Transcription
Hello number ones and welcome to Metatron Academy. Today I found something really interesting for you. As you know, recently we've made quite a few videos examining recordings from the 19th century or the early 20th century to analyze and discuss the accent, pronunciation, and all that kind of stuff. But today, we found an interesting video called "Witness to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination speaks." Wow. So the quality of the recording is not great, but bear with me. It's really worth it.
So, what we're going to do, I'm going to let it play for the first 30-35 seconds. Then the video comes to an organic pause, and we will take that opportunity to start discussing a little bit and sharing some of my linguistic commentary. Now, today, rather than pronunciation, we'll touch upon it a little bit, but we'll focus on vocabulary usage. Check this out.
All right, sir. On April the 14th, 1865, 65 years ago, President Lincoln was present at a performance at Ford's theater. There was a large audience present. I had a seat in the orchestra nearly beneath the box of the president.
Okay, so that was the first 30 seconds or so, and then the video comes to a pause. You know what? I'll let him speak a little longer so you can have an idea on the way he speaks before I begin my analysis. We are given some context. At the time, Ford's theater offered three options for seating. The orchestra $1, a season dress circle level 75 cents, and the third level, known as the family circle, 25.
[Music]
There they are. The first two acts passed off presently, and the curtain rose for the third and last act. Few if any words were spoken on the stage, and referred the sharp report of a revolver. I looked towards the place where the sound came and saw a boot climbing over the rail in front of the box and jumped to the stage a few feet to his right. When he struck the stage, he kind of straising his right hand holding a knife, he said, "Sic semper tyrannis," and ran to the rear of the stage and escaped through a valley. The audience around me now were all standing. It appeared to be shocked. Not much talk going on. The people began to move out of the theater, and when I reached the exit, there were a large crowd in the street. There were shouting, hanging, lynching, the guardian. I took refuge on the porch opposite, and shortly thereafter, some men carrying the president entered the house where I stood. I stepped off the porch that they may enter. The president died the following morning in that house.
[Music]
Poor thing. He seems to be still traumatized from the experience. All right. So, yeah. And then they give us some provide some extra information. We might read it at the end, but let's begin the actual linguistic analysis because there is a lot to say here. Man, this is fascinating. Let's start from the very beginning. Check this out. On April the 14th, 1865.
All right. So already the first thing we can notice is that so this was filmed in the 1930s. This man was clearly born in the 19th century since he was already, I imagine, at least an adult, possibly in 1865. So, of course, from his point of view, he's basically talking to you about the '60s, but the '60s for him is 1800. And oh goodness gracious, that's mind-blowing. Anyways, note that already at this time, we see the characteristic of American English whereby we start when talking about a date with the month first, then the day, then the year. So, April 14th, 1865. This is, of course, what is considered to be the traditional American way of writing a date. Uh, dates are written in many different ways throughout the world. Of course, the continental way of writing dates usually is day, month, year. We'll discuss pros and cons. Uh, but if you look at Asian countries and even, in fact, Middle Eastern countries, sometimes they do the opposite. They start year, month, day. So we really have all sorts. However, what's interesting for our discussion is already for someone who was born in the 19th century, the month-day system was in place. And in fact, it didn't even originate in America necessarily. Uh, England used this system before they actually got influenced by the continental system. And at the end of the day, while I imagine the continental, or the way we do it in the rest of Europe, dating system is based on the idea of starting from small, middle, large, uh, probably the American way is mostly about giving the most important information first, which would be the month. But still, I mean, they both work. So, at the end of the day.
Now, notice the way he pronounces theater. "65 years ago, President Lincoln was present at a performance at Ford's theater." At Ford's theater, he doesn't say theater. Theater. Of course, he clearly is dropping the R. That's another characteristic. We'll get back to that. But it's interesting how he's pronouncing it completely different, like the focal point of that pronunciation of the vowel core and in general the stress and how it's perceived, the very different. And if you noticed, he pronounces this word twice throughout the recording, and in both cases, he pronounces it this way, indicating that this was just the way he pronounced it. Very interesting pronunciation. We'll get back to that.
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There was a large audience present. I had a seat in the orchestra nearly beneath the box to the president. The first two acts passed off presently, and the curtain rose for the third and last act. Few if any words were spoken on the stage, and they heard the sharp report of a revolver. The sharp report of a, and then he says revolver. Revolver. Wow. The sharp report has a way to describe the sound created by a, in this case, a revolver or pistol, however you want to call it, being discharged. I find that way of speaking fascinating. Now, of course, this is a man of a certain education level by the way he speaks, by the way he sounds, but still, I wonder how common such an expression would be. And we will find several, by the way, whenever we examine this sort of recordings. His accent, if you think about it, is kind of a mix. It sounds, it doesn't sound British, but it doesn't sound American either. Or maybe we could say that it sounds both. And it's what is usually referred to as a mid-Atlantic accent, which still, still had features of both accents. But I think, as I was saying on this video, I'm fascinated by uh, the so-called vocabulary and phrasing. It would be more common for people of this age to hear "I reckon" rather than "I think." They would still say "I think," but "I reckon" would be more common. Interestingly enough, it still is quite common both in Australia and in some areas of England. So it would be a case-by-case scenario whether or not it would sound archaic to you. But what would sound archaic would be a description such as "it was a dreadful affair," like we would hear that kind of expression. So within that frame, "a sharp report of a revolver."
I looked towards the place where the sound came and saw a boot climbing over the rail in front of the box and jumped to the stage a few feet to his right. Okay. So here we have another one. "Whence." What's interesting about this is that people in this age, particularly the educated ones, would still occasionally use the expression "whence," but it would already sound a little outdated uh to them too. And for those who don't know, "whence" is a way to say from where. In a way, since this is a kind of expression that was found in, for instance, biblical writing, it would be a type of expression that would be used by orators, particularly during, for instance, a public speech in order to sound slightly poetic in a way or cultured. So, we don't know if he would have used it if it were in a normal conversation. But since this is a recording and so seen as an important event, and he's also speaking about the assassination of the president of the United States, then he chooses to use this upper register of speech.
When he struck the stage, he kind of straising his right hand holding a knife, he said, "Sic semper tyrannis," and ran to the rear of the stage and escaped through a valley. Yeah. The audience around me now was outstanding. It appeared to be shocked. Not much talk going on. Everything else here was is perfectly understandable. He still sounds old-fashioned to our ears. Although in this case, it's not because of the choice of vocabulary. It was before. But in this case, the last few sentences that we read, I think it mostly has to do with slow cadence and at a deeper analysis, the presence of longer vowels. That has to do with the rhythm and pacing, but just to give you an example, man. Sometimes depending on the speaker, could sound more like man, and it would sound longer. Man, a man. Uh, so that would happen sometimes, although it's possible that it would be a deliberate choice during a formal scenario.
The people began to move out of the theater, and when I reached the exit, there were a large crowd in the street. That were shouting, hanging, lynching, they've got him. Right here, we have the rising terminal. "They've got him." The dan. So as he goes up, uh, because he's telling a story, so that's a characteristic once again of this kind of speech. Took refuge on the porch opposite, and shortly thereafter, some men carrying the president entered the house where I stood. I stepped off the porch that they may enter. "That they may enter." It sounds a bit like we speak when we pray, doesn't it? The president died the following morning in that house. Yeah. And so the Peter's house, Peterson house, and the porch where this man stood before Lincoln was carried inside. So, this is an actual shot of the building.
[Music]
Original ticket to Ford's Theater for the orchestra section, dated April 14th, 1865. Look at that. Yeah. I mean, even the font. Even the font. Produced and edited by Michael King. Thank you very much, Michael King. And of course, as always, a massive thanks to Life in the 1800s. We have been checking out several videos from them. And so, very nice. Appreciate that. Apparently, their channel is not monetized. YouTube does not pay me. I wonder why. They should totally monetize. I mean, with these kind of views, it's kind of a shame. So, anyways, they have a Patreon and PayPal. So I'll consider checking them out if you like their content. Once again, you should monetize me.
Anyways, in general, one thing that we need to keep in mind when it comes to. So today we mostly focus on the vocabulary issues, but we spoke a little bit about pronunciation. And when we talk about the way people spoke at a specific time in history, so we're having a little bit of a temporal approach. We also have to remember that there are regional varieties. So there is a spatial element that needs to be considered as well. What I mean by that is that even though there are some characteristics of his speech that are specific to his age, of course, there are other. And so we would find the same in all sorts of different areas, and at the same time, we wouldn't find specific speech patterns that we have today because they weren't developed yet. But then again, there will be variety between the way he speaks. In this case, as we said, a mid-Atlantic accent, 19th century, relatively upper class, possibly eastern, east of the United States, but still, he would sound different from someone from the west or from someone from a rural area.
One of the main key characteristics, just to mention one, is the presence or absence of rhoticiy. In his case, he is using a non-rotic accent. So, he's dropping his Rs at the end of words or right before consonants. Believe it or not, that's what I do as well. We both have that in common. But then again, someone from a rural area or the countryside would have pronounced their Rs fully. And so that's not necessarily a characteristic that is connected to uh time alone, but it's in fact space and regional variety. Likewise, there are some areas in the United States that would have been strongly influenced by, for instance, Irish accents. So, as I say, massive difference between regional varieties, and that's still within the same nation. And of course, if we jump into the other side of the pond, then we may find more variety. But definitely, some characteristics that are specific and pertinent to this area will overlap even between people of different areas and different geographic backgrounds.
At the end of the day, his vowels are quite flat. Uh, the way he pronounces or people in general pronounce short vowels such as in "cat." Uh, it sounds more like a "cat" sometimes. I mean, the way I did it kind of sounds a bit South African or Australian. But believe it or not, even pronunciation in England would sound a bit like that all the way up to the '50s. Believe it or not, there would be some sections both in England and in America that would already have the trap-bath split, whereby other regions or other periods would not have split. So "bath" and "trap" would sound the same rather than "trap" and "bath," which sound quite different.
Anyways, I hope that you found this interesting. If you did, please remember thumbs up, and I will see you again for the next video. I found one with a in an interview of a Confederate soldier. So that could be another interesting one. Not sure if I need to beep a few words that he uses, but apart from that, once again, linguistically speaking, absolutely fascinating. I know I use that word too much. Thank you for watching and for joining Metatron Academy. Bye.