What was the form of English that Shakespeare used?

Answer 1

The dialect of English that Shakespeare wrote in is often called Elizabethan, or Shakespearean, English, after two of the most influential English people of that era. Its more official name is Early Modern English, which means that it is essentially the same as English spoken today. Middle English was essentially gone by 1485. Many people make the HORRIBLE mistake of claiming that Shakespeare wrote in Old English. Old English is more German than English, and you wouldn't be able to understand it without taking a foreign language class.

One of the reasons that Shakespeare's writing seems strange to many people is that he wrote the lines for the characters in his plays in poetry. He wrote in iambic pentameter, a kind of metered rhythmic formula, with stress on every second syllable and five such stresses to a line. Prose writing of the time seems much less peculiar to modern eyes.

It is called Early Modern English. It is essentially the same as any other form of modern English, although there were some vestiges of Middle English present which have now mostly disappeared, particularly the existence of a set of second person singular pronouns and their associated verb forms.

Answer 2

Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English, sometimes called Elizabethan English, a dialect of the English I am using now. His particular use of language was influenced by the dialect of his native Warwickshire.

Answer 3

Modern English, the same as I'm writing in now. The dialect is called Early Modern English or Elizabethan English.