Dost thou find Shakespeare confusing? Have you ever wanted to write like a fancy aristocrat in the 16th century? Are you getting ready for an Elizabethan costume party? If so, this is the post for you. Let’s start off with a quick background.
What is Early Modern English, and is it the same as Old English?
Many find the two interchangeable, but are they really? In actuality, they’re much different! Beowulf is written in Old English, and while translators have done a lot of work for us to read the heroic poems, Old English looks vastly different from what we speak today. Here’s the phrase “long time no see” in Old English (provided by Omniglot.com).
“Lange iċ ne ġeseah þē.”
You can tell that Old English is vastly different from what we’re used to. Now, let’s look at the same phrase in Early Modern English (provided by a translation site)
“Long time nay see.”
This is much easier to understand. Famously written by William Shakespeare in his plethora of shows, Early Modern English shares many characteristics with the Modern English we use, albeit a bit more wordy than we’re used to. Some words used today were even invented by Shakespeare, but that’s another blog post for another time.
What are the differences between Early Old English and Modern English?
One difference between the two is the use of pronouns. Early Modern English used you, yours, they, and you all, but had alternate words for each to be used when referring to a person of higher or lower status. The pronouns that we’re used to refer to someone in higher power than the speaker, while thee, thou, thine, and ye all refer to someone with equal status or lower status than you.
Another difference the two have is with present tense verbs. In Modern English, present tense verbs are given the suffix -s. Take the verbs lives, for example. In Early Modern English, the suffix for the same verb would be –eth, making he liveth. The same goes for other verbs, but there’s one caveat. When using a personal pronoun with the verb like you or thou, the ending -est would be used instead, making you livest/thou livest.
Did people in the past speak in Early Old English?
Yes, although it wasn’t used by the people who you’d expect. In a lot of popular culture, the aristocracy in 16th century England are shown speaking with exclusively thees and thous, when really it was almost the exact opposite. Since they had more frequent access to the printing press and physical copies of books, they were able to become more educated, and spoke more similarly to how we do nowadays. Shakespeare’s writings reflect this, with his commissioned works being void of the informal personal pronouns that Early Old English had. He more regularly wrote in a way that commonfolk would talk, allowing for ease of learning for his actors, as well as for the audience that he would garner, which would be filled with (you guessed it) commonfolk.
What now?
This is a fairly surface level dive into Early Modern English, and there’s so much more to learn. If you’d believe it, knowing the suffixes and meanings behind different verbs allow you to effectively train yourself to understand Shakespeare, and while iambic pentameter is its own beast, I would seriously recommend checking out the Oxford English Dictionary’s overview can be found here. It’s helpful for anyone who is willing to take a deep dive into some early linguistics! Whatever you do with Early Modern English, I hope this guide has given you a pretty clear baseline on what to start with.
