Canterlot voice · 1:56am Mar 30th, 2013
Okay, so I was studying up on old Shakespearean English to find out how to make luna's old royal canterlot voice sound right. I found something that should help you people a little.
“Thou” for “you”
“Thee” for “you”
“Thy” for “your”
“Thine” for “yours”
And a few of my own, which I am pretty certain, but not entirely certain about.
"Ye" for "you" is a short, more formal way of saying "thee".
"Art" for "are"
"We" as in the way royalty address themselves, but that's an obvious one.
"Mine" probably best refers to "mine". I've seen that mistake a couple times.
I think that covers most of them. There's more information here about the subject, I think. It gives you old english words and definitions to those words within the article. Who knows? We might end up making Luna's language so old english, that every user will have to look up half the words she says!! XD
I believe "Mine" can also refer to "my". Is this correct?
957553 That is the mistake I'm talking about.
Hey there! I noticed your story being featured (and grats!) - header images of Celestia will do that for me - and then saw talk of Shakespearean English, and so I'm going to invite myself to natter on about the subject. Feel free to take or dismiss what you like, of course. I'll just dive right into it:
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.
Of course, all of this is just random crap I'm dropping in a blog comment uninvited, so take what you will.
Cheers!
957572
Lol sorry.
957931 Thou art wise in thy teachings, fair commenter!
I... might have gotten the above statement wrong...
958453 Nope, you're perfectly fine there. Appending 'fair (descriptive noun)' lends it a good poetic tone, too, though 'commenter' is understandably a little modern in that context.