Early Modern Pronunciation
in practice:
Hamlet
Sources
(conflicting!)
Kökeritz, H.
Shakespeare’s pronunciation. New Haven, Conn: YaleUniversity Press,
1953.
Lass, Roger. “Phonology and
morphology.” The Cambridge History ofthe English Language, Vol.
3, 1476-1776. Ed. Roger Lass. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Lass, Roger. “Shakespeare’s
sounds.” Reading Shakespeare’s Dramat Language: a
guide. Ed.
Sylvia Adamson et al. London: Arden Shakespeare,
2001.
The Great Vowel
Shift
The
GVS was pretty well underway.
Lagging behind:
o
ME /a:/ and /ai/
(mate, day) maybe not yet up to /e/
o
say /sε:/
o
ME /ε:/ <ea> not yet
up to /i/
§
sea /sε:/ or more likely
/se/
§
dream /drε:m/ or more likely
/drem/
Advanced
§
ME mid and high vowels had
done their thing
o be /bi/, sleep /slip/,
we /wi/
o to /tu/,
o nobler
/nobl*r/
§
first element of diphthong a
bit higher than in PDE, likely ‘schwa’
o mind> /m*Ind/, die
/d*I/, by /b*I/, life /l*If/
o outrageous /*Ut-/, thousand
/θ*Uzn(d)/, devoutly /dIv*UtlI>
More
vowels
In
some dialects the (Fr>) diphthong spelled <oi> also /*I/ (so
bile and boil rhyme)
o
K. has coil /k*Il/
ME
/U/: has it centered and unrounded yet to /^/? or does cut still rhyme
with put?
o
Lass says no, “the first
solid evidence is from the 1640s”: so suffer is still
/sUf*r/
o
Kökeritz says yes (or at
least that Shakespeare would have substituted a trendy London /^/ for his
Warwickshire /U/): suffer is /s^f*r/
o lots of words affected by
this: suffer, troubles, rub, come, shuffled,
must, unworthy, grunt, under
...
Consonants
<wh-> still
/hw-/
§
whether
/hwεð*r/
when,
whips
Is
<gh> silent yet?
o
Lass says optionally,
Kökeritz says yes
o might /mIçt/ (or /mIht/); or
/m*It/
Assibilation/palatalization
(e.g. /sj/ -> /š/)
o
/s, z/
earlier
o variation in 16th
century, nearly complete by mid 17th century
§
evidence includes
<shon> spellings
o exceptions:
§
/ksj-/ in complexion,
connection
§
/sju:/ in consume,
assuredly
o
/t, d/
later
o variation in 16th
century
o but some C17th informants
still have /tj/ and /dj/ in words like
christian and fraudulent
That is the question:
/tj*n/ or /čņ/?
§
Lass: “old and new forms
coexisting in the same speech community”
§
Kökeritz goes for the
“new”
o consummation /..mę:šņ/, patient
/pęš*nt/
o question
/kwεstčņ/
But
the /-j-/ was an ‘intruder’ in words like fortune and natural (cf
critter from creature) (Millward 252)
§
So Kökeritz has
fortune as /-tIn/ and and natural as /-tr*l/
§
unstressed vowels: not
necessarily ‘schwa’