Shakespeare: Original pronunciation (The Open University)

Sure. For example [this video] 00:04:36, states that film is spelled philome in Shakespeare's work. Unfortunately a google search of "philome" yields only pages about shakespeare pronounciation, especially by these two guys; I don't know what that means. However, I think that thinking about the evolution of a language as a linear progression is misleading. Is certainly possible that modern Irish pronunciation stems from what was spoken at that time, and the modern "mainstream" english pronunciation evolved later from a slighly different root, and epenthesis acted only in one of the two branches. Film derives from west germanic filminjan, which in turn comes from proto germanic fello(m), and proto indoeuropean pel-, with cognates in lating and greek, pella and pellis respectivly. So it's possible that epenthesis was applied on top of filminjan in irish scottish accents (possibly due to pressure of the gaelic substrate), while the dialect which originated RP didn't have this change. I'm sure somebody with better knowledge of the matter can be more precise about that, however, it's strange how little (and often more misleading than uncertain) information is there about one the most widely spoken languages. (Sorry, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter comment :-) )

Most of English's "problems" come from a sort of natural drift that all languages experience all the time. There's no way to freeze a language in its "most useful" form, because a billion different speakers are simultaneously pulling it in different directions. It either ends up as a sort of democratic consensus, or eventually fractures into mutually unintelligible dialects. 1. Shakespearean pronunciation: [this video] 2. Problems that would be caused by simplifying spelling: [link] 3. Power of Babel: [link] 4. Toastmasters speech about "Manglish": [link] (Toastmasters has its own version of English, full of over the top gestures. Also recommended, search for Singlish on Youtube.)

Newfanese is pretty much crystallized Hiberno-English, at least if we're talking the language of the bay wops rather than townies. It has a surprising amount of commonality with African-American vernacular, likely due to transportation and indenture (which is why AAVE, while distinct, barely edges into typical creole patterns). The English of Shakespeare's time, or at least of his plays, has been largely reconstructed by linguist David Crystal, whose son, the actor and director Ben Crystal, is probably the best-known practitioner. There are a number of videos on YouTube of Ben doing Shakespeare in OP. A good starting point is [this video] - and if one had to tie it closely to a modern regional variant, it would be West Country. But that would just be something it would remind you of rather than a template.

The idea that American spelling and pronunciation have a better heritage than British English is a compelling one, especially as the idea that Southern and Appalachian accents are closer to those of the Founding Fathers and Shakespearean English is a nice balance to the perception that these accents sound unintelligent and uneducated, but it's simply not true that one dialect has diverged more than another - both have diverged and in many cases substantially. One of the common reasons given is that British accents like RP (there's a lot to criticise about RP but that's another topic), Cockney (featured elsewhere on the thread and the internet in general, oi m8 you got a loicence for that?), and general loss of rhoticity in BrE (and some AmE) accents that are most represented in American media have diverged substantially, but to me the examples of Shakespearean English in classic pronunciation sound closer to the West Country accents than they do any American accent. Note that there could be some bias here as the speakers are British, but you get features like H-dropping which simply don't exist in AmE. It also wouldn't be fair to say any modern accent sounds even remotely close to this. Shakespearean English: [link] [this video] Some good reddit threads on the matter: [link] [link] [link] Another weird one is spelling, given that etymology and spelling is pretty interesting in general, at least up until the advent of the printing press. Both BrE and AmE have made some questionable