William Shakespeare Languages Early Modern English

You know Shakespeare. The guy with the ruff, the dramatic pauses, and the dead body count that rivals a season of Game of Thrones. But have you ever stopped to think about the actual language he used? It’s called Early Modern English, and it’s not quite the Old English of Beowulf (which is basically a foreign language), nor is it the smooth, standardized English you’re reading right now. Think of it as the quirky, brilliant teenager version of the language we speak today—full of energy, rules it made up on the fly, and a wardrobe of words it stole from other countries.

The Sound of the 1600s

Let’s bust a myth first. People in Shakespeare’s time didn’t talk like they talk in The Lord of the Rings. They actually sounded a bit like a pirate crossed with a modern Londoner. We call this the Original Pronunciation, and it makes the rhymes in his sonnets click into place like a lock.

For example, in Sonnet 116, “love” rhymed more like “loov,” and “prove” sounded like “proov.” Try saying the line “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments” with a slightly country accent, and you’re getting closer to the real vibe. It feels earthier, less posh, and way more rock and roll than how a Royal Shakespeare Company actor delivers it today.

Fun Fact: The Grammar Was a Free-for-All

Early Modern English had no official rulebook. No Amazon. No Oxford comma police. Shakespeare regularly invented words by messing with grammar. He turned nouns into verbs (“Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle”) and verbs into nouns (“Heavenly true-begotten”).

Practical tip for your daily life: If you’re writing a text or a post, feel free to play with word forms. Did someone “adult” too hard today? Did you “office” without a coffee? You’re channeling the Bard’s energy. He would approve. Just don’t try it in a formal email to your boss unless you’re feeling brave.

The iCloud of Words: Vocabulary Expansion

Shakespeare didn’t just write plays; he invented a massive chunk of the modern English lexicon. He added over 1,700 words to the language. That’s like one person creating the entire urban dictionary for a generation. Think of everyday words like “bedroom,” “bloodstained,” “cold-blooded,” “addiction,” and “fashionable.” All him.

Cultural reference check: Next time you say something is a “wild-goose chase,” is “vanish into thin air,” or that you “ate you out of house and home,” you’re quoting a 400-year-old playwright without knowing it. Your Uber Eats order just became a literary act.

He also loved double negatives, which today would make your English teacher cry, but back then, it just added emphasis. “I never had a thing, nor never will” was a perfectly acceptable way to say “I never had and never will.” It’s like using two exclamation points instead of one.

Figure 4 from THE INFLUENCE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE IN MODERN ENGLISH

The Global Borrowing Mix

Early Modern English was a language with a stuffed suitcase. England was trading with the world and conquering bits of it, so the language absorbed everything in sight. You’ll find French words like “fume,” Italian words like “gondola,” and even a bit of Arabic through the crusades. Shakespeare used all of it without apology.

This is the practical lesson for your own communication: don’t be afraid to mix vocabularies. A little Spanish, a little French, a little slang from TikTok. The goal isn’t purity—it’s expression. Shakespeare’s English was a melting pot, and that’s why it’s still so alive today.

Mistakes You’re Making (That Shakespeare Made First)

Think you’re a grammar snob? Shakespeare’s texts are littered with “errors” that we now accept. He used “you” and “thou” interchangeably to show intimacy or insult, not just formality. He ended sentences with prepositions (“The whate’er of time, the which are the most modern” is not direct, but you get the point). And he regularly used singular “they”—yes, you read that right.

In Hamlet, there’s a line where a character refers to a person with “they” when the gender is unknown. Next time someone tells you “they” is a newfangled invention, hit them with a little Early Modern English trivia. It’s been around longer than the United States.

How to Sound a Bit Like Shakespeare (Without Being Cringe)

You don’t need to walk around saying “prithee” and “hark.” That’s for Renaissance fairs and bad Halloween costumes. But you can borrow three specific tricks to make your own speech more fun. First, drop the “-eth” unless you’re being ironic. “She doth walk” is dead; “she walks” is alive.

PPT - Shakespeare’s Language PowerPoint Presentation, free download

Second, start using compound adjectives. Shakespeare loved words like “dog-weary,” “heaven-kissing,” and “sea-sorrow.” Try it: “That’s a cat-smelling idea” has way more flavor than “That idea smells like a cat.” Third, embrace the exclamation. The man used thirty “O!”s a page. Modern life needs more vocal punctuation. “O, I forgot my keys!” is more cathartic than a quiet sigh.

Fun Fact: The Original Pronunciation is Almost Lost

Here’s a mind-bender. We don’t actually know exactly how Shakespeare talked. Scholars reconstruct the sound using rhymes, puns, and old spelling. But they think it sounded a bit like the accent of the West Country in England or even a rural American twang. If a Shakespearean actor spoke “to be or not to be” in OP, it would sound like “To be or not to be… with a drawn-out, almost country vowel.” It’s more human, less choir boy.

This is a comforting thought: language is a living thing. It’s okay if you mispronounce “Lethe” or forget what “fardel” means (it’s a bundle, by the way). The spirit of the language is connection, not perfection.

A Quiet Reflection for Your Day

We often feel pressure to speak perfectly—to be grammatically flawless, to avoid “like” and “um.” But Shakespeare’s Early Modern English was chaotic, creative, and deeply imperfect. It was a language of experimentation, of trying things out in front of a rowdy audience. He didn’t wait for permission to coin a word; he just did it and let it stick.

So today, give yourself a break. Forget the Strunk and White for a moment. If you mess up a sentence, you’re not ruining the language. You’re just doing what the greatest writer in history did every day. Speak freely. Play with your words. And remember: even To be or not to be was just a guy figuring out how to get paid. You’re doing great.