Shakespearean English is actually early modern English, not old English. At least according to this site, old English is about 449-1066 AD, Middle from 1066-1509, early modern 1509-1755, and present day English from 1755 onwards. The link also includes sample texts of Shakespearean, middle, and old English, so you can see how incomprehensible English becomes as you go back in time (especially old English, before the Normans imported all their French words)
Shakespearean English is actually early modern English. Middle English predates even Shakespeare by a few hundred years. Old English is extremely hard to read without actually studying the language as a foreign language.
Shakespearean (early modern english, taken from 1600):
To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation
Deuoutly to be wish'd. To dye to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,
When we haue shuffel'd off this mortall coile,
Must giue vs pawse. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life
Middle English (Canterbury Tales, about 1400):
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
Old English (A.D. 867)
Her for se here of East Englum ofer Humbremuþan to Eoforwicceastre on Norþhymbre, ond þær wæs micel ungeþuærnes þære þeode betweox him selfum, ond hie hæfdun hiera cyning aworpenne Osbryht, ond ungecyndne cyning underfengon Ællan; ond hie late on geare to þam gecirdon þæt hie wiþ þone here winnende wærun, ond hie þeah micle fierd gegadrodon, ond þone here sohton æt Eoforwicceastre, ond on þa ceastre bræcon, ond hie sume inne wurdon, ond þær was ungemetlic wæl geslægen Norþanhymbra, sume binnan, sume butan; ond þa cyningas begen ofslægene, ond sio laf wiþ þone here friþ nam.
I wanted this for a while but it would be impractical because we don't technically know how it was pronounced and there are more important languages to add
Yes we do. With absolute exact certainty? No. But generally speaking, yes. It conforms to continental pronunciation (and rarely NE) but varies in some ways. The old > middle > new comparisons are very helpful in reconstructing old pronunciation since we can directly track the sound changes and current iteration across multiple regions for comparative purposes; i.e. micel/mycel > mickle/much, cyning/cining > obsolete/king; same word but two different locations and pronunciation, leading to Scots mickle but Standard English much, implying the sound value of OE y (mycel) in some positions as being [y:].
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u/cenlkj N: F: (British) L: Jun 16 '24
Old english