Rough+Draft+of+Shakespeare's+Language

Kyu Park Block E 8/ 27/ 2009 What are you reading right now? Yes, you are reading my awesome essay, but in a much simplistic way, you are reading English. Most of us in this school has learned English fairly easily and generally accepts that English has always been this way. This is a wrong concept. “Time changes everything”, it also changed English. However, time itself can’t change things, normally it needs help. So there was when Shakespeare came out to help out English. To understand the process of English’s development, you should understand the history of it, how it changed, and also why Shakespeare is so important in English. When we think of English, we think of America, which has a relatively short history, so many would think that English too, has a short history. However English has a very long history over 1500 years. English was used by three germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century. One of the tribes were called anglican and they used Englisc, which is the root of English. There were 4 stages of development of English. The Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. The old stage lasted for 550 years from 450AD to 1100 AD. The middle stage lasted for 400 years, from 1100 AD to 1500 AD. Early and modern stage, has been started at 1500, and is still being constantly changed. Why did English have so many stages despite the fact that it was surrounded by water? Only the start of English was caused by invasion, after that things changed for different reasons. Later at the industrial revolution, the printing skills had greatly improved, so the English changed more modern, and as the world developed the demand of new words changed the range of vocabulary. It is amazing that a stereotypical language, often thought as developed quickly, also had so many stages for its perfection of today. The changes of English were highly conspicuous. The grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation have changed much. As for grammar, grammar was set to one particular standard unlike before many people’s grammar was different due to the printing press. In playwrights of those days grammar didn’t matter, whereas grammar will matter a lot in current plays. However it is not so different from our current grammar. The vocabulary were so different that, if we were to take a SAT test based on their vocabulary, most would have failed. Different vocabulary was used, some so old that we don’t even use anymore. Also, because of the different era, the use of the words were also various. The pronunciation, in our perspectives, sounded very outlandish and funny. It didn’t sound as elegant as these days’ English accents, and many of the pronunciation very different that these day’s half rhymes would have perfect rhyme using the old accent. Wouldn’t it be more intriguing if we were to watch Shakespeare’s plays in the Elizabethan accent? The most important thing though, is how Shakespeare contributed to English. He contributed to English with his creativity, as a role model of fellow writers, and with various techniques. It is amazing how one individual can be such a prominent factor in history. He was such an important individual that Queen Elizabeth said “We would not trade Shakespeare even for India,”, when India was the promised land that would bring a lot of money. With Shakespeare’s creativity, he created tons of new words and phrases. Shakespeare played as a role model to many people, actually to almost everyone who uses English. That is why we still study him too! Shakespeare was renown for his marvelous pieces. For him to create such marvelous pieces, he enabled various techniques that really caught the mind of the readers and listeners. He used constant alliteration, repetition, and puns in his stories and plays. Isn’t it so cool that one person did so much things? English is much more sophisticated than how we stereotypically think, because it has a really long history, and many amendments were made, and there were key figures who developed them. The most interesting thing I’ve learned is how one person can be of such high value. I hope to become the 21st century’s key figure too!