Comparison of 1600 Language

Extract from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – William Shakespeare 1597

“I take thee at thy word

Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized

Henceforth I never will be Romeo”.

Of course there are multiple interpretations for any text given, however the most plausible translation into modern English could be this; ‘I trust your word. Just call me your love, and I will take a new name. So that I will never be Romeo’. It is also important to consider that this specific story is a tragedy, thereby meaning that Shakespeare may have used certain language features to heighten the emotion. Still, an interesting aspect of the text is the inclusion of ‘thee’ and ‘thy’, which contextually is an informal usage, however if it were to be used in modern English it may be used by a upper class individual in a sophisticated manner. Although the phrase could perhaps be considered obsolete by most regional dialects, it is interesting how the usage of ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ has taken such a significant semantic shift. From being used as a feature of informal language to now formal, the phrases now may be employed mostly by those who take a prescriptive viewpoint on language. Also, the implementation of the adverb ‘henceforth’ is also interesting towards the text, as in modern English this would be considered received sophisticated and formal, however in the 15^th century it may be an informal usage. In modern English, the use of the adverb ‘henceforth’ could be considered uncommon, with coordinating conjunctions such as ‘so’ or ‘but’ a frequent part of our language when connecting two clauses. As well as this, the adverbial phrase ‘from now on’ may be the most common substitution.

Looking specifically at the syntax of the text, it is clear that we have three main clauses within the text, which could be considered quite disjointed, just like real speech. This is quite similar to modern English, in the fact that we communicate with utterances, and how when we speak it is almost that we are thinking out loud and not processing the utterance with cohesive devices. Although the usage of ‘henceforth’ could be considered a cohesive device by connecting the clauses, modern English also consists of phrases such as ‘from now on’ to also act as the cohesive device. Despite the majority of the words in the text being used in modern English, it can be considered that the actual ordering of the clauses is what is most different from modern English. For example, within the compound clause ‘Call me but love and I’ll be new baptized’, if used in the present day, it may become a confusing phrase. Specifically, the usage of the word ‘but’ is usually a coordinating conjunction, however in this case it is being used to substitute the pronoun ‘you’, which would produce the clause ‘Call me your love’. This shows how over time, although we still use the same range of vocabulary, the word order can change significantly.