11 ms·

Opening of Romeo and Juliet Recited in the Accent of Shakespeare’s Time [video]

241 points by jb1991 8y ago

HarrietJones 8y ago
I see Shakespeare is from Winterfell.
- BjoernKW 8y ago
  That'd be a Yorkshire accent. The closest this comes to in terms of modern accents is West Country, which both geographically and linguistically probably is as far away from Yorkshire as you can get.
  - adamc 8y ago
    Makes me think of the moles in Redwall (animated version).
darkerside 8y ago
Is there any published video of full Shakespeare productions in the original pronunciation? I'm curious how appealing it is over the course of a couple of hours. Also wonder about critical and popular reception of those performances.
- aezell 8y ago
  I would suspect that like any production, it takes a bit for the audience's ears to adjust and then it likely goes largely unnoticed. As for critical reception, Crystal uses some of this linguistic approach to make very specific creative choices. I would imagine audiences and critics respond more to those choices than they do the linguistic reasons that led to them.
robotmay 8y ago
I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like "hour to hour" being pronounced like "whore to whore", which suddenly makes that line quite a bit funnier. Here's another video of the same bloke that I've seen in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s I do like that he mentioned being asked to perform using his native Welsh accent in the OP's video. Shakespeare was after all the playright for people of every standing, and it feels a bit daft to posh it all up.
- Brakenshire 8y ago
  > Shakespeare was after all the playright for people of every standing, and it feels a bit daft to posh it all up. Although the later plays were written for the Blackfriars Theatre which was definitely exclusive.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  > I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like "hour to hour" being pronounced like "whore to whore", which suddenly makes that line quite a bit funnier. Things like this, among others, continue to convince me that reading Shakespeare plays in high school is largely a waste of time. Unless you have an excellent teacher, who explains the puns, the historical context, and other things, it's about as useful as looking at storyboards of a movie instead of watching the movie itself.
  - robotmay 8y ago
    The only one I found funny at school was Twelfth Night, and the rest were extremely arduous. I went to college in Stratford Upon Avon and I found his writing so much more interesting once I actually got to spend more time learning about the context and the period.
  - delecti 8y ago
    In addition, I think it's absurd for your first exposure to any of the plays to be reading it; so much of the dialog only makes sense when being spoken. The homework assignments should never be "read Act I", it should be "watch the first 45 minutes of movie version <blah>". Even a disengaged viewer will get more out of watching it than having their first experience be reading it.
    - pishpash 8y ago
      This is carried over from a pre-AV time when books were the only media you had. The curriculum just needs to be updated (and probably has been, in many places).
openasocket 8y ago
I remember reading on some listicle website that the original English accent used by the commoners in that time period was much closer to the modern American accent. Something about how the accents of colonies tend to become fixed in time. And a quick google for "original english accent american" turns up a few links supporting that idea. I'm trying to reconcile that with this here. Is this performance based on newer, more nuanced evidence? Or maybe this is more specifically the accent of Londoners, while the average rural Englishman would be closer to the American accent? Or perhaps what he was speaking really is very close to the modern American accent and I just have a tin ear (definitely shouldn't rule that out!)? Moreover, I'm curious how one finds evidence to support what historic accents were like. It's not like it shows up in writing, after all. Is it by studying all the accents of the neighbors and trying to extrapolate? Maybe someone stumbled across a 17th century pronunciation guide? robotmay on here commented that some of the puns and rhymes only work in this sort of accent, which is a particularly clever way of gathering evidence.
- eaguyhn 8y ago
  There was a documentary produced back in the 1980's called, "The Story of English" and it explored the origins and evolution of the language. Episodes 2 and 3 focus on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the arrival of Raleigh in America. Cool stuff :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UG6vHXArlk&list=PL6D54D1C7DAE31B36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UG6vHXArlk&list=PL6D54D1C7D...
- bootsz 8y ago
  Yeah, there's the Tangier Island in Virginia where people have an accent that some claim is closer to the English accent spoken in pre-colonial times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16320595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16320595
  - rootbear 8y ago
    I've been to Tangier and the accent there is truly strange. It has a very archaic sound, for sure. And it's not just the accent, there are grammatical differences as well. One branch of my family is from the Great Smoky Mountains region of Appalachia. The accents and speech there also have archaic features due to isolation and influences from Scottish, Irish, and Welsh settlers. Some years ago, I read Ben's father David Crystal's book "Pronouncing Shakespeare" and it has a whole chapter on how they reconstructed the original pronunciation. In Shakespeare's time, they did, in fact, write about elocution quite a bit, and some clues come from there. And, as others have noted, you see rhymes and puns show up when you revert to the old pronunciations. As I recall, Crystal claimed that he thinks they got it at least 80% right.
noir-york 8y ago
For more check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s where there is an explanation of how original pronunciation was rediscovered.
dmreedy 8y ago
The fantastic featured bit on the accenting aside, in the full video he breaks down a possible model for the way Shakespeare played with iambic pentameter. He turns it almost in to sheet music; you know the time signature by way of the meter, and any difference between the expected notes (syllables) and actual notes are almost as on to rests; pauses in the music that the actors may fill with other means of communication. But fascinatingly, instructed pauses, communicated by the writer, rather than the director or the actor. I find this absolutely fascinating; the amount of extra information and nuance and immense complexity that a few simple rules and constraints over a system can generate. If we take this model to be true, suddenly the communication becomes that much clearer, and that much more concise, both between the writer and his players, and the players and their audience, and the by proxy again the writer. What an excellent presentation.
craftyguy 8y ago
Since he obviously existed before audio recording technology, how do we know this is the accent of Shakespeare's time? Did someone from that era write down some phonetic pronunciations of their words, or was some technique used to arrive at this conclusion?
- robotresearcher 8y ago
  There are clues to pronunciation in the text such as words that should rhyme, or that should be homophones so that puns work. You can also get clues from forks of the population, such as the Boston accent that forked from mainly British emigrants around Shakespeare's time, and have evolved somewhat independently since. The distinctive things modern British and Bostonian have in common could date back from the time of the fork, for example. Also we have a rough changelog of incoming pronunciation changes as communication with e.g. France increased. Back out those changes and the accent sounds more like the rural/remote parts of the UK still does, but they would have been mixed up in a metropolis like London. Also a healthy dose of imagination and artistic license :)
  - stan_rogers 8y ago
    There are also contemporaneous or nearly-contemporaneous pronunciation guides. Like poetry of the era, they work with rhyming words, so they're just another part of the puzzle. It's not often that the word being "pronounced" (a new coinage or import, or something uncommon or technical) is of any interest, but it's often the only clue that the example words given as rhymes should rhyme.
exabrial 8y ago
The second: A pirate EDIT: Someone said it in the video haha
sudosteph 8y ago
That actor's charisma modifier is off the charts. A true pleasure to watch. I'd never considered his point about how accent also impacts the flow of speech and potential speed so noticeably. Speed of speaking always drove me crazy when trying to learn Spanish, and I never got nearly as profecient at understanding spoken spanish as I did with French. Maybe if I had studied Spanish with a different accent from a different era I would have stood a chance! But it's crazy to think that plays which are 3 hours today were 2 hours in the past (though speech is likely not the only factor there). I don't have the patience for 3 hour plays, and Shakespeare never stuck with me from school, but after this I'm curious to watch a full production in the original accent.
- drspacemonkey 8y ago
  I've seen Ben Crystal do some other Original Pronunciation Shakespeare videos. It's his specialty, and I would love to see one of his "original practice" productions live one day. Here's a couple more of his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M
beloch 8y ago
As a Canadian, original pronunciation made me think of a Newfoundland accent. Strongly. I wonder if British theaters will start recruiting more newfies?
- philwelch 8y ago
  That's not wholly surprising. Newfoundland was colonized by the English in 1610, right in the middle of Shakespeare's life.
tomxor 8y ago
That's pretty much exactly a strong English west-country accent - spoken a little more gruffly (not sure if that's supposed to be dramatic effect or authenticity), and I say that with the authority of growing up and living in that region and hearing it in all range of strengths and subtle variations. I wonder how it was determined that would have been the accent.
duxup 8y ago
The Shakespeare accent reminds me of the accent that low level sailors are given in age of sail type films.
anonymouslee 8y ago
Almost entirely not the same: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114733/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114733/

241 points by jb1991 8y ago

HarrietJones 8y ago

I see Shakespeare is from Winterfell.

BjoernKW 8y ago
That'd be a Yorkshire accent. The closest this comes to in terms of modern accents is West Country, which both geographically and linguistically probably is as far away from Yorkshire as you can get.
- adamc 8y ago
  Makes me think of the moles in Redwall (animated version).

darkerside 8y ago

Is there any published video of full Shakespeare productions in the original pronunciation? I'm curious how appealing it is over the course of a couple of hours. Also wonder about critical and popular reception of those performances.

aezell 8y ago
I would suspect that like any production, it takes a bit for the audience's ears to adjust and then it likely goes largely unnoticed. As for critical reception, Crystal uses some of this linguistic approach to make very specific creative choices. I would imagine audiences and critics respond more to those choices than they do the linguistic reasons that led to them.

robotmay 8y ago

I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like "hour to hour" being pronounced like "whore to whore", which suddenly makes that line quite a bit funnier. Here's another video of the same bloke that I've seen in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s I do like that he mentioned being asked to perform using his native Welsh accent in the OP's video. Shakespeare was after all the playright for people of every standing, and it feels a bit daft to posh it all up.

Brakenshire 8y ago
> Shakespeare was after all the playright for people of every standing, and it feels a bit daft to posh it all up. Although the later plays were written for the Blackfriars Theatre which was definitely exclusive.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
> I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like "hour to hour" being pronounced like "whore to whore", which suddenly makes that line quite a bit funnier. Things like this, among others, continue to convince me that reading Shakespeare plays in high school is largely a waste of time. Unless you have an excellent teacher, who explains the puns, the historical context, and other things, it's about as useful as looking at storyboards of a movie instead of watching the movie itself.
- robotmay 8y ago
  The only one I found funny at school was Twelfth Night, and the rest were extremely arduous. I went to college in Stratford Upon Avon and I found his writing so much more interesting once I actually got to spend more time learning about the context and the period.
- delecti 8y ago
  In addition, I think it's absurd for your first exposure to any of the plays to be reading it; so much of the dialog only makes sense when being spoken. The homework assignments should never be "read Act I", it should be "watch the first 45 minutes of movie version <blah>". Even a disengaged viewer will get more out of watching it than having their first experience be reading it.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    This is carried over from a pre-AV time when books were the only media you had. The curriculum just needs to be updated (and probably has been, in many places).

openasocket 8y ago

I remember reading on some listicle website that the original English accent used by the commoners in that time period was much closer to the modern American accent. Something about how the accents of colonies tend to become fixed in time. And a quick google for "original english accent american" turns up a few links supporting that idea. I'm trying to reconcile that with this here. Is this performance based on newer, more nuanced evidence? Or maybe this is more specifically the accent of Londoners, while the average rural Englishman would be closer to the American accent? Or perhaps what he was speaking really is very close to the modern American accent and I just have a tin ear (definitely shouldn't rule that out!)? Moreover, I'm curious how one finds evidence to support what historic accents were like. It's not like it shows up in writing, after all. Is it by studying all the accents of the neighbors and trying to extrapolate? Maybe someone stumbled across a 17th century pronunciation guide? robotmay on here commented that some of the puns and rhymes only work in this sort of accent, which is a particularly clever way of gathering evidence.

eaguyhn 8y ago
There was a documentary produced back in the 1980's called, "The Story of English" and it explored the origins and evolution of the language. Episodes 2 and 3 focus on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the arrival of Raleigh in America. Cool stuff :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UG6vHXArlk&list=PL6D54D1C7DAE31B36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UG6vHXArlk&list=PL6D54D1C7D...
bootsz 8y ago
Yeah, there's the Tangier Island in Virginia where people have an accent that some claim is closer to the English accent spoken in pre-colonial times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16320595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16320595
- rootbear 8y ago
  I've been to Tangier and the accent there is truly strange. It has a very archaic sound, for sure. And it's not just the accent, there are grammatical differences as well. One branch of my family is from the Great Smoky Mountains region of Appalachia. The accents and speech there also have archaic features due to isolation and influences from Scottish, Irish, and Welsh settlers. Some years ago, I read Ben's father David Crystal's book "Pronouncing Shakespeare" and it has a whole chapter on how they reconstructed the original pronunciation. In Shakespeare's time, they did, in fact, write about elocution quite a bit, and some clues come from there. And, as others have noted, you see rhymes and puns show up when you revert to the old pronunciations. As I recall, Crystal claimed that he thinks they got it at least 80% right.

noir-york 8y ago

For more check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s where there is an explanation of how original pronunciation was rediscovered.

dmreedy 8y ago

The fantastic featured bit on the accenting aside, in the full video he breaks down a possible model for the way Shakespeare played with iambic pentameter. He turns it almost in to sheet music; you know the time signature by way of the meter, and any difference between the expected notes (syllables) and actual notes are almost as on to rests; pauses in the music that the actors may fill with other means of communication. But fascinatingly, instructed pauses, communicated by the writer, rather than the director or the actor. I find this absolutely fascinating; the amount of extra information and nuance and immense complexity that a few simple rules and constraints over a system can generate. If we take this model to be true, suddenly the communication becomes that much clearer, and that much more concise, both between the writer and his players, and the players and their audience, and the by proxy again the writer. What an excellent presentation.

craftyguy 8y ago

Since he obviously existed before audio recording technology, how do we know this is the accent of Shakespeare's time? Did someone from that era write down some phonetic pronunciations of their words, or was some technique used to arrive at this conclusion?

robotresearcher 8y ago
There are clues to pronunciation in the text such as words that should rhyme, or that should be homophones so that puns work. You can also get clues from forks of the population, such as the Boston accent that forked from mainly British emigrants around Shakespeare's time, and have evolved somewhat independently since. The distinctive things modern British and Bostonian have in common could date back from the time of the fork, for example. Also we have a rough changelog of incoming pronunciation changes as communication with e.g. France increased. Back out those changes and the accent sounds more like the rural/remote parts of the UK still does, but they would have been mixed up in a metropolis like London. Also a healthy dose of imagination and artistic license :)
- stan_rogers 8y ago
  There are also contemporaneous or nearly-contemporaneous pronunciation guides. Like poetry of the era, they work with rhyming words, so they're just another part of the puzzle. It's not often that the word being "pronounced" (a new coinage or import, or something uncommon or technical) is of any interest, but it's often the only clue that the example words given as rhymes should rhyme.

exabrial 8y ago

The second: A pirate EDIT: Someone said it in the video haha

sudosteph 8y ago

That actor's charisma modifier is off the charts. A true pleasure to watch. I'd never considered his point about how accent also impacts the flow of speech and potential speed so noticeably. Speed of speaking always drove me crazy when trying to learn Spanish, and I never got nearly as profecient at understanding spoken spanish as I did with French. Maybe if I had studied Spanish with a different accent from a different era I would have stood a chance! But it's crazy to think that plays which are 3 hours today were 2 hours in the past (though speech is likely not the only factor there). I don't have the patience for 3 hour plays, and Shakespeare never stuck with me from school, but after this I'm curious to watch a full production in the original accent.

drspacemonkey 8y ago
I've seen Ben Crystal do some other Original Pronunciation Shakespeare videos. It's his specialty, and I would love to see one of his "original practice" productions live one day. Here's a couple more of his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M

beloch 8y ago

As a Canadian, original pronunciation made me think of a Newfoundland accent. Strongly. I wonder if British theaters will start recruiting more newfies?

philwelch 8y ago
That's not wholly surprising. Newfoundland was colonized by the English in 1610, right in the middle of Shakespeare's life.

tomxor 8y ago

That's pretty much exactly a strong English west-country accent - spoken a little more gruffly (not sure if that's supposed to be dramatic effect or authenticity), and I say that with the authority of growing up and living in that region and hearing it in all range of strengths and subtle variations. I wonder how it was determined that would have been the accent.

duxup 8y ago

The Shakespeare accent reminds me of the accent that low level sailors are given in age of sail type films.

anonymouslee 8y ago

Almost entirely not the same: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114733/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114733/