Who is afraid of Shakespeare’s language

1. Who is afraid of Shakespeare’s language?

Fun facts about English & a guide to reading,
understanding and enjoying Shakespeare
start

2.

• “O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily!
If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved.”
Can you read it? What a strange language!
Is that even English?

3.

• It was written by William Shakespeare
more than 400 years ago
• It’s from “As You Like It”,
one of his greatest plays
• A more famous quote from this play is
“All the world’s a stage…”

4.

• It is called Early Modern English.
Stress on EARLY!
• Every language keeps changing, it “grows” like a
person.
Can you read this?
«Что преже сего не в которое время брат твой
Едварт корол некоторых людей своих на имя
Рыцерта послал некоторых для потреб по
всему миру местом»
(from a letter of Ivan the Terribleto Queen Elizabeth of England)
It was written about the same time as Shakespeare
wrote his plays!

5.

Hard to understand, isn’t it?
Even though it’s in Russian!

6. What made English so beautiful… yet complicated?

• English language = a pie

7. Celts

• 600 BC
• corgi (“little dog” in Welsh),
whisky (“water of life” in Gaelic),
Dover,
Avon
etc.
Food for thought:
Do any Celts live on British Isles
nowadays?

8. Romans

• 55 BC – Roman invasion
• street,
wall,
candle,
port,
paper,
bishop
etc.
Food for thought:
“Chester” comes from Latin castorum (“camp”).
Do you know any geographical name with “chester” in it?

9. Anglo-Saxons

• 5th century AD
• Cow,
house,
bread,
sword
etc.
Food for thought:
Why is the English language called
English? (hint: see the name of the tribe)

10. Vikings

• 9th century
• Sky,
egg,
cake,
window (“wind eye”)
etc.
Food for thought:
Some days of the week are named after Scandinavian gods
(Thor = god of thunder, Freya = goddess of love, Woden = the cunning god).
What days of the week are they?

11. Normans

• 1066 – Normans invaded England from Normandy in France
• English underclass cooked for Norman (French) upperclass
animals: ox, cow, sheep, swine, deer (English)
meats: beef, veal, mutton, pork, venison (French)
Food for thought:
Normans also brought the new method of
making plurals by adding an "s“
(a house - houses; a shoe - shoes).
Only some words still have the old Germanic
plurals
(a man - men, a tooth – teeth etc.)
What about the words child, ox, foot?

12. Middle English

• 14-15th centuries
No more invasions
Printing press (1476)
common language, writing standarts
Geoffrey Chaucer “The Canterbury Tales”
“Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote…”
(= When April with its sweet showers…)
Food for thought:
why do business owners today
sometimes spell
“olde shoppe” instead of “old shop”,
or “towne”, not town?

13. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

• Renaissance in Europe – great advance of learning and culture
• The most famous playwright of all time
• Invented or first published over 1600 words!
Hot-blooded, champion, luggage, birthplace, generous, eyeball,
fashionable
and many more
• Famous quotations:
“To be, or not to be”
“What’s in a name?”
“Friends, Romans, countrymen” and more.
Food for thought:
What plays are these quotes from? Do you remember any other famous ones?

14. Shakespeare’s English

• thou
you
NB. [au]!!!
• thee
you
(I love thee = I love you)
• thy/thine
your/yours
(Thy book = Your book;
The book is thine = The book is yours)

15. Thou you

Thou & thee = familiar, informal forms of you
• Use “thou” to address your children, servants, wife,
dog, best friends, God (hey, who knows you better? )
• Use “you” for your parents, master, social superiors,
horse (who may be worth as much as you are! )
Ye = several people (Are ye all here?)
Don’t panic: “thou” & “you” get mixed in a sentence
even in Shakespeare.
Food for thought: How to express this difference in Russian?

16. Verbs

• Thou + -t, -st, -est
click art
to check
You are = thou
you seem = thou
clickseemest,
to check
you have = thou
click hast
to check
• He, she, it + -eth
to check
He knows = he click
knoweth
to check
she does = she click
doth
([ʌ]!!!)

17. Please translate:

• What wilt thou do?
click
to check
= What
will
you do?
• Thou hast not loved!
= Youclick
haven’t
loved!
to check
• What dost thou know?
click
check
= What
dotoyou
know?
• The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
click to check
= The lady protests
too much, I think.
• What shall I call thee, when thou art a man?
= What shall I callclick
you,
to when
check you are a man?
• Thou canst not be false to any man
clicktotoany
check
= You can’t be false
man

18. Useful words

Ay [ai] = yes
Nay [nei] = no
Methinks = I think
‘Tis [tiz] = it is
an = if
In Shakespeare’s culture, one’s word = a sign of honor.
Oaths were important!
zounds [u:] = By God’s wounds
i’faith = in faith
by my troth [ou] = by my word
by Jove = by Jupiter
etc.
Food for thought:
This, by the way, is how such terms came to be known as “swear words.”
What do we call “swearing” nowadays?

19. Speaking like Shakespeare?

• Beautiful, detailed expressions
Instead of …
try saying…
Excuse me
Forgive me, Pray pardon,
click to check
I crave your forgiveness
Thank you
Gramercy, Iclick
thank
thee, My thanks,
to check
God reward thee
Please
Prithee [pri] (I pray thee),
check
If you please, Anclick
thoutolikest,
An it please you
NB. “Hello” in Shakespeare’s time = an exclamation of surprise.
Use instead:
Good day, Good morrow, God save you, sweet mistress;
How now, Sir Toby Belch; What news.

20. “Away! Thou art poison to my blood”

Even insults were beautifully expressed
You are fat
= By my troth, thou dost make the millstone seem as a feather!
You've got a big mouth
= In sooth, thy dank cavernous tooth-hole consumes all truth and reason!
• You are ugly
= Thy vile canker-blossom'd countenance
curdles milk and sours beer.
Fun idea:
Generate your own “insult” at
http://www.renfaire.com/Language/insults.html

21. Now you can translate the piece we began with

“O, thOu didst then ne'er lOve sO heartily!
click to
checkso heartily!
O, then you never
loved
If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
If you don’t remember the slightest folly
click to check
That love ever made you run into
thOu hast nOt lOved.”
click to
check
You haven’t
loved.
What is it about?
What does the person who say this feel?

22. Congratulations!

You can read Shakespeare in the original
(not many native speakers can do it!)

23. Useful links

• http://www.william-shakespeare.info/
• http://www.talklikeshakespeare.org/
• http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elltankw/history/
Vocab/D.htm
• http://wordinfo.info/
• http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/word-lists/listof-words-and-phrases-shakespeare-invented.html
• http://www.elizabethan.org
• http://www.renfaire.com/Language
• http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/in
teractives/languages/words/timeline/

24.

“Fare ye well, gentle gentlemen!”
(and ladies )