Shakespeare’s Pronunciation Shakespeare’s Pronunciation Author Katelyn Ekker Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England EncyclopediaEMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globablink Research Internship

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Katelyn Ekker, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

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Original Pronunciation

Early modern pronunciation was significantly different than the English spoken in the 21st century. Vowels were in the process of changing—known as vowel-shifting—the same process that has given us so many different accents today, from the received pronunciation of the British Broadcasting Corporation to the brogues of Ireland to the twangs in Texas. Because of this shift, many words that would have rhymed perfectly to Shakespeare and his contemporaries now sound like half-rhymes or almost rhymes. Examples of this are love and prove, reason and raisin, Rome and room, and lines and loins. To learn more, visit this Open University video made by linguist Dr. David Crystal and his son, actor Ben Crystal. They are some of the pioneers of Original Pronunciation (OP) scholarship and its application in theater.

Why OP?

Just like there are many accents in English today, the same was true of Shakespeare’s time. Knowing how they sounded involves a lot of linguistic expertise combined with scholarly research, as well as some guesswork. Prolific scholar of linguistics David Crystal explains why it is so important to hear Shakespeare’s words in their original pronunciation; his website features extensive evidence about early modern speech. He points out that when older texts are read in modern pronunciation, incorrect social connotations arise. The Original Pronunciation movement, which started in the 1980s, gets rid of these connotations and add a new depth to the text, allowing the audience to gain a better understanding of the author’s original intention.

David and Ben Crystal believe Shakespeare’s pronunciation was closer to a Northern English accent, perhaps from the areas around Liverpool or Leeds, than an American accent. The accent most commonly associated with the British now, one called Received Pronunciation, was actually developed around 1800 so that the aristocracy could distinguish themselves from the growing middle class. David Crystal says that although we will never really know Shakespeare’s true accent, the Original Pronunciation reconstructed by the Crystals is the sound system that everybody used to understand each other in the 1600s.

What’s the Difference?

Many of Shakespeare’s naughtiest jokes rely on homophones, words that sound alike but have very different meanings. In As You Like It, Touchstone says And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe / And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot / And thereby hangs a tale. If read as pronounced currently in the 21st century, it is not funny, but rather depressing commentary on human mortality. However, if hour is pronounced ore to sound like whore, it means something completely different, and Shakespeare’s very dirty joke becomes apparent.

In 2005, Shakespeare’s Globe, the professional theater company that uses the reconstruction of the Globe Theater in modern London, mounted a production of Romeo and Juliet using not only original practices in costume, music, and acting, but also in original pronunciation. David and Ben Crystal offered guidance to the actors, and the entire experience is chronicled in Crystal’s book, Pronouncing Shakespeare: The Globe Experiment.

Key Print Sources Crystal, David. The Stories of English. Abrams Press, 2004. Crystal, David, and Ben Crystal. Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion. Penguin Books, 2004. Crystal, David. Pronouncing Shakespeare: The Globe Experiment. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Key Online Sources Paul, Richard. Pronouncing English as Shakespeare Did. Shakespeare Unlimited. The Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/original-pronunciation/. Accessed 25 May 2017. Shakespeare: Original Pronunciation. Open University.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s. Accessed 25 May 2017.