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Shakespeare's Early Modern English was a time of great linguistic change for the English language. One change that was then taking place was the Great Vowel Shift, which changed the pronunciation of long vowels. Many words of Early Modern English were pronounced differently from today's standard pronunciation of Modern English.
The first phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English close-mid vowels /eː oː/, as in beet and boot, and the close vowels /iː uː/, as in bite and out. The close-mid vowels /eː oː/ became close /iː uː/, and the close vowels /iː uː/ became diphthongs. The first phase was completed in 1500, meaning that by that time, words ...
Some English words borrowed from French may begin with the letter h but not with the sound /h/. Examples include heir, and, in many regional pronunciations, hour, hono(u)r and honest. In some cases, spelling pronunciation has introduced the sound /h/ into such words, as in humble, human, hotel and (for most speakers) historic.
The longest English word typable using only the top row of letters has 11 letters: rupturewort. The word teetertotter (used in North American English) is longer at 12 letters, although it is usually spelled with a hyphen. The longest using only the middle row is shakalshas (10 letters).
William Shakespeare ( c. 23 [ a] April 1564 – 23 April 1616) [ b] was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. [ 4][ 5][ 6] He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon " (or simply "the Bard").
William Shakespeare's play Hamlet has contributed many phrases to common English, from the famous "To be, or not to be" to a few less known, but still in everyday English. Also, some occur elsewhere, such as the Bible, or are proverbial. A few, listed out ( Note: all are second quarto except as noted ): Act I, scene 1 : As the mote is to ...
His name is spelled "Shakspeare". Next to it, the inscription on the grave of his widow Anne Hathaway calls her the "wife of William Shakespeare". The writer David Kathman has tabulated the variations in the spelling of Shakespeare's name as reproduced in Samuel Schoenbaum 's William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life.
English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system.