So how does Shakespeare connect to the language studies that I’m in as I’m learning kreyòl? Well, let me tell you . . .
Back in the day when Shakespeare walked the earth and limned his famous limnnings, English as both a spoken and written language was in flux. The Norman French influences were running roughshod over the Anglo-Saxon Anglic/English native language, and both were smushed together to mangle the words in both languages.
Both Norman French and Anglo-Saxon English had their rules for pronunciation and spelling, and not only did they not agree with each other, they didn’t agree with themselves. There was no one standard for pronunciation of similar words. There was no agreed-upon form for words that were related—and in some cases, existing words were mangled to make them appear related, such as “isle” and “iland” being falsely linked to create “island.”
Vocabulary was in flux, varying wildly between regions of England and English-influenced regions.
And about that time the printing press was invented, cementing into place older spellings with forgotten or no-longer-used pronunciations.
So we have the mess in English pronunciation and spelling that we do because of the fluxations and technology. Tough / though / through / thorough, anyone?
It’s not quite like that in kreyòl. For one, the language is mostly settled in pronunciation. A word spelled using the kreyòl alphabet will pretty much be spelled that way throughout the country, with some interesting derivations (jèn and jenn used for “young person/young woman,” and both pronounced about the same).
What does get me is the varied regional vocabularies that are just slightly different so that I have to learn a few words similar in spelling to mean the same thing. It’s not unusual for a language—English has multiple words for something like “the mother of my mother” (Grandma, Gramma, Granny, Grandmother, Nana, and so on).
It’s just the process of learning the language. Not unusual. But sometimes . . . I wish it was even simpler than it already is.