In this episode, we explore the concept of a successful succession. During the early 1590s, France was divided by a bitter conflict over the succession of Henry of Navarre to the French throne. Meanwhile, William Shakespeare wrote a couple of plays that appear to make reference to the events in France. He also composed other plays that dealt with the theme of succession. And his plays also indicate that the pronunciation of words like “succession” were changing during the 1500s as several consonants experienced sound changes during that period. Works discussed in this episode include:
‘The Comedy of Errors’ – William Shakespeare
‘Richard III’ – William Shakespeare
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ – William Shakespeare
‘Titus Andronicus’ – William Shakespeare
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Love this episode.
A lot of what you say about language change reminds me of the BBC comedy drama series ‘Upstart Crow’. Are you aware of it?
It’s a comedic telling of the life of Shakespeare and it reflects language and social change quite accurately.
It’s also funny.
I am aware of it, but I have only seen part of one episode. The show is included as part of the BritBox streaming service which I recently subscribed to. The main reason I subscribed to BritBox is because it has the BBC production of all of Shakespeare’s plays, and I thought it would come in handy in preparing these episodes. I hope to get the chance to check out more of Upstart Crow when I can find the time.
Fascinating, as always! In contemporary French, with words such as “conclusion”, the “-sion” is still pronounced as two syllables. Same with “station”, with the “ti” pronounced “see”. (And “démocratie” is pronounced exactly the same as “democracy”, with the “tie” ending pronounced “see”.)
I don’t know what brand of French you’re talking about but in France French I never heard or pronounced “-sion” or “-tion” as two syllables (= /zi-ɔ̃/, /si-ɔ̃/) unless in some classical plays (Cf. Molière, Racine, Corneille…). They’re pronounced /zjɔ̃/ or /sjɔ̃/ in one syllable in which the “i” has indeed become the voiced palatal approximant /j/ while it has totally disappeared in the palatalization process in English.
You are absolutely correct; thank you. I’m not a linguist but as a long-time speaker of French living in France I’ve noticed that it’s helpful for Anglophones learning French to think of the terminations “sion” and “tion” as two syllables even if they are not.
Not that I know French but perhaps: succession, confession, fraction, perhaps?
You can type any word ending in “-sion” or “-tion” in WordReference French-English online dictionary and check the pronunciation. All and every word ending in “-ion” is pronounced /jɔ̃/ -note that French words taken separately are stressed on the last oral syllable.
Thanks for the episode! Regarding Richard III’s line “Are you now going to dispatch this thing”: Couldn’t “going” be interpreted as just a “travelling” verb, rather than an indicator of future tense? In other words, “Are you now going [in order] to dispatch this thing”? Perhaps in support of this, note that a few lines later, Richard has the line “Go, go, dispatch”.
Yes, I can see how the line could be interpreted that way. I think that is ultimately how the ‘going to’ construction emerged. The sense of traveling to do something evolved into a sense of something occurring in the future, so there was probably a time when the phrase carried both senses at the same time.
Thank you for another excellent episode. Given the subject matter there was one point that I was surprised that you didn’t mention and that is the pronunciation of Tudor.
You (along with most Americans) pronounce is as Toodor whereas here in England we pronounce it as Tyudor (apologies I can’t do this in IPA but hope I’ve made myself sufficiently clear).
The phenomenon you’re describing will be addressed in an upcoming episode. The loss of that little ‘y’ sound before the long ‘u’ sound is commonly known as ‘yod-dropping’ among linguists. I originally intended to discuss it as part of this episode, but the episode was already a bit too long. I’ll fit it in shortly because it is indeed a fascinating topic that manifests itself in some interesting ways in Modern English.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Thank you, Kevin, for this podcast. You bring the language alive like no other. And I love how you attach historical events along with the emergence of the language.
I have a question regarding the future “going to” as you have presented it in this episode. About half way through the episode, you mention how Richard III asked the question, “Are you now going to dispatch this thing.” You say this is the first expression of this as in, “I am going to the store.” However, and please correct me if I am wrong, but in the sentence “I am going to the store” indicates a present tense motion of literally moving toward a location. Is this not a different construction of the phrase compared to how Shakespeare had Richard use it in “going to dispatch this thing”?
Thank you
Yeah, I probably could have worded that example better. I probably should have said “I am going to go to the store.” I omitted the infinitive “to go” which is usually included to mark the future tense. In colloquial speech (at least in my dialect), the “to go” part isn’t really necessary. However, the omission of the infinitive does allow the sentence to be interpreted as either a present action or a future action.
I’ve been listening/reading Love’s Labour’s Lost. I like to listen to the Arkangel recording (143 minutes)m which uses RSC type (English) actors, the princess sounds a lot like Judi Dench. It was pretty interesting to notice some of the ryhming and so on that you talked about. If you google “Love’s Labor’s Lost MIT” you” find an online version of the play. I like that in terms of the “find” button when I listen/read a play. I rely mainly on Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All (2004) as a reference book.
Kevin,
You had a particularly salient point about pronunciation changes never being really settled.
However, a lot of your examples of current pronunciations are… rather regional. I don’t hear most of your versions in Australia. Probably similar for NZ and UK.
It says to me that there’s rather a lot more specificities in American – or American regional – pronunciations.
Hi Stephen. I’m sure you’re correct. Like any English speaker, I use examples that are familiar to me, and my knowledge beyond that is obviously more limited. But I’m curious if you have specific examples where Australian English differs from the examples I have given (especially in this episode). I’m curious to learn the differences.
Beautifully narrated, Mr. Stroud.
Long-time listener, first-time poster. Thank you, Kevin, for so many years of fascinating episodes.
Do you know if anyone has researched *why* the pronunciation shift in “-ion” words occurred around this time? My highly uninformed theory is that the pace of speech in urban areas was accelerating at this point along with the faster tempo of life, which caused the multisyllabic -tion and -sion endings to contract into one syllable. In short, i suspect that people were talking faster. Do you know of any evidence that would suggest this.