As a master of drama, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is known as "Zeus on mount Olympus in human literature", and his contributions to English literature and even world literature are well known. But in addition to his contributions to literature, Shakespeare also had a very important influence on the development and evolution of the English language. Looking at his work, we can briefly summarize the contribution of this language master to the development and evolution of the English language from six aspects:
(1) Shakespeare created many commonly used idioms and aphorisms, such as:
Shakespeare idiom/Chinese to the effect
Play fast and loose capricious
Cold comfort is useless comfort
As good luck would have it by chance, unfortunately
Brevity is the soul of wit. Simplicity is more expensive.
I must be cruel only to be kind. My cruelty is for your own good.
Love is blind. Love is blind.
It’s Greek to me. I don't understand it at all.
(2) Shakespeare added many new words to the English language. Shakespeare is by far the largest English writer in terms of vocabulary, and his work has absorbed countless foreign words, many of which were first introduced to written English. Shakespeare was the founder of many English words, which have been preserved and continued to be used today through his work. There are many words first used by Shakespeare, including:
Assassination assassinates the counterpart of the counterpart
Eventful multi-accident fancy-free is as imaginable as you can imagine
Hostile hostile impede obstruction
Majestic solemn negotiate negotiations
Operate pious
Prophetic prophetic savagery wild
Torturer abuser tranquil tranquil
(3) Shakespeare used words flexibly, and he often used simple nouns in English as verbs (such as surprised with an oath). Under the influence of Shakespeare, the flexible style of using nouns as verbs became a model for many people during the rapid transformation of society. The following quotations are from Shakespeare's play and are examples of nouns as verbs; underlined words are originally nouns, and are used here as verbs, such as:
Seasonyour admiration for a while ... Graceme no grace, noruncleme no uncle ... Destruction straight shalldogthem at the heels ... No more shall trenching warchannelher field ... Who at Philipi the good Brutusghosted... I amproverbedwith a grandsire phrase ...
Noun verbs are a tradition of Shakespearean languages that still circulate today, for example, Chinese's meaning "children go to school on school buses" can be expressed in The children go to school by bus, but can also be expressed in appropriate situations with Parents can bus their children to school (parents send their children to school by school bus). Another example is the English sentence They dogged his footsteps, where dog (dog, noun) is used as a verb, meaning "follow behind" (follow in his footsteps). Similar English words that can be both nouns and verbs include: drink, drive, fight, fire, sleep, run, walk, fund, look, act, view, ape, silence, worship, copy, blame, comfort, bend, cut, reach, like, dislike and so on.
(4) Shakespeare used many compound words in his works. Shakespeare was a master of word-making and sentence-making, and many hyphenated compounds can be found in the historical drama King John (there are many in other scripts), such as the following compound words are not reused in "King John", which is his style. Here are some examples (Chinese translation omitted):
arch-heretique/baby-eyes
bare-pickt/basilisco-like
breake-vow/canker-sorrow
faire-play/giant-world
halfe-blowne/heauen-mouing
ill-tuned/kindred-action
vile-concluded/window-comfort
(5) Shakespeare's language comes alive, and he is very good at "slang", for example, he has many different descriptions of all kinds of "knaves" (dishonest people) (Chinese translation omitted):
wrangling knave/foul knave
fortune’s knave/fantastical knave
Sir knave/naughty knave
devilish knave/arrant knave
lunatic knave/lousy knave
unthrifty knave/muddy knave
(6) Shakespeare was good at alternating between the latest foreign words and native Old English words in sentences or paragraphs. Combining complex words (then foreign words, inkhorn terms or inkpot terms) with simple words (plain words) in sentences was Shakespeare's specialty and another important contribution to the advancement of the English language (which, of course, was not Shakespeare's original intention). For example, in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, Macbeth confesses after killing King Duncan of Scotland:
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this bloodClean from my hand? No, this my hand will ratherThe multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.
Of these four lines, the third line consists of Latin (foreign words) that are rarely used by ordinary people, and the fourth line is an easy-to-understand Anglo-Saxon word.
(7) When Johnson wrote dictionaries in the 18th century, he quoted shakespeare's sentences the most. Shakespeare's phrases and sentences were already frozen at that time, forming a generally accepted fixed pattern, so Shakespeare also contributed to the establishment of English standardization in grammar. As the greatest playwright of the Renaissance, Shakespeare turned English into a poetic language, a linguistic genius who gave english a rich vocabulary and flexible expression. Shakespeare English is a perfect combination of loanwords and medieval English. It was Shakespeare's monumental work that brought English to all parts of the world, and it was his linguistic genius that pushed it to new heights.
