THE INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE : ENGLISH WORDS CREATED BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Written By : Karenina Fernandya

Do you know that lyrics like “All’s well that ends well” from Taylor Swift is originally from William Shakespeare’s idiom in English Literature?

The English language underwent significant transformation from the late 16th century to the early 17th century, particularly during the Renaissance era. One of the key figures of the Renaissance, William Shakespeare, contributed to enriching the English vocabulary by creating approximately 1.700 new words in his works, including novels, poetry, and plays. As a result of these changes, the English language began to evolve, laying the foundation for the modern English we use today. 

How Shakespeare Transformed the English Vocabulary?

1. Invented New Words

These are the original words that created by modifying existing words or combining unrelated words, such as:

• “Lonely”: Originally from the word “alone” to being a term of a solitude feeling.

• “Eyeball”: Derived from the words “eye” and “ball” to being a term of human anatomy.

• “Assasination”: Change from “assassin” and now is the English term for the act of massive murder.

2. The Functional Shifts

The words that have a change on his function in vocabulary, like from nouns into verbs- verbs into adjectives-etc, such as:

• “Champion”: Originally from a noun that also transformed a verb that means defend a cause.

• ”Elbow”: Originally also transformed from noun to be a verb too that means push someone.

3. Borrowed and Modified the Words from Other Languages

These are the words that transformed from other languages like Latin, French, Greek or the other languages and adapted to English Language, such as:

• “Fashionable”: Borrowed from the Latin word “facies” (means appearance) into the English term of a person with trendy fashion.

• ”Critic”: Borrowed from the Greek word “kritikos” (means could be discussed) into an English word that means someone who makes judgements

  
  

4. Extended Meanings

Shakespeare enriched the words that already existed with new meanings, such as:

• “Addiction”: The meaning is extended from describe devotion to also dependency.

• ”Majestic”: Originally means something related to a monarch to describe anything impressive and grand.

• ”Gilded”: From only refers to something covered in gold to something that appears valuable and luxury.

5. Make New Idioms

After making several new words, the language of English also gained new idiomatic phrases that somewhat still recognized until now from Shakespeare, such as:

• “Break the Ice”: Known to describe a condition to relieve the tension.

• ”Wild-goose chase”: To deliver a pointless pursuit.

• ⁠”Heart of gold”: Refers to a generous person.

• “All’s well that ends well”: Refers to the satisfaction of a condition.

Modernized words absolutely have a major legacy on today’s linguistics. In everyday vocabulary, words like “majestic, laughable, lonely” are commonly used in everyday conversation. On the other hand, modern English also plays a big role in taking a deeper description of a human's feelings and emotions on words like “heartbroken, suspicious”. At the end of the day, the change of vocabulary is enduring the power of the English language and showcases the necessity of human’s way of communication and literacy.

SOURCES

• Nevalainen, Terttu, and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. The Oxford Handbook of the History of English. Oxford University Press, 2012. 

• Crystal, David. Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion. Penguin Books, 2002. 

• Dobson, Michael, and Stanley Wells, editors. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, 2001. 

• McCrum, Robert, et al. The Story of English. Penguin Books, 1992.