The Week found YouTube videos demonstrated what earlier versions of English actually sounded like.

Shakesperian English:

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Middle English (not the best version of the Prologue):

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Earlier Middle English (13th Century):

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Old English (terrific performance of the opening of Beowulf):

They concluded with a pretty chick singing a semi-rock ballad in Breton to illustrate the sound of pre-Anglo-Saxon British, but I think that one is beside the point.

The plays and the sonnets do not only sound different. The plays speed up and the sonnets are found to have many more rhymes.