Another way to look at it would be to compare their vocabularies with the size of the english language at the time. The sixteenth century saw all the nations of Europe engaged on this project, of which Bacon and Sir Philip Sidney are known to have been involved, and which we can see that Shakespeare was too by his very achievement. As you read, take notes on how the size of a writerâs vocabulary impacts the quality of their work. I decided to compare this data point against the most famous artists in hip hop. Firstly, how can Joyce be “The vocabulary king among writers” if Hardy is “the only writer in the study with more than 20,000 stemmed words”. Below you will find just a sample of words we don’t often see today and an example of how it might be used today. I know you said you’re not talking about his influence but I don’t think you can separate vocabulary from the equation without looking at his influence on the writers you are comparing him to. hurly-burly: commotion, uproar “When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won.” How we are supposed to know that he coined these words and phrases I’ve no idea. Shakespeareâs Vocabulary. A non-trivial task…. Joyce was wonderfully poetic but had encyclopedic and insuperable mastery of semantics and style. 37-60, Charles Dickens: “A Christmas Carol”, “Bleak House”, “Barnaby Rudge”, “David Copperfield”, Samuel Johnson: “Grammar of the English Tongue”, “Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope”, “Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies”, “Johnson’s Notes to Shakespeare Vol. Vocabulary Size (Base Words) Shakespeare: 34,000* University Graduate: 23,000: Educated Adult (High School) 15,000: Age 12: 12,000: Age 5: 5,000: Age 2: 300: Figures taken from research carried out by English Today (Cambridge University Press). Shakespeare was a master of wordplay but supremely poetic. If you follow the github link you’ll see that the raw data was flattened from the Gutenberg sources. Shakespeare’s language Student worksheets The United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland). Wouldn’t a simple analysis of your data settle this point? Take the test and find out your vocabulary size⦠I’m only an anglophile Frenchman, but I’ve got the impression Shakespeare is not so much praised for the size of his vocabulary than for the number of phrases he coined. apart and put it back together in new and fascinating ways. It sounds as if proper nouns were included (i.e., capitalized words representing names of people, places, etc.). Romeo and Juliet Vocabulary Word List This simple vocabulary word lists ties Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet story to our various worksheets . 1. av no-examples. William Shakespeare Timeline Worksheet There are lots of important dates for the children to add to this William Shakespeare timeline, such as when he wrote his first play and the building of the Globe theatre - and lots more! I believe the OED lists him as first use on so many words mainly because that’s where they were looking, and didn’t have the technology to cross-check with other texts. Your email address will not be published. Genre matters in vocabulary calculations—check out the chart below, which takes 500 random samples of 35,000 words from rock, country, and hip hop. I would venture to guess that most or all of the writers who came after him benefitted by his habit of creating new words from Latin and Greek roots. The article is not about Shakespeare’s impact. Your data is skewed by the fact that all of these writers used words that were created by Shakespeare. a narrative that ends unhappily, usually with the death of the⦠the beginning part of a plot that gives information about the⦠sets, light, costumes, and props which bring a play to life on⦠Drama. Learn how your comment data is processed. No. I was thinking it might (if anything) do the opposite – young Marlowe and Shakespeare have very similar vocabulary profiles, so if Marlowe had lived/written on, then he would have potentially displayed the same vocabulary. With vocabulary as with some other things, size matters less than what a writer does with it, but what Shakespeare did with his is so impressive in comparison to the other writers mentioned, great as they are, that he can certainly lose a few points in the size department without it doing his overall achievement the slightest harm. Ooh, where did he do that? 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