Original Pronunciation

In 2011, the Open University published a short documentary about Original Pronunciation – a project “devoted to the production or performance of works from earlier periods of English”.

I’ve seen Ben Crystal before in this stunning iPad app, but didn’t realize he was the son of the David Crystal, so when I watched the video I was baffled, to say the least.

When you watch the video, you’ll come across several remarks that without using, or knowing, the original pronunciation, jokes are lost or the meaning of phrases or whole passages is altered. Fascinating.

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