Shakespearean English

[Draklar]

Well since it seems that there are people in this community who would like to learn the \"Shakespearean English\", I\'ll try to make it a bit easier by creating this thread. I know there are people who are against such form of english, but this isn\'t place for talking whether it should be used or not. It is only for people who want to learn it. I\'ll try to bring up anything I know about this form. If you know other words/phrases/grammar rules, feel free to post them.

Let me start with the almost infamous \"you\" forms.
Well the basics would be:

As many know, Thou and Thee both mean You. However they aren\'t same and can\'t be used on each other\'s place.
In sentence Thou is used as a subject, for example: \"Thou be\'st verily beauteous.\"
Thee is used as a object, for example: \"I envy thee\"
Together in one sentence it would be something like:
\"I envy thee, as thou art praised by thy people\"

Another forms are Thy and Thine. They both mean Your, but they work same as a/an in modern english.
Simply Thy is used when it is proceeding a consonant. Example: \"Thy smile is a blessing.\"
Thine is used when it is proceeding a vowel (or H). Example: \"Thine eyes are as jewels.\"
Sometimes you have to decide whether thy or thine is the right form when used before H. Good idea would be to look at how you use a/an before words starting with H. It works same way.
(Mine and My work as Thine and Thy)
Thine is also used as Yours, for example \"Be these friends of thine?\"

There are two forms of Yourself known to me: Thyself and Thee. The second one is used rather as poetical form.

Plurals of those words take different forms:
Singular -- Plural
Thou -- You
Thee -- Ye
Thy/Thine -- Your
Thine -- Yours
Thyself -- Yourself

Now to the second person forms:
Verbs connected with Thou are going through a transformation. Usually by adding -st, -est to its end (Exceptions are \'are\', which transforms to art/be\'st or \'were\' which transforms to wert).  Same goes for third person, although there it is -th, -eth. For third person it isn\'t a must though. Some examples:

You -- Thou -- He/She/It
have -- hast -- hath/has
love -- lovest -- loveth/loves
do -- dost -- doth/does
see -- seest -- seeth/sees

However adding \'st instead of st/est seems to occur more often, for example,
grow --> grow\'st
like --> lik\'st

Shall can be used instead of Will, where Shalt is used when connected with second person, for example: \"Thou shalt list to me\". And Shan\'t being a contradiction.

Another thing is that \'its\' can be changed to \'his\' if one wishes to do so.

And quite common - \"be\" used in place of \"are\".

-ed forms are created by adding \'d on the end of a verb, for example:
remembered --> remember\'d
killed --> kill\'d

Modern contractions such as isn\'t, I\'m, don\'t weren\'t in use. There were however other contradictions, such as
\'tis (it is)
\'twould (it would)
\'twas (it was)
\'twill (it will)

Another noteworthy thing is placing of \'not\' in sentences. Best to show on examples:
\"I dare not\"
\"I love her not\"

There are many words which changed with time, some useful examples:

aye (yes)
nay (no)                                                          
beauteous (beautiful)
belike, mayhap, perchance (maybe)
comely (attractive)
enow (enough)
wherefore (why)        
e\'en (even or evening)
faith (truth)  
list (listen)
morrow (day)
ne\'er (never)
oft (often)
o\' (of)
o\'er (over)
anon (later)
fie (a curse)
pox (disease/curse)
Prating (babbling)
pray, prithee (please)
privy (bathroom)
quoth (quote)
verily (truly)

If someone really wants to get some interesting words, here is the place to look for them.                                        

I might be wrong on some things as I haven\'t go through some college study or anything. Only used what I found on the internet.

[Flare]

Wouldst thou foster upon thy patrons the mercurial tongue of wit and whim, to make merry o\' thine own mettle and a baser errant not abide? -  for sure not fool nor folly nor lowt, unto that should harken to thee!

i.e do you plan to use this old tongue to drive away from the tavern those whose language includes words like \"lol\" and \"wut\"  etcetera?

Remembering of course that it can be quite confusing to even the roleplayer


Either that, or this thread is to educate, in which case I am impressed.

[Kiern]

Congratulations Draklar, you\'ve now beaten Kuiper.  This doesn\'t belong in General Discussion...

[Kiva]

Honestly, what makes you think those types come here and read these kind of posts?... Just asking curiously.

[AendarCallenlasse]

Better yet, what the hell does Shakespearean English have to do with fantasy roleplay?

[Kwip]

Opps, well I am the person who suggested it to him, as I thought it might help the rp experience as the use of old english would be impractical...

And to Draklar, wow, this is very impressive piece of work, thank you for doing it, as I shall definately use it

[Draklar]

Kiern: [hint]Discussions about roleplaying[/hint] -_-

Originally posted by AendarCallenlasse
Better yet, what the hell does Shakespearean English have to do with fantasy roleplay?

It is commonly used by people roleplaying nobles (although not only) the same way as some use \"trollspeak\" for dumb races (like krans).
Better ask yourself: What does english have to do with fantasy?

[AendarCallenlasse]

Shakespearean English is a cliche attached to roleplaying.  It\'s not roleplaying.

I think I will use my much overused excuse for not using it:  This is Planeshift.

Using English has nothing to do with this, it\'s used because otherwise you wouldn\'t understand the game.

[Draklar]

Well Aendar, only one thing can be said: It is good that you don\'t set rules about roleplaying in Planeshift

Edit: And for other people who think it isn\'t right for Planeshift: \"sup\" is censured to \"how farest thou?\" ingame. That should say enough.

[Incenjucar]

Why anyone expects a miner to speak in Poet-ese... eh

The main thing is to avoid blatantly modern speech patterns.  Going in to a fictional speech pattern (If Billy actually spoke like that while purchasing fruit or talking about shoes, he would likely have been locked up...) is fine and dandy, but going in to a simple non-modern English way of speaking is just as fine (And easier to understand for most).

Most college graduates couldn\'t toss out a good metaphor to save their life, much less high school students trying to do it -constantly-.

\"Oh light, that shines through yonder tavern\'s bottle of vineyard ambrosia, it does make the dove\'s wings above your jade orbs take on such a sheen, as could blind the dweller of the filthy depths...\"

Or you could just say

\"The light shining through that bottle of wine that\'s reflecting off of that greasy brow of yours could blind a mole.\"

So long as its not

\"Word, senior-san, yo brow, she is shining so bright through that there wine bottle yonder, I reckon, what could blind a dirt-rat, dude-meister!?!111?\"

[Kiern]

Originally posted by Draklar
Kiern: [hint]Discussions about roleplaying[/hint] -_-

Yeah...I was giving you the chance to realize it yourself instead of directly saying what Aendar did.

There are a lot of bugs in the game.... *coughs*

[Efflixi Aduro]

I think this should be stickied in the plaza. It\'s very useful to people like me who rp but dont know all the lingo.

[Caym]

Wow, great course. I wish you\'d have written this post when I was studying Shakespeare, and not understanding a single word of it...
English not being my native tongue, I can\'t really say if this kind of language is suitable for RP situations. However, on a more \"external\" point of view, I think this type of language is really beautiful and poetic, and I wouldn\'t mind seing it used on PS at all, moreover because this kind of language is unconsciously associated (at least for me) to works of fiction dealing with the fantastic (not only Shakespeare but also Tolkien for example). But as far as RP goes, it should be restricted to scholars anyway. Strangely enough I can\'t picture my dwarf character speaking like that...

[Efflixi Aduro]

Maybe each race could have their own kinda accent to english? That would be cool...

[Draklar]

Well there are three general dialects in common roleplaying:

Trollspeak for characters with less intelligence
Normal speak for commoners
Old Speak (yes, I know it\'s more of modern english) for nobles, intelligent and wit.

However there are also other dialects.
You might encounter dwarves talking in their own, similar to Shakespearean.
In Planeshift I also had a pleasure of talking with a country \"gal\".

Here it is described very well:

Taken from here.
Most longtime roleplayers in the online medium know that what you type translates into how others perceive your character. Adding an apostrophe here, a quirky misuse of verb there, can create the illusion of an accent or provincial way of thinking. After all, look at the way many trolls choose to play. \"Da house iz too teeny for Grunk!\" By seeing that, we realize we\'re dealing with a dimwitted pile of axe-toting stones who is about to widen the door jam manually.

Many roleplayers choose to use their language to convey their character\'s personality. Perhaps the second most popular theme after \"trollspeak\" comes in the form of Shakespearean English. This beautiful language has charmed people for centuries with its lyrical sound and complex structure, so it should not surprise us that people frequently turn to it to spice up their in character interactions.