Exploring English:

Shakespeare

WEEK 1:

SHAKESPEARE AND HIS WORLD

STEP 1.18: REVIEW OF WEEK 1

TRANSCRIPT
ANTHONY COSGROVE
Hello, and welcome to the end of Week 1 of this course in Exploring English:
Shakespeare.
My name is Anthony Cosgrove, and Im the Lead Educator on the course.
Its been a fantastic week, and weve been really pleased by the level of interest in the
course over 70,000 people have joined the course so far, and that number is growing
every day. If you look at the map in step 1.2, youll see that we have people from well
over 100 countries, in every continent in the world.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of you are saying that youre already big Shakespeare fans. Several
of you have explained why you feel so strongly about this great writer from Stratfordupon-Avon: LINDA DAYWALT in the USA for example made this comment:
Every time I read anything by Shakespeare, I feel hes writing for me.
Its clear that many of you feel that your lives have been touched by Shakespeare, and
that his fame and relevance cross national boundaries. ELENA RYABOVA, an English
teacher from Moscow in Russia, says
I do agree that Shakespeare belongs to everyone.
Many of you have talked about the popularity of Shakespeare in your own countries.
Another course participant, SANIKA JOSHI, describes how in India back in the 1800s,
Shakespeares plays were being translated into several Indian languages, including
Gujarati and Marathi, so that they could be performed, widely understood and enjoyed
throughout India.
ANDREAS WERLE talked about how in the 1600s travelling troupes of actors crossed
Europe, putting on Shakespeare plays in Germany, France, Holland and other places.
On this course, we have a team of educators in several countries including the UK,
Spain, Romania, Italy and Malaysia, who are reading and responding to your comments
seven days a week. Weve been very encouraged to see so many of you taking part in
the discussions, posting comments and responding so positively to what other learners
have said.
For me, one of the highlights has been the live broadcast, or blab, which we held on
Tuesday January the 12th. In fact, we had so many people signing up for this event that I
know not everybody was able to view it live. For those of you who couldnt, we now have
a recording available in step 1.3, so you can still watch it if you like.

Exploring English: Shakespeare

British Council 2016

Exploring English:
Shakespeare

In the broadcast, we had lots of very interesting questions, and there wasnt time to
answer all of them. So here are a couple that Id like to answer now.
FATMA AL SAIDI was asking if there is any of Shakespeares original writing left, apart
from the six signatures from his will and other documents. Well, yes Fatma, we think
there probably is. There is a play by two playwrights, called Munday and Chettle, called
Sir Thomas More1. It seems that some of the actors lines in the play had to be changed,
and that Shakespeare was one of the writers who made these changes by hand. The
manuscript with these changes still exists, and its in the British Library2.
Another great question came from BESSAN MOHAMMED, who asked
How many words did Shakespeare create?
Thats a really fascinating question. The difficulty is that we cant really be sure when a
word was used for the first time. With some words, it looks as though Shakespeare was
the first person to write it. But even then, we cant really know if he made it up himself, or
if he heard someone else use it.
There are about 2,200 words for which the Oxford English Dictionary has said that the
first recorded use of the word is in Shakespeare. But now that old texts can be scanned
and analysed more quickly and easily, that estimate has come down. Linguist David
Crystal says there are about 1,700 plausible Shakespearean inventions. But, not all of
these words are still in use today. For example, Shakespeare came up with the noun
insultment. But we dont use that word today, we just say an insult, the same word as
the verb, to insult someone. In fact, probably about half of these, so about 850, are words
that still exist and that Shakespeare might have invented himself.
So how did he do this? Well, sometimes, Shakespeare joined together existing words;
down and stairs give us downstairs, for example. Birthplace, as in Shakespeares
birthplace in Stratford, is formed in the same way. Sometimes, he just used a word as a
different part of speech; he turned freeze into the adjective freezing. In other cases, he
added a new meaning to an existing word: the word face already existed, but
Shakespeare used it to mean the front of a clock. So we talk about a clock having a face,
as well as hands. Some of the words Shakespeare might have created seem very
modern and businesslike, such as manager and negotiate.
Well come back to the theme of Shakespeares language over the next five weeks. Do
stay with us, as we look in more detail at Shakespeares plays, starting with Romeo and
Juliet next week. And do join us if you can on social media for the clinics on Facebook
and Twitter. These will be on Monday January the 18th, and Wednesday January the 20th.
You can see step 2.3 for more details. I hope you enjoy the rest of the course.

1 http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/thomasmore-rev
2 http://theshakespeareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/sir-thomas-

more.jpg
Exploring English: Shakespeare
British Council 2016