Item by item, Linda, below:
At 03:05 PM 10/27/00 +0100, you wrote:
>John Alexander Blyth wrote:
>
>> There are also attempts to do Shakespeare as he might
>> have pronounced his verse, but in general people can't accept anything less
>> than 'refined' and 'elevated' for the great poet who, like Blake, would
>> have been perfectly happy to rhyme 'eye' with 'symmetry', which would both
>> have ended with a sound rather like the German 'ei' in 'mein'
>
>Can you provide anything to back this up? I'm not refuting, honestly,
>I'm just curious: I would have guessed if they really did rhyme that it
>would have been the "eye" which was pronounced "ee". And why should he
>not have been "perfectly happy" to rhyme them if they both ended in the
>same vowel?
Just what I've heard when people have tried this, and my own speculation
and observation concerning the way that people speak in the countryside
north and west of London, all the way to the West Country. My assumption is
that London was a growing city and there would be enough of an influx of
people from places like, for instance, Stratford, to keep the pronunciation
ball in the air. Not to get out of my depth here, but there would have been
many more remnants of the different dialects of Anglo-Saxon, than we have
today (we still have some), all converging on the capital, among whose
artisans, years later, city boy Wm. Blake grew up and learned his trade. I
don't know if Blake was a Cockney, but I'm fairly sure that oye and
symmetroy, or ei and symmetrei (or ee and symmetree) were perfectly decent
rhymes to him.
>
>> There may be an element of English influence. Oddly
>> enough there are English speakers who pronounce their English 'v' as
>> English "w", which has been associated with a portion of the upper class
>> (the legendary 'upper class twit' of Monty Python fame);
>
>John, I've never come across this in Britain - and I've met a fair
>number of upper class twits in my time :o) I know it's a common
>Dickensian affectation, but I've never encountered it in anyone born in
>the 20th century - not in a native English speaker anyway. We were all
>taught to do it when pronouncing Latin at school (the old saying, in
>weeno weritas, or Julius Caesar on conquering Britain, weeny weedy
>weaky[1]) and then I had to re-align my pronunciation when I learnt to
>sing "Church Latin", but I'm not aware of anyone adopting it to speak
>their own lingo.
I know someone from Leeds, with whom I was speaking only minutes ago. He
does this - he can't help it. It's not hugely exagerrated as in Wodney wode
the woyal woad, but it's there. Anecdotal vs. statistical.
>
Was fun. Must go. john
>[1]Sellar & Yeatman: 1066 And All That, still a seriously funny book
>after all this time.
>
>cheers,
>
>Linda
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John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
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