Want to hear some Shakespeare in his own accent?!
This is Ben Crystal, an actor and researcher of Shakespeare, performing Sonnet 116 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds" first in modern accent, called RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION, and then in Elizabethan, or ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION.
I am searching for the difference of SOUND between Elizabethan English and modern English, and the effects it has on the text, its understandings, and its performances.
In searching more into my theme of SOUND IN SHAKESPEARE, I went to the beloved class text of The Necessary Shakespeare. The General Introduction happens to be amazing, for anyone that didn't know it already. On page LXXXIV there is a section completely on "Shakespeare's English: Pronunciation." It references the fact that there was the GREAT VOWEL SHIFT that occurred between then and now. That's why many of the words in a "rhyming" poem don't actually rhyme when we read them aloud today.
A list of some words that have changed include: folk (sound the L), wide (said woide), knife (sound the k, i said as in wide), house (said hoos), dissention (in four syllables, without the SH sound), creeping (said craypin), and many more. There is an extended list under the section in the book.
Another important issue is that not only have pronunciations changed, but also "the differences in Shakespeare's English and ours in the accentuation of syllables" (LXXXV). Sometimes Shakespeare took certain liberties in changes the accented syllables in his words. Many of the words were just bizarrely accented compare to ours.
- -TION and -SION were regularly said with two syllables. Some accents were slurred together with a nasal or a liquid. (See dissention in list of words above.)
- This caused other words to be broken. OCE-AN, MARRI-AGE, etc.
- Nasals and liquids are used as if an "extra vowel were introduced between them and a preceding letter" (LXXXV). Ex: wrest(e)ler, Eng(e)land, ent(e)rance, de-ar, mo-re, etc.
Compared to RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP), the ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION (OP), can have: 1. an extra syllable, 2. one fewer syllable, 3. two adjoining syllables in adjoining words that elide. The spelling doesn't always give that hint away to the modern reader. (From LXXXV.)
That was some of my research for today. It will be more developed Monday as I have more time to round out these ideas and find some more examples in the text. Thanks and have a great day!
