original pronunciation

This clip made me so happy--
although American English sounds so lazy sometimes,
I am still happy that I can begin to understand Shakespeare in the language of my mother tongue.

It is like listening to Bach Sonatas played well
by a Baroque violinist,
or Haydn string quartets on period instruments.
There is no replacement.

In this short documentary, linguist David Crystal and his son, actor Ben Crystal, look at the differences between English pronunciation now and how it was spoken 400 years ago. They answer the most basic question you probably have right now — How do you know what it sounded like back then? — and they discuss the value of performing Shakespeare’s plays in the original accent…


via {22 words}