A quick look into Shakespear’s contribution to English through Hamlet
Written by Sara Varon
Shakespeare’s influence on the English language is undeniable, even if the attributed
1700 words are not entirely proved to be of his invention. Certainly, his works are the
earliest written proof of many words but further studies have also found that some were
taken and transformed from other languages -given the fact that Shakespeare knew at
least seven languages- or just borrowed from the spoken language at the time of which
scarce evidence there is. Hamlet is a great example of this, because it is frequently said
that in this work, the author introduced more than six hundred words to English.
However, this does not take any of the deserved credit from his contribution. It just gives
us a deeper look into where they come from and how they have changed in meaning or
enunciation over time. This paper aims to dwell on some words taken from Hamlet that
have been attributed to Shakespeare and the previously mentioned glance at their
development.
The chosen words were selected as a representation of three different categories in
which we could divide this author’s addition to English. The first category consists of
words that are taken and transformed from another language. The sample of this
category would be “rant”. It comes from the Dutch “ranten” which means “to talk
nonsense” and it sounds very similar to the English version but with a particular
accentuation on the “r”. In terms of meaning, there is a slight difference between the
way it was used by the author and today’s meaning. Shakespeare used it with a closer
meaning to the original Dutch word, referring to “talking like a crazy person” (see
screenshot 1), and nowadays, the word in its verb form refers to “talk in a passionate
manner”, it is more related to the sound and mood of what is said, than to what is being
said. However, in its noun form it stays closer to the original meaning by referring to a
tirade, which is a speech full of accusation and criticism, which alludes to what is being
said.
Screenshot 1. Hamlet. Act V Scene I.
The second category would be for compound words and the sample will be
“amazement”. This new usage at the time is still attributed to Shakespeare, but of course
the source of inspiration is trackable. It was used as a verb “amaze” that came from Old
English “amasian”, then “amasen” in Middle English. The author just added the suffix and
introduced the noun form to the language. I would venture to say its invention in this
case is totally related to how difficult it would have been to write it with the verb form of
the word and how different would the verse be if he had done so (see screenshot 2). In
terms of meaning or sound, the word has not changed significantly, but its use has been
replaced for shorter synonyms like “shock” used more frequently in everydays contexts.
Still, nobody can deny that “shock” would sound much less romantic and artistic.
Screenshot 2. Hamlet. Act III Scene IV.
The last category would be represented by the word “friending”, which also happened to
be my favorite discovery among his remarkable creative work. It is also a compound
word but it is also a word whose form does not coincide with the function commonly
fulfilled by that form. It was a relief to realize that adding “ing” to nouns was not only
coming from social media but from Early Modern English times, and it was as witty back
then as it is today. And what I found very interesting is the fact that it was not used as a
verb in Hamlet, but as a noun referring to a feeling of affection. What a person would
feel for a friend (see screenshot 3). The usage of this word is very common nowadays
but with an entirely different meaning that not even Shakespear could have imagined at
his time. Now it refers to the action of adding a person’s profile in social media to a list
of friends. And back then, its closer brother was the word “befriend”. Finding words like
“Facebooking”, “Tweeting” or “Googling” is very common nowadays and we will be
totally able to understand what they mean, but imagining the impact of this type of
changes at the time of Hamlet does not come without surprise and amazement. Could
not expect less of the man that used more than 20000 different words in his writings
when English was not yet what it is today.
Screenshot 3. Hamlet. Act I Scene 5.
Web sources:
1. Screenshots from Hamlet retrieved from
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