Shakespeare’s pronunciation would have been quite different from ours. At about the time of Shakespeare, the Great Vowel Shift occurred in a remarkably short time span (maybe 50 years) in which the pronunciation of vowels changed markedly. Hamlet’s soliliquy (sic) would have opened something like “Toe bay or not toe bay”.
The poet Alexander Pope famously wrote rhyming couplets, some of which no longer rhyme because the Great Vowel Shift was not quite over when he was doing whatever it is that poets do (or perhaps doe).
I occasionally present technical training on the Continent, where the Great Vowel Shift did not take place. I have to be careful when using vowels as mathematical symbols (for instance, I is understood to mean electric current). I say I and I think my students hear E.
‘Shakespeare’s pronunciation would have been quite different from ours. At about the time of Shakespeare, the Great Vowel Shift occurred in a remarkably short time span (maybe 50 years) in which the pronunciation of vowels changed markedly. Hamlet’s soliliquy (sic) would have opened something like “Toe bay or not toe bay”.’
Of course in the two centuries between Chaucer and Shakespeare English went from Middle English to (early) Modern English. The Canterbury Tales are completely unintelligible to modern speakers of English.