SIR JOHN [to Prince Harry] What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

(I Henry IV, 1.2.45-6)

KENT [to Oswald . . . [you] lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue.

(The Tragedy of King Lear, 2.2.15-17).

SIR TOBY [to Sir Andrew, of challenging Cesario] ... If thou ‘thou’st’ him some thrice, it shall not be amiss.

(Twelfth Night, 3.2.42-3)

The general meaning and force of these three utterances is plain: the first is a jocular expostulation; the second is a savage character assault; the third is an incitement to be insulting. But if we do not have a clear understanding of what the words mean or the impact they carry, we would be at a serious disadvantage if someone were to interrogate us on the point. Why should a buff jerkin upset Sir John? (We need to know they were worn by law officers.) How relevant an insult is finical? (The word meant ‘nit-picking’ or ‘over-fussy’ - a description, we might imagine, which a steward would find particularly irritating.) Why is thou such an asset in making a challenge? (Because courtiers would normally address each other as you, and their servants as thou; calling a fellow-courtier thou three times would be especially galling.) Difficulties of this kind have come about because of language change.

Shakespeare was writing in the middle of a period of English linguistic history called Early Modern English, which runs from around 1500 to around 1750. It was an age when the language was beginning to settle down after a turbulent few centuries when its structure radically altered from its Anglo-Saxon character. Old English (used until the twelfth century) is so different from Modern English that it has to be approached as we would a foreign language. Middle English (used until the fifteenth century) is very much more familiar to modern eyes and ears, but we still feel that a considerable linguistic distance separates us from those who wrote in it - Chaucer and his contemporaries. During the fifteenth century, a huge amount of change affected English pronunciation, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary, so that Shakespeare would have found Chaucer almost as difficult to read as we do. But between Jacobethan times and today the changes have been very limited. Although we must not underestimate the problems posed by such words as buff jerkin, finical, and thou, we must not exaggerate them either. Most of Early Modern English is the same as Modern English. The evidence lies in the fact that there are many lines of Shakespeare where we feel little or no linguistic distance at all:

BRUTUS ... If there be any in this assembly, any dear

friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to

Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend

demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my

answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved

Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living,

and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to

live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for

him. As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it. As he was

valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I

slew him.

(Julius Caesar, 3.2.17-27)

That is why we call the period ‘Early Modern’ English rather than, say, ‘Late Middle’ English. The name suggests a closeness to the language of the present day.

Writing and speaking

The identity between Early Modern and Modern English can be illustrated from all areas of language structure - the writing system, the sound system, the grammar, the vocabulary, and the structure of the spoken or written discourse. However, it must be recognized that in the first two of these areas the identity is an artefact - the result of conventional editorial and performance practice. The Early Modern English system of spelling and punctuation is actually very different from that which we encounter in Modern English; but we would never guess from reading most editions. Just under half of the words in the First Folio have a spelling which is different from the one we know today. At the end of the sixteenth century the alphabet was still developing: the distinctions between u and v and between i and j were not fully established, so that we find vnuisited alongside vnvenerable and jigge alongside iigge. Conventions of word-spacing, hyphenation, sentence punctuation, and capitalization also displayed many differences from modern practice. And spelling was still extremely variable: about half the words which appear in the Folio appear in more than one version - some with half a dozen or more alternatives. Ancient, for example, appears as ancient, antient, aunchiant, aunchient, aunciant, auncient, and auntient. Spelling did not achieve its modern standardization until the end of the eighteenth century - but most editors silently modernize Folio and Quarto spelling and punctuation, with the aim of making the texts more accessible to the reader.

Nor would we ever guess, from the way in which the poems are read aloud and the plays performed, that the Early Modern English sound system (the vowels and consonants, the stress and intonation) was at a considerable remove from modern pronunciation. It is an area where precise conclusions are unattainable. Attempts to reconstruct the way people spoke, based on a study of rhythmical patterns, rhymes, spellings, and contemporary phonetic descriptions can take us so far, but leave us well short of the character of the original. From the nature of the rhythm of the poetic line (the metre), for example, we can deduce that a syllable needs separate articulation, as in the opening lines of Henry V:

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention.

It has to be: ‘in-ven-see-on’. Similarly, it is the metre which motivates contrasting pronunciations of the same word in such cases as ‘Hence banished is banished from the world’ (Romeo and Juliet, 3.3.19). And from the way in which words rhyme or pun, we can deduce an earlier pronunciation, as when wind is made to rhyme with unkind.

But rhymes and puns do not tell us the whole story. They tell us only that two words must have sounded the same; they do not tell us in what respects that ‘sameness’ exists. In many cases, we can clearly see a pun, but still be unclear how to pronounce it. When Cassius says (Julius Caesar, 1.2.157-8):

Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough

When there is in it but one only man

there is obviously some word-play intended - but is Rome being pronounced like modern room, or should room be like modern Rome, or was the Early Modern English pronunciation somewhere in between? Modern performances in ‘original voices’, based on research by historical linguists, are probably not too far away from the truth - at least, as far as the vowels, consonants, and word-stress contrasts are concerned; but there remain many uncertain areas. And the nature of the dynamic aspects of speech at the time (the intonation and tone of voice) is a matter of speculation. No modern accent corresponds, though the fact that the r was pronounced after vowels (as in fire) does tend to remind people of modern rural West of England accents, when they hear people attempt a Shakespearian pronunciation. Then, as now, there would have been many regional and class variations in accent, especially in the London area.