Original Pronunciation - Hamlet | To Be, or not to be... | Ben Crystal

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drspacemonkey · 2018-05 · Recommendation

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: [LINK] [VIDEO]

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0tfoaij · 2025-02 · Reference

The idea that American spelling and pronunciation have a better heritage than British English is a compelling one, especially as the idea that Southern and Appalachian accents are closer to those of the Founding Fathers and Shakespearean English is a nice balance to the perception that these accents sound unintelligent and uneducated, but it's simply not true that one dialect has diverged more than another - both have diverged and in many cases substantially. One of the common reasons given is that British accents like RP (there's a lot to criticise about RP but that's another topic), Cockney (featured elsewhere on the thread and the internet in general, oi m8 you got a loicence for that?), and general loss of rhoticity in BrE (and some AmE) accents that are most represented in American media have diverged substantially, but to me the examples of Shakespearean English in classic pronunciation sound closer to the West Country accents than they do any American accent. Note that there could be some bias here as the speakers are British, but you get features like H-dropping which simply don't exist in AmE. It also wouldn't be fair to say any modern accent sounds even remotely close to this. Shakespearean English: [VIDEO] [LINK] Some good reddit threads on the matter: [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] Another weird one is spelling, given that etymology and spelling is pretty interesting in general, at least up until the advent of the printing press. Both BrE and AmE have made some questionable

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e12e · 2022-06 · Reference

Hm. I don't really enjoy reading plays. Watching live performances (or films) I do enjoy. And he certainly had an impact on the English language as demonstrated by Kae (née Kate) Tempest: "My Shakespeare": [LINK] Ed: see also the "original pronunciation" movement - eg: [VIDEO] Although if you've studied him at college level, hopefully you already know that Shakespeare can rhyme - despite modern pronunciation.

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