John Barton reads from Henry V: (from Language and Character in Playing Shakespeare – for BBC-TV) Chorus: Now entertain conjecture of a time When creeping murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp through the foul$dG

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Pronunciation - There was no single form of
national received pronunciation in his day -
Regional accents were much more individual than
they are now that we have had 500 years of
orthographic and phonetic standardization Very
perceptible differences from today but not as
great since the Great Vowel Shift - Shakespeare
came from an oral society primarily
the nasal a (pronounced like the "ah" in apple)
father, i want to wash i' the water with margaret
gardener. art thou walkin' and talkin' with
arthur and martha martin? the o sound
(pronounced "uh" as in shove) mother, brother
doth want another brother verily much but with
such a brother, heaven above, give us not
another! the ow and oo blend (pronounced "owoo"
as in owl) how now, brown cow? a lousey mouse
now i' the house doth be down with the sow by the
plow. thou sour cow! the uh and ee blend
(pronounced "uhee" like spice) my, thy fly doth
fly high, cy. by and by my fly shall be thy fly.
i sigh and be like to die o' delight! the fly is
thine. the short a and e blend (pronounced "eh"
like said) make the baker bake a cake that i
might take. hast thou ate? long a and long e
blend (pronounce "ea" like the a in day) see,
she doth be belove'd o' lee stream. she seems
please'd. he seizes secret delights. she leaps
under freely. pronouncing "ed" (pronounce it as
an extra full syllable) he turne'd, stoppe'd,
and aske'd "art thou angere'd?" the "zh" sound
(pronounce "sure" as "zhure") a measure o'
pleasure doth be an earthly treasure. leisure
doth be another measure o' pleasure. special
words surely (ssurely, not shurely), william
(willam) drake's father shall ne'er (drop the
v) have the patience (pa-c-ience) or
affection (a-ffect-c-ion) to take pleasure i'
bein' married (marr-i-ed) now. sin' he doth be
perfection (per-fect-c-ion), i assure
(a-ssure, not a-shure) the oo sound (pronounced
like a cross b/t "ooom" and "um"...sort of
swallow the sound in the back of your throat)
take comfort and come from thy dumb sorrow. thou
hast a bumpy lump on thy hump good hunchback.
come! but nay! come, cousin!
Sonnet 145 (http//www.youtube.com/watch?vim3cXZ
PenzQ)
Those lips that Love's own hand did
makeBreathed forth the sound that said "I
hate"To me that languished for her sakeBut
when she saw my woeful state,Straight in her
heart did mercy come,Chiding that tongue that
ever sweetWas used in giving gentle doom,And
taught it thus anew to greet"I hate" she
altered with an end,That followed it as gentle
dayDoth follow night, who like a fiendFrom
heaven to hell is flown away."I hate" from hate
away she threw,And saved my life, saying "not
you."
John Barton reads from Henry V(from Language
and Character in Playing Shakespeare) Chorus
Now entertain conjecture of a time When creeping
murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel
of the universe. From camp to camp through the
foul wombof night The hum of either army stilly
sounds, That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch
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• William Shakespeare The English Language
• Presented by Dave Mitchell
• Historical Context
• Print accelerating standardization and
  conventions becoming fixed printing since
  Caxton
• Push for English as a Prestige language during
  the Renaissance
• -competition with Latin -competition with
  French -growing middle class
• -growing nationalism (across Europe) -printing
  and books -Reformation
• 5 7 Million native English speakers at the end
  of the 16th century (today it is used by at least
  750 million, perhaps 1 billion about half as
  their mother tongue)
• London had become a large city of between 150,000
  and 200,000
• Renaissance added 10,000 12,000 new words to
  the lexicon
• - Following considerable influx of French words
  in Middle English, and then Latin
• - Borrowings from Latin reached its climax
  during Shakespeares career and leveled off
  somewhat afterwards
• Inkhorn Controversy pretentiously learned -
  objection to excessive, obscurantist, overly
  erudite Latin borrowing, especially when English
  equivalents were available compromise
  eventually reached
• - Increased study of, and commentary on, the
  English language

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• Word Formation
• Shakespeare is the single greatest inventor of
  the English language - contributions range from
  800 to more than 3000
• Coining
• - Inventing totally new words
• Functional Shifts
• - Distinctive function of the English language
  virtually any word type can be shifted to any
  other, Shakespeare uses very wide range of
  shifts
• Compounds
• - Combining two or more free morphemes
• Hybrids Affixation
• - not like Old English where no part of the 2
  words in a compound were lost (borrowing from
  French made this more difficult)
• - Prefixes be-, dis-, en-, im-, in-, mis-,
  oer-, pre-, re-, un-, under-,up-
• - Suffixes -able, -age, -al, -ance, -ant, -ed,
  -er, -est, -idity, -ified, -ing, -ish, -ism,
  -ist, -ity, -ive, -ize, -less, -ly, -ment,
  -ness, -ous, -rist, -ry, -ure, -y,
• Latinate Loans