The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-07-28

fA VNV theorists are the folk who in-
 w sist that Shakespeare's words should be pronounced as they were by his contemporaries. "The Tempest and Twelfth Night were recently presented at the Hogarth Fair in London. Here's the fashion in which Ariels song was given Ariel being pronounced Erril:
 Coon oontaw thez yelloo sands
 And then tack hands
 Coortsied hwen you have and kissed
 The waild waivs hwhist.
 Harrk, harrz the watch dogs bark
 Bowgh, wowgh,
 Harrk, harrk ay hair
 The stryne of strooting chanticlair
 Cray, "Cockadiddledoow!
 A learned professor says: There is no possible doubt that Shakespeare's verse was pronounced almost as differently from what we hear upon the modern stage as if it were another language. In many ways, much of the melody is lost by our modern pronunciation. Strange. for in- stance, as this immortal song may look in its phonetic spelling, it will be found far more sonorous and beautiful with the words spoken as Shakespeare intended" This professor says further: "As it hap pens, we have excellent authorities to re- fer to in regard to Elzabethan pronuncia- ton, not only in the old rhymes, but in actual grammars of the period In the matter of melody an even better example perhaps would be:
 Full faddom fayve they father lays Of his booans air coral mad,
 Thaws air pairls that were his ayse, Nothing of him that dooth fad
 Boot dooth sooffer & save change.
 We see or hear in this something fur ther in support of the theory that She speare was Irish We remember the line If reasons were as thick as blackber- ries," which is meaningless if ''reasons' was not pronounced "raisins." The strong "r-r'' is still worked overtime by Irish dialect writers. and the say for "sea" is an Hibernicism, beyond question, though that pronunciation prevailed down to the time of Alexander Pope. In 'stryne' for strain we hear the voice of the Cockney or the American gamin who says "poiper" for 'paper" and "dysy' for "daisy" To be sure there are some signs of Scotch in these specimens of Shakespeare as he was pronounced, as well as of Cornish and Yorkshire. It is probably true that the English country dialects and the Irish brogue arc survivals of the earlier English, before the language became fixed through the gradual uhifor- mization of spelling and the spread of education. We know from the way Chau- cer spelled that the pronunciation of English has nightly changed, while Hhakespeare's first edition reveals many spellings that are evidently phonetically correct for his time, though wrong for ours. It is legend that the best Eng fish spoken in the world Is the English spoken in Dublin, and this is ex- plained as due to the fact that 1t is purer, that 1t has not been corrupted by the changes that have come over here by the earliest emigrants and kept unchanged from those early times. Though they have disappeared from English speech, they are frequently dug up out of the older English writers. As Shakespeare pronounced his own words he would prob- ably be better understood in Dublin. York; shire. Cornwall or somersetshire than he is in London swelldom or cockneydom today. But though all this be true, few people will agree with the professor quoted that the language as he recon- structs 1t is "more sonorous and beauti- ful" than tho pronunciation of today. The fact Is interesting. but that's no excuse for treating the great plays as though clationists arc adding new tVrcrs to the shakespsarean sxegssis, They are . more xrievous burden than the Baconians. or