Squares and Strips

If you were to step into a time machine and travel to the year 1600 you might catch an premier performance of Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Twelfth Night or Hamlet. The thing that might surprise you most is no one on stage (or in the audience) would sound anything like you expect. We’re used to hearing, “To be or not to be” in a very aloof, posh accent, the way Sir Lawrence Olivier would deliver it. But 400 years ago absolutely no one spoke like that. The British Library has compiled recordings of some of Shakespeare’s most famous works in O.P. – Original Pronunciation. It’s amazing how familiar it sounds. "Rather than it being more difficult for people to understand,” says Ben Crystal, director of the recordings, “It has flecks of nearly every regional U.K. English accent, and indeed American and Australian, too. It's a sound that reminds people of the accent of their home.”