Was Shakespeares “language” common English in his time?
There are three periods of the English language- Old English (think Beowulf); Middle English (think Chaucer); and Modern English (think Shakespeare). Shakespeare’s language reflected the language of what was the beginning of Modern English. The King James Version of the Bible dates to the same time period. There are instances where the first known use of a word was in one of Shakespeare’s works, but that doesn’t mean he was the first to actually use the word, it’s just that his words were written and they survived. Language isn’t static, it is always undergoing changes, so that some words current in Shakespeare’s day are no longer used (this is called archaic) or the meaning or even the pronunciation has changed. Keep in mind, it has been over 400 years since Shakespeare wrote his plays and poems and the language has continued to evolve.
