Tudors' Language

The Tudors´ language employed the early modern language which appeared around 1550s. Their alphabet contains 24 letters (instead of 26).Some characteristics of this language are:

-The third person singular of the present tense of verbs is always -eth.

-"ye" was the subject form and "you" was the form used as object of after a preposition.

-The letter "u" was never used at the beginning of a word

-The letter "y" represented the "th" sound.

Between others characteristics, I put here some examples of sentences and words that they used to say in Modern Language: thou soul, speak ye, therfore , thy majestie,...

Now , with this information, I am going to analyse some sentences and words that appear in the serie called "The Tudors".

In this serie, those words and sentences are not employed because the serie employs a standard english to easily understand to the audience. Nevertheless,  the way to speak, to construct a sentence is , more or less, the same that the real Tudors said in their period.

In that period they had other way to live, to speak.

An example of how they talk to an important person , they always say "Sir Thomas" (for example) or "Lady ..". To the king or queen , people say them "your majesty". They do not have an informal language ( as we can see for example in the other post about "Geordie Shore" where they employ an urban style)."With the king´s permission to express my love and devotion to your majesty" here we can see how the king is the head of England, he commanded and he gave orders (nowadays it is not like it was).In that period , all was by "the willing of God", the Bible and God were above all so that they employed sentences taken of the bible.

An scene , for example, when Anne Boleyn was going to die, people say to her "God save the Queen" , a well-known phrase and it is still said in nowadays. Then Anne Boleyn said "I come here to die" when she was going to die. Right now we do not say that, we do not say that we are here to die because my lord said it so I have to accept it. There the language was related to the God and his willing as I have said before.

They always spoke in a good manner and very educated as "I wanted you to know your generosity about.." or "it may concern me" instead of "it worries me". They do not use a direct dialogue. Also , others ways to talk in an educated manner are "Your eminence" , "the wholeness author suggests to your majesty another possible solution" ( how they talk to an authoritarian figure , they were in a low possition in front of the king), "I sympathizes" or "I beg you with the king´s will" are examples of ways to express and to talk with security to the majesty the king.

I put other examples of their manner which differ to the language employed nowadays as "honourable man , I command you a duty.." , "for the love of God"(it is still said in society), "What a great honour it is for me for presenting to you, I´m so delighted", "to please the king your lord"...

At last, I put you a video where you can see how they spoke in that period: