Speed Course in Shakespearean English · 4:40am Mar 30th, 2013
Greetings and salutations to the fief, you gorgeous and noble patrons, you! I've been cloistered away for a while, arguably writing less than I ought.
But now I have something I feel worth posting about, and hopefully it'll be useful! At the least, it might tide you over for a few minutes.
Thus do I present, for your consideration, Baron Sunchaser's CliffsNotes on Early Modern English Grammar!
It is many a time I have read a ponyfic that introduced Her Serene Majesty Princess Luna, our lovely lunar lady, only to then want to claw my eyes out at her 'old Equestrian' being represented through a shock-and-ow carpet-bombing of thou, thou, thou.
One cannot simply drop 'thou' in and call it done. Now, I've written on EME before, three times now I think, and it seems that, as a writer and a linguist, it's become a matter of duty to bring my knowledge to the greater masses. A solemn obligation, truly, but for the betterment of awkward Luna fandom-wide.
Thou and Thee
These both stand in for the modern you; one uses thou for a subject (the nominative case), and thee for an object (the accusative case).
Thou dost speak truly.
I shall always unto thee.
We and Ye
We is first-person, in place of I, and ye is second-person, in place of thou and thee. The thing that governs their usage is that they're the plural forms of these. The 'Royal-We', such as it is, draws from old Divine Right of Kings, thus "We" meant "God and I", but can also be held as a ruler using "We" to represent the entire nation they rule.
We art pleased to make thine acquaintance.
We would grant a boon unto ye (addressing groups of two or more; sometimes expanded to 'ye all', particularly for larger gatherings).
Thy and Thine
These both stand in for your - that is to say, they denote possession/ownership (the genitive case). Their use varies based on what word follows them - thy before words beginning with consonants, thine before words beginning with vowels.
Thy case be well argued.
Thine ability thus evident.
A special case further exists for thine, where it expresses assent to ownership - similar to modern yours.
And so victory is thine.
My and Mine
These are similar to thy and thine above; those are used for second-person, while these are used for first person (and indeed haven't changed much in modern English). As above, my is used before consonants, mine before vowels, and again there's the special case for mine where it expresses acceptance of ownership.
My knowledge of archaic language is evident.
By mine own means was it attained.
And thus the place atop the soapbox is mine.
-Eth and -Est Suffixes
These are somewhat less directly plugged in than the pronouns, but still follow relatively clear rules...mostly. -Eth is used with third-person singular verbs that end in -s; goes, runs, walks, speaks, etc (the simple present tense). In some cases, the suffix is shortened to -th, as in hath and doth. Now, -est is basically the same idea, but for second-person singular, with basic verbs following thou (but never thee, as that would be the object of the verb in question). So far as I can tell, -est is only used in declarative and some imperative statements. Again it's shortened sometimes, as in hast, dost, and beest (two syllables, be-est). Shalt probably falls under this as well.
He runs - he runneth; she speaks - she speaketh; they go - they goeth.
You make - thou makest; you hear - thou hearest; you say - thou sayest.
This covers the grammar parts of it, which is arguably the easy part, but the thing that really sets early modern English is where words are placed, and the different cadence that it uses compared to current language; it has a lilting, metered sound to it, in no small part thanks to Shakespeare and other poets, but I can't really put down shortly how to get hands on that other than to recommend reading it until you get a sense.
So that's a thing. Feel free to link and reference as you wish, and by all means drop further queries on this you like.
Meanwhile, I'ma try to get back into this whole writing thing I'm apparently supposed to be good at. Meanwhile I blame winter, and I'm allowed because Canada.
For those awaiting the seems-so-long-ago teased 'Destiny' and Other Lies Told to Foals, it's hardly dead, currently standing at just under 3,500 words, but it's been fitful until just recently.
I've also been taken by more than one new idea recently; the general theme, however, can be roughly summed up as 'Sunchaser writes a blatant self-insert fic under the pretense solely for the challenge of making one good'. It's a dangerous place, there. I shouldn't go alone.
Cheers!
ugh mentioning of nominative cases, flashbacks...to....other language grammar
I wrote a self-insert, actually. Recently. The trick? No one knew it was me. Even though (to the observant) it was obvious.
You have an admirable command of English and grammar good sir. I'll link to this next time I see someone fail utterly at the Royal Canterlocks or other old English, which is unfortunately far more often than I see them succeed at it.
I guess I always kind of intuitively knew what does and does not sound right with this kind of stuff, but I didn't realize there were such clear rules regarding it.
957955 English barely even uses case anymore, so it's a massive headache explaining it sometimes. Now, Japanese on the other hand...
957960 Orly? And while it'd be easy enough to disguise myself in a story, half the challenge would be laying out in the very story description 'this is a self-insert story', and having people like it anyway. It's like Fanfic Hardcore Mode.
957961 The great irony about middle and early-modern English, and all these rules behind it? It's a superior language. It provides more clarity and specific information in the same number of words we use now; speakers just got lazy (but then, that's what happens to language).
Second Opinion! Get your Second Opinion here! Yes, this is totally my own blog covering the same topic, from about 6 months ago. I talk about the same stuff and different stuff. So if mine helps in a different way, I'm glad to be of service.
(I think I'm babbling...
957976 Rather ironically to this whole blog post, the language I take is German, which English is, (along with pretty much every language in existance, talk about a mutt) descended from.
957977 Oh, declension. As for the vocative, though, I would be tempted to present that as idiomatic style, given how it's basically just a theatrical means of calling for attention (not least because it tends to use in theatre?).
Had I written that line for Luna, I would have gone with "Thou didst even get the bells right." It's historically iffy though, since Shakespeare was hit-or-miss on his usage of 'do'.
And yes, English conjugation is lazy (though so are most languages, at least the vernaculars, in my experience).
957999 Historically, English is most clearly descended from Latin and Germanic, with further influences of some Celtic, I believe, and quite a bit from French courtesy of William the Conqueror. These days, though, yes, it sleeps with just about everyone.
As it turns out, a whole lot of "proper English" rules, things like saying "may I" instead of "could I", aren't grammatical at all, but just drawn from French being the more prestigious language of the royal court in medieval England.
Yes, I'm back. Of course I'm back.
This has always been a huge pet peeve of mine – misuse of archaic English pronouns. (I say this, mind you, while having a story posted on Fimfiction that's not necessarily consistent, but more on that later) In particular, what really gets my goat is when people screw up their cases. Thou, thee, thy, and thine aren't that hard to keep straight. Though... um, yes, I wasn't actually aware of the before-a-vowel rule, so shame on me. I also get twitchy about whom and whence.
There's a point past which I just put down my foot and say 'artistic license', though. When I write Luna, I tend to just give her the 'thou' set and associated verb conjugations, and leave it at that. There's a beauty to writing whole passages in beests and speakeths, but unless you're actively shooting for the poetry of it, I feel like it really weighs down prose, and that's why I tend to avoid pulling her too far in that direction.
Sweet, this was nice and informative. I'll probably use it someday, and hopefully sooner rather than later. Because seriously, the inner complexities of grammar are more confusing than Spherical Harmonics in Quantum Mechanics. Though this was nothing too intricate, thankfully.
Don't beat yourself over the head for not writing a whole bunch, though it doesn't sound like you are, which is good. You have a life after all, and that comes first. In any event you're a good writer Sunchaser, though don't be surprised if you can't see it; most don't when it comes to their own work.
And actually I've seen plenty of fics admit to being a self insert; might not be as hard as you think, getting people to notice. Grab a good picture, write an interesting description, and with popular story and character tags, you'll get people to click on that fic. Getting them to upvote it, however, well...you know what that depends on.
I say go for it.
958022 So, English as we know it today is simply a dirt poor peasant language that is completely primitive and inferior from the rest? Why not cleanse this filth from the Earth? I say we purge the weakness and impurity that plague this good language.
Most wonderful! ThineThy* blog post deservest† an "upthumb", yet alas, it cannot be done. 'Tis interesting, is it not, how much of this would be of scant interest but for a children's show.
I appreciate the note of the royal "we", there is much interest there. I had no idea from where it came. Am I correct in assuming Luna might drop such a thing when talking to her sister in private?
I grew up in a part of the world where some of the grammar of early modern English still remains in the dialect, especially the "thees" and the "thous" but no "ye", which feelest quite alien to me. We also have "thars", but 'tis neither here or there. As a consequence, some of the above 'tis instinctual yet much is not. Rhythm and word choice, in particular, are hard, as are the suffixes.
I have given this archaic dialect my best shot, though I fear I was scuppered by the necessity of the first person across much of my post. Curse my poor choice of subject matter to practice with. I will check thinethy* guide once again and look for my mistakes.
How many points do I receive?
*Should be "thy" as a consonant follows.
†Second person, so -est is correct?
958307
You aren't speaking to the blog post, so "it deserves" -> deserveth.
958314
I am speaking to to Sunchaser, at least nominally. "Thy blog post deservest" rather than "This blog post deserves." Am I still wrong?
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ~idea! If the royal "we" of Canterlot referred to the Sisters, as in "Celestia and I", mayhap that be why it fell into disuse. It would make perfect sense.
958315
Yes. Deservest is only used as in "Thou desevest". The blog post is still the subject of the sentence, and it is third person singular (he/she/it). Thou deservest credit for thy desire to learn; thy desire to learn deserveth to be fulfilled.
THANK YOU! I've always hated it when people misuse these terms, yet I've never been able to explain it to people grammatically. It's always been more of a knowledge gained by experience in seeing their proper uses, rather than one granted by someone teaching me. Also, quick fun fact: You think Shakespearean English is drastically different from today's? That's only a few centuries ago. A thousand years ago, "Do you have a horse for sale?" was "Dost thu havst a hors to sellene?". And that's just one of the simpler sentences. To us, longer sentences would be nigh on incomprehensible.
958344
So, using the colour coding subject, verb, object we have: "thy blog post deservest an upthumb" or "your blog post deserves an upthumb" in modern English. I'm talking to Sunchaser but about a thing that is neither of us (the blog post) so the clause is third person, not second person even though it starts "thy". I can tell this because I would shorten "thy blog post" to "it" not "you" or "me".
Getting warmer?
Incidentally, found this article on grammatical person a useful resource.
958381 Exactly, and that's why it would be 'deserveth'.
958116 Oh, don't worry, that was entirely false modesty. I'm a top-shelf author and I know it; just need to increase my output a little.
958307 It's possible that she would, but I would expect that when it comes to the Alicorn sisters, their Royal Plural would instead refer to "The Sun and I" / "The Moon and I", rather than more mundane implications. As for falling out of usage, as the majority of Equestria started dropping fancier forms and things like distinguishing plural in singular pronouns with it, Celestia would just adapt her own language to match (in particular Celestia, given how she's a mare of the ponies).
958344 958386
As they've noted, it would be 'deserveth', as the nominated subject is my blog post, rather than me directly (this is given away by thy). Since the '-est' suffix directly follows second person singular thou only, it necessarily can't be '-est'. You can also look at it like this: the '-eth' suffix being pronounced as clearly as it is only came about relatively recently. It was originally used similarly to 's' in some archaic dialects--kind of like the Spanish lisp, I'd say.
So yes. It deserves, it deserveth.
958371 Oh don't you make me go dig out my Chaucer.
958381
Exactly. I'm probably bad at expaining the grammar, because my native language (Finnish), and one of the foreign languages I speak (German) have it in full force, so I tend to take it for granted.
Incidentally, I only know one language where, if the subject is second person singular, the subject can be anything else than the word "you" or direct equivalent.
958452
Please don't! I'll be good!
This is why I made it a plot point Luna wasn't even really using the terms properly, and gave her speech therapy. So I never have to think about this sort of thing. It's still nice to see the right way of doing things though.
Umm, what about 'thou art'?
1067945 'are' is a copular verb, and thus subject to the -est suffix rule following second-person singular thou. Historically it wouldn't surprise me if it was arest, at one point, and shortened to art over use.
1068613 You mention 'beest' yourself...
1068613>>1068628
But 'Beest' is a horrible word!
Seriously, try using it in a sentence. There is no proper use of any conjugation of 'be' where 'beest' sounds good. It might be grammatically correct, but there are plenty of alternatives. Stick with any other option, always.
I honestly don't believe it's a word at all, but even if it is, it should never, ever be used.
I had been looking for a resource on this subject!
I wish I could favorite blog entries. : \