based on the same roots btw) Eyern = Eier Sea = See Her = Sie (ok doesn't count 😂) one:alone = ein:allein

[@crusaderofthelowlands3750]

@@lazrussanschei5372 Yeah, our languages all got Germanic roots. I think that was due to the Saxons who migrated to the British Isles and became the Anglo-Saxons, but I am not 100% sure about that one. (I've also seen a video in which someone spoke low Saxon, which sounds a lot like Dutch too) It also doesn't really come as a surprise as the Netherlands is located between both Germany and England, so we're bound to sound a little bit like both.

[@troodon1096]

Modern English, Dutch, and German all share common roots, so it's not very surprising.

[@TheSilver19991]

Shakespeare meant to be read in a welsh accent apparently

[@lilguyonhiswaytothemall]

Summerset accent my dude, I think, not welsh

[@savedbygodsgrace.9058]

That's not comfy is it.

[@nigelsheppard625]

More lije a Monmouthshire or Forest of Dean accent.

[@13thcentury]

Sounds like Hagrid.... I shouldn't have said that

[@janfairclough6982]

Rachelle Silver West Country

[@miskogwanredfeather5135]

English spelling is such a mess

[@PatriciaPageMosaicArtsCrafts]

Miskogwan Red Feather why?

[@miskogwanredfeather5135]

Patricia Page Mosaic Arts & Crafts because nothing is written as it is prnounced

[@Hwyadylaw]

@Miskogwan Red Feather One issue is that there are *many* different pronunciations used by native speakers of English in different parts of the world. This means that there is no single way to write English in a way that perfectly reflects all dialects.

[@Altrantis]

I think if anything this video shows it's not the spelling that is a mess, it's the pronunciation. It's pronounced like if you have a nerve-deterioration disease on your tongue, so it changes, a LOT.

[@miskogwanredfeather5135]

McDucky but it would be easier. I like English, though

[@coalspruce]

so in short they all talked with the strongest newfoundland accents ever to exist, gotcha

[@phoebegraveyard7225]

In Nova Scotia, my elderly neighbour puts a hat on his heed and puts breed in the toaster.

[@anthonyh4745]

Is he a geordie by any chance.

[@terbear5120]

My Newfie dad goes to see filims.

[@MerkhVision]

Kinda like Scots! Well there’s a reason it’s called Nova *Scotia* after all!

[@lufe8773]

Phoebe I visited Nova Scotia on our way to England for a holiday (from Australia) and I was struck by how (some of) the people spoke quite different to other places in Canada. It sounded like a West country broque ( of England) to me

[@patriciakeats1621]

When I was young, we used to “bad eeadd” for a headache.

[@fatfloppa3919]

English now: Whom'st've'ly'aint of y'all want a 🅱o🅱a 🅱ola?

[@maxmustermann-ie6ic]

Justin Lebet 😂😂😂😂

[@nategthepigeonlord2683]

I 🅱️refer sprit

[@rushildalal2974]

I 🅱refer 🅱epis myself

[@meetyomaker2396]

Ahh a man of culture, ey?

[@whosgonnaputonthebell6352]

*we* c a n _🅱ET_ sum 🅱💥NLESS PI🅱🅱A 222 💫💥💦💦🔥🔥🔥🔥😧👌👌👌👆💛💛💛💫💫💫😥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥😣👌👌👌👌👌

[@vincewhirlwind68]

Interesting video, and thank you for making it. My late father was from Northern Ireland and frequently used the archaic pronunciation 'crater' for 'creature', as mentioned here. The usage was colloquial, however; rather than literally representing the modern word 'creature', it was instead used as an informal analogue for 'so-and-so' or 'person', e.g. 'I ran into some old crater in the pub this evening'.

[@tridevichamundamandirwithy6282]

“Greetings. I am William Shakespeare, and I wishesh to speak to thee regarding thy automobile’s warranty.”

[@floxy20]

Bad spelling? In ye olden times people felt free to spell words their own way. In letters a person would sometimes spell his own name in alternate ways in the same letter.

[@BoingBB]

Not many people could write at all, so usually signed documents with an 'X'. In parish records people's names were usually spelt how they sounded. In my own family one of my ancestors had the name Croley as a middle name. In those days children were often given their mother's maiden name as a middle name - and his mother was Elizabeth Crawley. The local vicar was confused by the parents' Bristol accent, so wrote it as Croley. Shakespeare is known to have spelt his own name in different ways.

[@bedrantje]

Yeah i said

[@miltonroberts7948]

I had an ancestor whose name in Maryland was BEARD. In Kentucky it was BAIRD( which is how Beard sounds in some old Maryland accents.) and then one moved to western Kentucky and wrote his name BARD. Go figure.

[@pbasswil]

Yeah, what floxy20 said. The idea of one correct spelling (and so, infinity minus one _wrong_ spellings) is a pretty modern idea. The measure of writing used to be: Does it communicate? As long as texts were understood, the writing - and the spelling - had succeeded.

[@82dorrin]

Standardized spelling wasn't really a thing until *very* recently. Early 20th Century in some places.

[@thetheme2009]

Shakespeare sounded like a Brummie, and the snobs cant handle it

[@eleveneleven572]

Spot on. Not only the accent but many Birmingham words and sayings that were in common usage until very recently were straight out of old Warwickshire agricultural language. Michael Wood the historian has researched this.

[@jimwallen784]

Eleven : Eleven why would he sound like a brummie people from Stratford don’t sound like brummies why would he

[@jerem6588]

​@@jimwallen784 He wasn't from today's Stratford

[@charlenejandik6587]

Brummie is an English dialect that is spoken in the West Midlands of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Those who speak with the accent have a tendency to end sentences in a downbeat or a lower octave, which may be interpreted as less attractive to a listener. (Yup- I had to look it up)

[@LadyAtlantaTbilisi]

Norr, he's not a brummie, get out of here with that shit.

[@violentlyramen4933]

Shows how our accents were still partially germanic at the time.

[@jakedeane5304]

I'm Jew'reDaddy not really Germanic to be honest

[@rrrrmcg408]

Not Germanic at all.

[@djberryhardkore]

I'm Jew'reDaddy Germanic influenced for sure

[@olaffalo4686]

To a modern German the old one is actually more intelligible then the new one

[@violentlyramen4933]

@@olaffalo4686 not surprising. We still had our old Saxon accent or something resembling it.

[@lindaeasley5606]

Daughter rhymed with laughter in Shakespearean times. My Virginia colonist ancestor ,in leaving her daughters items in her will in 1720 wrote the word DAFTERS as I know back then it was typical for the less educated to spell the way they pronounced words

[@qwertyTRiG]

There are videos of David Crystal and his actor son performing Shakespeare in original and modern pronunciations. Seek them out, people: they're fascinating.

[@brookenjonas]

TRiG (Ireland) YESSSS

[@stevekaczynski3793]

Irish, Scots, West Country and even some US accents preserve some pronunciation traits of Shakespeare absent from today's standard English.

[@ferretyluv]

That's a myth about American dialects. Southern Dialect does preserve some features from the 18th century Cavaliers, but not Shakespeare.

[@miauaslano]

Many US dialect are rhotic - a feature of Shakespeare's English - while many UK accents are non-rhotic.

[@VintageLJ]

I guess Standard English doesn't count parts of England then?

[@stevekaczynski3793]

No. Standard English, especially in its pronunciation. is mainly a variety of English with origins in the London area and perhaps also universities like Oxford or Cambridge. Dialects and accents from the North and West are quite different from it.

[@stevekaczynski3793]

I read of one "Everyman" performance from the Middle Ages which took place in the Midlands or the North. One character puts on a southern English accent to appear more sophisticated. Londoners may even have had trouble understanding the speech of people from Yorkshire or Northumberland - in his last work, "A Dead Man In Deptford", Anthony Burgess depicts Londoners assaulting a man from the north because his accent makes them think he is Flemish.

[@4Mr.Crowley2]

I'm a medievalist so I dig your videos. I was going to add however that you didn't mention American English -- specifically the Appalachian dialect -- there are linguists who believe that dialect, which stills retains all sorts of Elizabethan-era archaicisms, actually still sounds the closest to Shakespearean English for a whole bunch of reasons (for one thing the Appalachians stayed isolated and weren't swamped by immigrants in the 16th-19th centuries -- unlike most English dialects and in other parts of the U.S.)

[@leiannesw4926]

aleister crowley - you have a great point. Thank you for sharing! I have never put a thought into that, I'm a novice linguist, studied and learned a few languages, but never delve too deep. I do fanatically love Shakespeare and have relatives in Appalachians. The second I read your post, it clicked and makes complete sense! Thanks again

[@marifromky]

"there are linguists who believe that dialect, which stills retains all sorts of Elizabethan-era archaicisms, actually still sounds the closest to Shakespearean English for a whole bunch of reasons" is actually a falsehood and been proven so

[@ingold1470]

Source for the proof?

[@marifromky]

+fintan111 thanks for this. i somehow had my notifies turned off and have missed a ton of conversations.

[@marifromky]

Eric, for one, I grew up in Appalachia. We don't sound like Elizabethans. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.

[@jordanjones5575]

This managed to make me interested in Shakespeare, which has never been my thing. Good work!

[@YanDaBean]

I always wondered why English sound so different whereas the Welsh, Scots and Irish all have a similar lilt to their accent

[@compulsiverambler1352]

The English language accents and dialects within Wales, Scotland, Cornwall within England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, are heavily influenced by Celtic languages. However, close to the borders/coastlines, regional accents within non-Cornish England are closer to the ones just over the borders than they are to regional accents far away from the borders. There's a geographical continuum of changing speech. The RP and modified RP English accents you're probably thinking of, now found all over the country among the middle and upper classes, originated far from any of the current borders, which is why they're so different to the various Celtic-influenced accents.

[@TheMylittletony]

Eyren, like in Dutch 'eieren'?

[@kwilson3514]

English and Dutch are both germanic languages ^_^ I hear a lot of dutch-ness in ME, and OE especially. So cool!

[@InschrifterOfficial]

Or „eier“ in german. Personally, I feel like back in Shakespears times, english sounded much more germanic and intelligible for other speakers of germanic languages

[@rudde7918]

"Egges" is just as much a Germanic word as "Eyren" is. The North Germanic languages also use cognates of "Egg".

[@Burning_Dwarf]

yup, well both are germanic but on the otherside of the sea, the vowelchange went differently Y turned to I or Ei we got Eieren (or sometimes into IE, like my name is unusual because its normaly spelled as Freddie not with an Y)

[@Odinsday]

@@kwilson3514 There are entire dialects in Northern England that have a lot in common with Dutch.

[@bobbytate9907]

05:28 Apparently my man Shakespeare went a LITTLE bit Jamaican by the end of this sentence

[@drrd4127]

Actually, if you compare the Scots dialects to Jamaican you would find similarities. Scots is a way of talking in Scotland that keeps a lot of the pronunciation from middle/old English. A lot of Scottish people owned plantations in Jamaica. That's why lots of Jamaicans have last names like Campbell and MacDonald.

[@SamlSchulze1104]

My Bible app has the Great, Tyndale, Wickliffe, and Geneva versions. Those versions of the Bible have many different spellings of the same word, even in the same sentence! I find the challenge of understanding what is said to be very fulfilling for both heart and soul.

[@olivtrees8749]

A shakespearean scholar told me once that back in Shakespeare's day they spoke with what most resembles a sottish accent today. Your video seems to confirm this as I heard a scottish dialect in your pronounciations. Another thing he taught us was that Shakespeare's plays were meant to be seen, not read so he encouraged seeing the plays with good actors before reading them. Read King Lear and was bored to tears, but then I saw it done twice in london and omg what a great play!

[@kamliko]

This is such an interesting video. Since my first language is German I only studied the evolution of German. Thank you.

[@davidb3155]

kamliko its crazier when you study the evolution of german to english

[@i.i.iiii.i.i]

You mean Germanic to German and English?!

[@nancytimmer9026]

Don't forget Dutch. Old English and Dutch share a lot of the same words and vowel sounds

[@DiaJasin]

Nancy Timmer yeah, moreso than german does.

[@nancytimmer9026]

Dia Jasin grammatically Dutch and English are more alike than Dutch and German despite the common vowel and consonant sounds

[@RandomisedClips]

I think 3:33 that THEE is pronounced as "thaey" or "daey" because in Scandinavian like norwegian they use the word "daey" to say "you". Also THOU would then have to be pronounce as "Thuu" because in Scandinavian they use "Duu" Makes sense. Thank you Shakespeare.

[@PC_Simo]

@Lol lel Scandinavian (Norse) languages have also changed a lot in 400-500 years, and they were distinct languages from English even back then, so they can’t be used as a proof for Early Modern English pronunciation.

[@lrvdnc]

This video was so well put together that it made me quiver. Nothing gets me going like authentic Shakespearean pronunciations (except Chaucerian pronunciations!).

[@isaacolivecrona6114]

Aren’t we assuming that all of Shakespeare’s characters spoke the same dialect? Perhaps ‘sea’ rhymed with ‘thee’ is some dialects and with ‘prey’ in others.

[@Noodles.Doodles]

If it's important to how the play is acted, it should be in the stage directions.

[@clone150]

Bruh, Shakespeare barely had any stage directions past entrances and exits

[@bartsimho1192]

clone150 The thing is sometimes the stage direction are baked into the speech through that Iambic Pentameter. I would suggest looking at Shakespeare on Toast for this topic

[@backtonovember5306]

I love your video's man, they're so interesting

[@backtonovember5306]

Speedyblupi thanks

[@backtonovember5306]

Michael Malize umm... You too?

[@DarDarBinks1986]

400 years later, English spelling still hasn't caught up with pronunciation changes. This all could have been avoided if we adopted Benjamin Franklin's spelling reforms.

[@alexsmith5606]

i agree, English orthography is way overdue for a reform. plus, foreign words and names should be changed to English spelling in order to avoid stuff like French words with 10 extra letter (all of of them silent)

[@gordonsmith8899]

AirCooledMan2006 the spelling reflects the history of the word. Modern US usage destroys that link: eg the past tense of "To Dive" is 'dived' not 'dove.' To Plead - past tense is 'pleaded' not 'pled.'

[@agamemnonhatred]

No thanks, we don't need Newspeak.

[@hummus6150]

Shakespeare was from the midlands, and if you were there when I was growing up, that’s how the ordinary people (not posh) still spoke, more or less. When you said ‘you have’ - well, that’s how I say it 😂 The old folk always had words where they pronounced two vowels in words like meat: me-at.

[@BadgerzNadgerz]

It sounds a lot like the original dialect of my local area, Sussex in the south of England. The Sussex dialect is very Western English (Bristol, West country), but it sounds a lot like the Early Modern English in the video.

[@miauaslano]

I were gona refute that lol but I was basing of modern accents - it's interesting how similar the two are bar I think the West country is more..closed?? if that makes sense

[@theenglishpepe7350]

Greg Paxton Similarly for my home county Norfolk, but more easily understood xD

[@jodu626]

So Shakespeare was Jamaican

[@Gtinker]

jodu656481 no smh

[@mars.x]

Yes

[@leerock3640]

jodu656481 But it sounds nothing like the way Jamaicans speak 😅

[@shakiratortura2970]

No Jamaican sounds like that............

[@JoshuaDillonn]

What are you on...kmt shut the fuck up fr. You're embarrassing yourself lool

[@TravelingBibliophile]

I remember back in high school my AP Literature teacher told us something similar. She said that Shakespeare and his contemporaries would not have sounded anything like Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier , Emma Thompson or Vivian Leigh when they performed his plays.

[@futurez12]

Only the Shakespeare from Stratford isn't the author. Almost certainly it was Edward de vere, who probably _would_ have sounded like those actors. If you think I'm crazy, do some research. There's literally zero evidence that this Straford man wrote these works, if he even wrote at all. Read Mark Twain's book: Is Shakespeare Dead?

[@robertmeade7642]

You wouldn't be "snagging" front row seats. Those were the cheap "seats," where you stood around the edge of the stage.

[@charlesvanderhoog7056]

Old English is just like modern Flemish or Dutch. I can read it quite easily.

[@yankeeclipper4326]

As someone who spent years studying and perfecting an early 17th century London dialect at Plimoth Plantation, you were spot on. Well spake, Mate!

[@avengersnewbie2348]

Came here what Shakespeare's sounded like, got a history lesson.

[@irmaamri6249]

Have you ever looked at the Black Country accent of UK? A lot of those Shakespearean rhymes still work, and you will find some of those old plurals eg shoen instead of shoes