Shakespeare: Original pronunciation (The Open University) on HackerTube: recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2013–2025.
explainer · evergreen
David and Ben Crystal introduce the Original Pronunciation production of Shakespeare and show what it reveals about the history of English, including puns and rhymes lost in modern speech.
Frequently linked as a short, accessible demonstration of how Shakespeare actually sounded.
“I very much enjoyed this quick introduction to Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation”
20 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
The vowel shift is one of the major reasons why Shakespeare's poetry doesn't rhyme when spoken with modern English. There was a rather fascinating video that went around awhile back of a father and son demonstrating the changes.[1] [1] ▶ this video
in “Great Vowel Shift” · View on HN
Along similar lines, some years ago I really enjoyed ▶ this video as an introduction to the realities of the pronunciation of Shakespeare's English. Jump to 5 minutes in for a demonstration of how "lines" and "loins" were pronounced the same and resulted in a pun that's missed in modern pronunciation.
in “Are We Getting Shakespeare’s Rhythms All Wrong?” · View on HN
I very much enjoyed this quick introduction to Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation (the sound of speech at the time) and how many puns and much interpretation is lost in modern accents. From the Open University: ▶ this video
in “Pronunciation errors that made the English language” · View on HN
A bit OT but hopefully interesting nevertheless. This is apparently the original pronunciation for the works of Shakespeare ▶ this video The entire video has some nice information but if you want to skip to an example of the original pronunciation, you can jump to 2:50.
in “When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?” · View on HN
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: [link] ▶ this video 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
in “BritCSS: Fixes CSS to use non-American English” · View on HN
The history of how we know what Latin sounded like is fascinating. Reminds me this video on what Shakespeare's original pronunciation sounded like: ▶ this video
in “Schola Latina Europæa and Universalis” · View on HN
There are some renditions of Shakespeare's plays with pronunciations from where and when they were written. It recaptures some of the puns and jokes that are not apparent in most modern accents. ▶ this video
in “Old jokes” · View on HN
See also: about Shakespeare in the Early Modern English pronunciation: ▶ this video Specifically how some puns don't work with the pronunciation of today, like the ‘hour’.
in “Simon Roper: the 23-year-old reconstructing the past for millions of viewers” · View on HN
Newfanese is pretty much crystallized Hiberno-English, at least if we're talking the language of the bay wops rather than townies. It has a surprising amount of commonality with African-American vernacular, likely due to transportation and indenture (which is why AAVE, while distinct, barely edges into typical creole patterns). The English of Shakespeare's time, or at least of his plays, has been largely reconstructed by linguist David Crystal, whose son, the actor and director Ben Crystal, is probably the best-known practitioner. There are a number of videos on YouTube of Ben doing Shakespeare in OP. A good starting point is ▶ this video - and if one had to tie it closely to a modern regional variant, it would be West Country. But that would just be something it would remind you of rather than a template.
in “Winner of French Scrabble Title Does Not Speak French (2015)” · View on HN
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: ▶ this video 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.
in “Opening of Romeo and Juliet Recited in the Accent of Shakespeare’s Time [video]” · View on HN
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: ▶ this video [link]
in “Opening of Romeo and Juliet Recited in the Accent of Shakespeare’s Time [video]” · View on HN
Ah, but with how English has shifted over the centuries, the necessary domain knowledge has slowly been disappearing. Shakespeare's plays now and then [0] are slightly different (and back then, dirtier) because of it. (Jump to 2:30 for an explanation and example, then at 7:58 is the dirty pun that doesn't exist in modern pronunciation.) [0] ▶ this video
in “The IRS’s Effort to Convert Its Assembly Codebase to Java” · View on HN
Judging by those spellings, we've also been pronouncing it wrongly. A pronunciation like "shax pear" does seem to have more of a early modern English ring to it. ▶ this video
in “William Shakespeare, Playwright and Poet, Is Dead at 52” · View on HN
FWIW, the Shakespeare example used modern theatrical pronunciation. ▶ this video shows the difference between that and the original pronunciation.
in “How Far Back in Time Could You Travel and Still Understand English?” · View on HN
It's not quite like that. American pronunciation change as well. Here's an example of how linguist reconstruct the original pronunciation of Shakespeare plays: ▶ this video It really has more elements that sound like West Country accent, Irish English, or even Scots/Ulster Scots.
in “Why ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ Sound So Similar in So Many Languages” · View on HN
There are companies which do original-pronunciation Shakespeare and make a point of showing wordplay and rhymes that don't exist in modern English pronunciation. This video has an example: ▶ this video
in “Why we should all learn from the ancient Greeks” · View on HN
Funnily enough, some would argue that Shakespeare in modern English also isn't real Shakespeare! Check out the original prenounciation: ▶ this video
in “Is Bilingualism Really an Advantage?” · View on HN
Most of English's "problems" come from a sort of natural drift that all languages experience all the time. There's no way to freeze a language in its "most useful" form, because a billion different speakers are simultaneously pulling it in different directions. It either ends up as a sort of democratic consensus, or eventually fractures into mutually unintelligible dialects. 1. Shakespearean pronunciation: ▶ this video 2. Problems that would be caused by simplifying spelling: [link] 3. Power of Babel: [link] 4. Toastmasters speech about "Manglish": [link] (Toastmasters has its own version of English, full of over the top gestures. Also recommended, search for Singlish on Youtube.)
in “English has been my pain for 15 years” · View on HN
Just for future reference, if you right click on a video on youtube, you can click copy link at current time to lazy link to 2m50s so you don't have to say "jump to this time." ▶ this video
in “When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?” · View on HN
Sure. For example ▶ this video 00:04:36, states that film is spelled philome in Shakespeare's work. Unfortunately a google search of "philome" yields only pages about shakespeare pronounciation, especially by these two guys; I don't know what that means. However, I think that thinking about the evolution of a language as a linear progression is misleading. Is certainly possible that modern Irish pronunciation stems from what was spoken at that time, and the modern "mainstream" english pronunciation evolved later from a slighly different root, and epenthesis acted only in one of the two branches. Film derives from west germanic filminjan, which in turn comes from proto germanic fello(m), and proto indoeuropean pel-, with cognates in lating and greek, pella and pellis respectivly. So it's possible that epenthesis was applied on top of filminjan in irish scottish accents (possibly due to pressure of the gaelic substrate), while the dialect which originated RP didn't have this change. I'm sure somebody with better knowledge of the matter can be more precise about that, however, it's strange how little (and often more misleading than uncertain) information is there about one the most widely spoken languages. (Sorry, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter comment :-) )
in “When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?” · View on HN