When trying to grab an audience’s attention, as a normality you use a witful quote or phrase however, when discussing William Shakespeare’s influence on language, most of the appropriate quotes are his. Good morning ladies and Gentlemen. William Shakespeare was born in April, 1564 and died 52 years later in April 1616. Over his career, Shakespeare wrote over 190 works and used a unique vocabulary of more than 20 000 words. Shakespeare’s influence on popular culture through language is apparent every day, predominantly in the endorsement of new letters, the pronunciation of words and the addition of new words and phrases. The letters of the alphabet have been constant for more than 500 years but the usage of them has changed significantly – mostly due to Shakespeare. The last letter, letter J, was created in 1524 in Italy by Grian Trissino. This letter however was discounted by scholars. According to Professor David Crystal, University of Bangor, the letter J became widely accepted only after it was utilised by Shakespeare in Henry the 8th and several later plays. Now, due to the influence of Shakespeare, there are more than 3950 word with the letter J. Without his influence on the …show more content…
Before Shakespeare’s influence, the former would be correct, yet after the latter is. Shakespeare influenced many areas of the English language and one was the pronunciation and semantics of words. He introduced many of the letter/sound combinations we know today such as sh and ch into everyday language. According to Ben Jonson, a Shakespeare linguist, the sounds of words were changed to make the words flow, and to allow the phrases to rhyme. The changes made by Shakespeare continue today. With the changes he made still influencing not just the way we speak and sing, but the way we write as the changes add flow and rhyme to the content. It is easy to conclude that Shakespeare’s influence on language continues today and has had an enormous impact on modern