In this week's bonus, Colin Gorrie — linguist, Old English teacher, and author of the Dead Language Society newsletter — tackles the popular claim that Americans speak more like Shakespeare than the British do. We look at how features like rhotic Rs, the "broad A" in words like "path," and the Canadian "about" vowel each preserve different pieces of English's past. Then we look at why no single dialect can claim a monopoly on archaic features since every variety of English has both kept and lost different things since Shakespeare's day.
In this week's bonus, Colin Gorrie — linguist, Old English teacher, and author of the Dead Language Society newsletter — tackles the popular claim that Americans speak more like Shakespeare than the British do. We look at how features like rhotic Rs, the "broad A" in words like "path," and the Canadian "about" vowel each preserve different pieces of English's past. Then we look at why no single dialect can claim a monopoly on archaic features since every variety of English has both kept and lost different things since Shakespeare's day.
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[Computer-generated transcript]
Mignon Fogarty: This ad-free podcast is part of your Grammarpalooza subscription. Greetings, Grammarpaloozians. I am here with Colin Gorrie. He runs the popular "Dead Language Society" newsletter, teaches Old English, Latin, and Old Norse online at the Ancient Language Institute, and has a PhD in linguistics. In the main episode, we talked about English spelling and how it has changed over the years, and why English spelling maybe isn't as erratic as you might think it is. If you haven't heard that yet, go check it out. But now we're going to talk about which English is more archaic: British English or American English. Colin, thank you for being here for the Grammarpaloozian segment.
Colin Gorrie: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah. So there's this we talked about the sort of myth about “ghoti” spelling fish in the main segment. There’s another maybe myth—maybe true—that Americans speak more like Shakespeare than British people do today, that modern American English is more like Shakespearean English than modern British English. So what is the deal with that? Is that true or not?
Colin Gorrie: Well, let me first set the stage for you before I give you the answer.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, if you just say yes or no, it's gonna be a short podcast.
Colin Gorrie: Yeah, exactly. So this is something that if you are a fan of the news and you go all the way through the newspaper or you click through the website of a news outlet, you will very frequently see these kinds of stories pop up every so often, which is something like, "This one village in wherever speaks the English closest to Shakespeare." And this is a perennial thing that I guess is a little human interest story that comes up every so often. I've seen it over the years many times. It's often different places—often somewhere maybe in the southern U.S. or a small island in England or something like that. It tends to be places that are out of the way, not large cities or anything like that. And this is really interesting because everyone wants to claim this sort of—"We're closest to Shakespeare." The ancient Greeks did this too, by the way: every little island wanted to claim being the birthplace of Homer.
Mignon Fogarty: There’s status to it.
Colin Gorrie: Yeah, we're participating in a time-honored tradition here. But the fact is that no single dialect of modern English or accent really is like what Shakespeare would have used. There have been a lot of years that have passed since Shakespeare's time, and English has changed everywhere, but it's changed everywhere in different ways. And so there are cases where certain American accents or dialects, or in England or in Scotland or Wales or in Ireland, they have claims to more archaic features, things that are more like what, say, Shakespeare or someone else. You know, sometimes Chaucer, you can go back, right? But there have also been innovations in all of these areas. I'll give you an example. One of the big differences between most accents in North America and most accents in England is the treatment of R—the treatment especially at the end of a word or before a consonant. So this is the difference between rhotic (meaning having an R) and non-rhotic dialects of English. It's the "car" versus "cah" thing. Obviously, I have a rhotic accent; I pronounce the R in a word like "car," and so too would Shakespeare have. The Rs are written in these words for a reason. We talked in the main episode about how Spelling is a conservative force; it usually records older pronunciations, and it's no different here. The Rs in these words that most American dialects say but not all were original; they go back a very, very, very long time.
Mignon Fogarty: So Shakespeare would have said his Rs?
Colin Gorrie: Shakespeare would have said his Rs. He wouldn't have perhaps said them exactly like any given person today, but they would have been there; they would not have been silent.
Mignon Fogarty: So he would not talk about walking on a "poth" instead of a "path"? I know that’s not the Rs.
Colin Gorrie: Well, that's a separate one, and that's actually another interesting one where most American dialects do have the older form, which would be "path," rather than that they call the "broad A"—the "pahth.” That is an innovation that occurred in England. It also occurred in the United States too.
Mignon Fogarty: Where?
Colin Gorrie: In the early days. In early American accents, there were some that had this ah. Remember that there was still a lot of contact, transatlantic contact, especially in New England, where the economies were much more oriented towards Britain in the very early days of the United States as a separate country. And so you get innovations that originated in Britain showing up in American dialects, like non-rhotic accents. So there are American accents that are non-rhotic, that don't have that R—people talk about the Boston. Boston has accents like this, so "pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd" thing. That non-rhotic dialect is likely due to transatlantic influence from England because you have port cities and you have commerce and interchange of people and of accents as well. The "broad A" seems to have existed in the early days of American accents as being separate from English accents. I believe Noah Webster actually preferred the "pahth" pronunciation and talked about it. And Noah Webster is often thought of as this person who wanted to sever American English from British English and establish a new standard that was uniquely American. It's ironic that in this one matter, he ended up choosing the thing that was not adopted by Americans, but the one that was adopted by the English.
Mignon Fogarty: That is surprising. And if I remember correctly, you are Canadian; is that right?
Colin Gorrie: Yes, yes, that's right. I don't know if that's immediately obvious; it is to some, and it isn't to others.
Mignon Fogarty: It's not to me, although I can hear it maybe a little bit in your "o"s or your "a"s, and it was talking about "path" that made me think of it because I believe in Canada, you also talk about your "aunt" instead of your "ant." Is that right?
Colin Gorrie: For myself, I've always said "an." And I actually had thought that "ahnt" was an American thing, so I think it may be regional. Growing up with the Spider-Man cartoon, he always talked about his Aunt May, and I said, "What's that? What's an “ahnt?” What’s an “ahnt” May?" 'cause I didn't know it was two separate words; I just heard it. So I said “mom, what’s an “ahnt” May?” She said “he’s talking to his “ant” May. “Oh okay, alright.” So, yeah, but I am Canadian. There are some features of Canadian English that are really interesting from this perspective too, because it's another witness almost to history. And the one that is most made fun of but also most proudly adopted by Canadians is the "about" pronunciation. So this vowel, this diphthong ou in "about". Different Canadians will say it in different ways, but very consistently different from how Americans say it. So to give a sort of example, if I say "about," how would you say it?
Mignon Fogarty: About.
Colin Gorrie: Right. So there's a different vowel there; it's an oh versus an ow.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah
Colin Gorrie: To some people, this seems like extreme hairsplitting; it is noticeable for Canadians and I think for a lot of Americans. Canadians get stereotyped as saying "aboot"—South Park and The Simpsons will do things like that. But this actually may also be a very archaic feature. The oh vowel is indeed what that ow sound that we have in "loud.” It was likely originally—an oh sound. So there would have been you know the exact timing is very difficult to get for this, but in the early modern period, you would've had something like out and loud. And is this exactly Shakespeare? It's closer to Shakespeare than it is to us, so we’ll say that. And so this oh sound that we have in Canada in "about" may indeed be a survival of this archaism. So this is Canadians' chance to say, "Yeah, yeah, we sound more like Shakespeare". But of course, there are also innovations in North America. One really, really obvious one to anyone who is not from this continent is the way that we turn the "t"s in some words into a kind of something like a "d" sound, like in "better" and "metal". We don't say a "t" often; it's not "better" and "metal.” It can be, but it’s not usually. And this is a 100% innovation; Shakespeare would not likely have recognized it. And so this is why we can't cleanly say that one dialect has a monopoly on the archaic features.
Mignon Fogarty: Right. There’s a dialect I think it’s called “T-glottalization,” if I’m remembering it right where instead of saying like “kitten,” like “kitten” where the "t"s aren't pronounced so strongly that it's almost swallowed like "kit'n" “kit’n?” Is that in the Midwest? Where does that happen? I know people ask me about that.
Colin Gorrie: “Kit’n.” Well, I think I say that: "kit'n,” rather than “kitten,” yeah. Glottalization is very common in England, actually. In all the contexts where in North America you would hear that "metal," "better," you might hear "bo'le,” right. This is the thing that if your first friend from England—you say, "Say 'bottle', say 'bottle'"—you just get that "bo'le" pronunciation. But before "n" and "m," there's this bit of a separate thing going on in North America, and I'm not sure what the regional breakdown of it is though. Those things like "kitten" and "mitten"—that is somewhat separate from the general treatment of "t"s.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, I’m actually looking it up here to make sure I’m right. It is "T-glottalization," and yeah, we do it in words like "kitten" and "water". People say it sometimes without the "t" at all, like "wa'er". To me, it seems like maybe in Britain they would say "wa-ter" and pronounce the "t" more, we say "wa-der" with like a "d" sound, and then there's this thing called T-glottalization where you lose the "t"s even more. And that is a regional thing.
Colin Gorrie: Yeah, and you'll find T-glottalization in England as well. The term glottalization refers to the use of the glottis very far back down in the throat. I don't know how far this will come through on audio, but “uh, uh, uh.” That, it's something that you might use in beatboxing. I don't know how far this will come through in audio, but “uh, uh, uh.” It’s something that you might use in beatboxing. This “uh” sound, this hard attack where you say "everyone" rather than "everyone." Again, I don’t know how far this will come through on audio. So cut it out if it doesn’t. It's perhaps more audible when you hear it in the stream of a vowel. So if I say "ah ah," there's a cut in the middle of that vowel, and that's because I've closed very far back in the glottal place of articulation. So very, very far back.
Mignon Fogarty: Another thing that jumped out at me is there are differences from Shakespeare's time both in pronunciation and in word choice. I was surprised to realize that Americans will drop prepositions from sayings that people in Britain don't. So, I would say, "I wonder the same thing," and apparently that's only an American thing, where people in Britain would say, "I wonder about the same thing"?
Colin Gorrie: Or at least originally. I think today, due to globalization and mass media, I think many people in Britain would probably raise their eyebrows and say, "What? Of course I would say 'wonder the same thing.'" We’d have to ask them. But in origin, those phrases are American-born.
Mignon Fogarty: Interesting. So the answer is nobody really speaks more like Shakespeare; we all just speak differently differently from Shakespeare.
Colin Gorrie: Exactly. We've all kept some things that he had, and we've all lost some things, but we've kept and lost different things. And that's actually a really interesting situation to be in because you can then piece together from all these different dialects that are the descendants of the English of Shakespeare's day—you can piece things together and learn from many different perspectives something about the past.
Mignon Fogarty: Fascinating. And speaking of the past, you do a book club that sounds quite interesting for your paid subscribers. You're doing a book club about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight right now.
Colin Gorrie: Yes, it's so much fun. Last year we did Beowulf, and this year we're doing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I love to read these historical works of literature from the great sweep of the history of the English language. Not only as a linguist. So there's a lot of fun stuff to do linguistically when you're reading Beowulf. It's Old English, right? You need a translator, you need to go learn Old English, which is, you know, not a super short process. I can speak from experience there. Yeah. But what you can do with a little bit of knowledge of the history of the English language is you can get a lot closer into using a translation effectively. And so that's what we do in these book clubs. We read one of these poems, and I like to read some of it for people in the original, in a reconstructed pronunciation. So for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it's 14th century English. Not immediately understandable for the most part, but then you start to acclimatize yourself to it. You start to-- Okay, when he says an "oo," that's usually, that's usually where I would say an "ow." So then if you hear "new," you think "now." Okay, that's not so bad. And it's, it's somewhere in between hearing a foreign language and hearing a really weird dialect of English. Yeah. But we also take a look at it from the sort of historical context perspective and from a literary perspective as well. So we get to have a lot of fun. Part of being a linguist that I love is you get to play in everyone else's backyard. If you're someone who has studied the history of the English language, wow, a 15th century text, a 12th century text, a 9th century text, why not? Let's—the more the merrier. So that's what we do in the book club.
Mignon Fogarty: That sounds really fun. And so we'll finish up by getting your three book recommendations. Probably not Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, since we're looking at books that would make good gifts or, you know, I mean, or maybe, you know, I'm always looking for, you know, novels or narrative nonfiction, something that you've read that was maybe your favorite book of all time or something that you often give as a gift. Really, we’re looking for the best of the best books from your perspective.
Colin Gorrie: Okay. The first one is a book that came out last year and ended up being very, very, very important in my life:. The book is “Proto” by Laura Spinney. It's about the very deep past of the Indo-European languages. This is the family that ultimately includes English, French, Russian, Greek, Hindi—all of these languages—and where they all came from. It does a fantastic job of integrating the linguistics with the archaeology and with the ancient DNA, which is a new thing. All the latest research comes together and is told really wonderfully; it opened my eyes to just how you can explain this sort of thing by tying together all these different sources of evidence. So it's a big recommendation of mine. Proto by Laura Spinney.
Mignon Fogarty: You know, I'm listening to the audiobook of that right now because I'm thinking, I was thinking I'd probably wanna have her on next season as a guest. I'm enjoying it so far, but I'm not very far along because the narrator has this very soothing voice, and I listen to audiobooks as I'm going to sleep at night and I keep falling asleep really fast as I'm listening to it, so I think I need to get the print version if I'm ever gonna make it through this book. But it seems really wonderful.
Colin Gorrie: Yeah, that's an occupational hazard with good audiobook narrators. Might just lull you off.
Mignon Fogarty: They do. So yeah, so Proto. What's next?
Colin Gorrie: Next is a book that's actually very related to our first topic, and I believe you know the author: “Why Q Needs U” by Danny Bate. Another recent book that's come out, it's a masterful explanation of not only the source of the alphabet but also about the hidden logic of English spelling. So Danny and I, we, you know, sometimes I look over, we're mining some of the same veins, and it's like, "How are you doing over there?" We're circling around some of these same topics, but Danny has a really wonderful prose style and an ability to explain things in a way that I really admire. So definitely pick that up another recent book. And then for the third one, I'm going to go completely the other way. It's gonna be perhaps a strange book, but I think some of your, uh, audience will really like it, which is “The Worm Ouroboros.” This is a fantasy novel from the early 20th century. The reason I recommend it is because it is written... This is fantasy before Tolkien. This is before the sort of conventions of the genre established, and you get this really weird book written by a British civil servant in his spare time, presumably, which is It's written in 17th-century English. Now, it's published in the 20th century, but it's written in extremely faithful 17th-century English—the narration—and the characters speak in even earlier English. But he's aware that the m- reader is a modern person and makes some, makes some concessions. Nevertheless, it's like a guided tour through a really interesting period of the history of the English language that I think is under-recognized and underappreciated, which is the period between Chaucer and Shakespeare. So the transition out of the Middle Ages into the modern period. And this book is, yeah, it's very strange. It's about all these crazy people doing crazy things on a different planet. But you're simultaneously reading the story of these heroes and wars and their trials, and you're also immersed in the poetry and prose of that neglected period of the history of the English language. So I love this book. If from that description it sounds at all interesting, you will love this book too. I recognize that 17th century prose isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I really do recommend it if it sounds even a little bit interesting.
Mignon Fogarty: No, I'm absolutely fascinated. I love fantasy and I love language. Is it comprehensible to a modern reader, or would it be kinda tough?
Colin Gorrie: It is comprehensible. There are portions where he dips into more like 15th century. He dips into Middle Scots, which is just absolutely wild. And at times like those, you just sort of, you let it wash over you, because it's nothing important for the plot. It's just sort of him showing off a little bit, frankly. And it's a wonderful story. It's very strange. Tolkien himself really liked it. C.S. Lewis, it was one of the books that he said if you were... I forget exactly the circumstance, but it was one of the f- if you only had, like, kind of, like, a desert islands books thing, C.S. Lewis said that he would take The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison.
Mignon Fogarty: Amazing. I love that recommendation. Thank you so much, Colin. Colin Gorrie from the Dead Language Society newsletter. Colin, where is the best place for people to find you? Is it that Dead Language, um, Society newsletter, or do you have a specific website? Where should people go?
Colin Gorrie: I would send people to the Dead Language Society. Come, pull up to the table. There's a skull on the table, but don't let that alarm you. Other than that, I'm on all the different platforms at my name, Colin Gorrie. But yeah, I think Substack is my home base at the moment. .
Mignon Fogarty: Okay. Well, thank you so much for being here. And to the Grammarpaloozians, thank you so much for supporting this show. It's because of you that we can do these bonus interviews, these wonderful extra interviews, and get the book recommendations, and just have great guests in general. So thank you, too, for supporting the show. Colin, again, thank you so much for being here. A true pleasure.
Colin Gorrie: A true pleasure. Thank you for having me.