Would you use an English accent if you had to read Jabberwocky?

Answer 1

Sure!
It's much more fun!

You can say "Twas brillig and the slithy toves" in an accent and sound all the more brilliant!!

(Even though it's all nonsense words.)

Answer 2

Actually, its written in Middle English. Most of the words used haven't been used since the 16th century or so.

Answer 3

Yes, as it is part of the fun of reading it.

Answer 4

Probably not, but it might be fun to listen to if you want to do it.

Answer 5

Hello. - Lol...Sure.

Have a nice day. :)

Answer 6

Of course you would. It was written by an Englishman, Lewis Carol. However as he intended it to be a nonsense verse I don't suppose it really matters. Here it is:-

Jabberwocky
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"


He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.


And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!


One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.


"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Several of the words in the poem are of Carroll's own invention, many of them portmanteaux. In the book, the character of Humpty Dumpty gives definitions for the nonsense words in the first stanza. In later writings, Lewis Carroll explained several of the others. The rest of the nonsense words were never explicitly defined by Carroll (who even claimed that he did not know what some of them meant). An extended analysis of the poem is given in the book The Annotated Alice, including writings from Carroll about how he formed some of his idiosyncratic words. A few words that Carroll invented in this poem (namely "chortled", "galumphing", "frabjous", and "vorpal") have entered the language. The word jabberwocky itself is sometimes used to refer to nonsense language.


Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.Bandersnatch – A swift moving creature with snapping jaws. Capable of extending its neck. (From The Hunting of the Snark.)
Borogove – A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a live mop. Carroll emphasized in the introduction to The Hunting of the Snark that the initial syllable of borogove is pronounced as in borrow, rather than as in worry.
Brillig – Four o'clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin broiling things for dinner. (According to Mischmasch, it is derived from the verb to bryl or broil.)
Burbled – Possibly a mixture of "bleat", "murmur", and "warble" (according to Carroll in a letter [1]). (Burble is an actual word, circa 1303, meaning to form bubbles as in boiling water.)
Chortled - Laugh in a breathy, gleeful way; cuckle (Definition from Oxford American Dictionary) A combination of "chuckle" and "snort."
Frabjous - Delightful; joyous (Definition from Oxford American Dictionary, credited to Lewis Carroll)
Frumious – Combination of "fuming" and "furious." (From the Preface to The Hunting of the Snark.)
Galumphing - Moving in a clumsy, ponderous, or noisy manner. Perhaps a blend of "gallop" and "triumph." (Definition from Oxford American Dictionary)
Gimble – To make holes like a gimlet.
Gyre – To go round and round like a gyroscope, according to Humpty Dumpty. However, Carroll wrote in a letter that it meant to scratch like a dog. (Gyre is an actual word, circa 1566, meaning a circular or spiral motion or form; especially a giant circular oceanic surface current.)
Jubjub – A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion. (Also appearing in The Hunting of the Snark.)
Manxome – Combination of "monstrous" and "fearsome"; possibly related to the Manx cat. [citation needed]
Mimsy – Combination of "flimsy" and "miserable."
Mome – Possibly short for "from home," meaning that the raths had lost their way.
Outgrabe – Something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle. Since the verse is in past tense, this is probably a preterite form derived from a strong verb such as "outgribe".
Rath – A sort of green pig. (See Origin and Structure for further details.)
Slithy – Combination of "lithe" and "slimy."
Toves – A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials. They live on cheese.
Uffish – A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish. (according to Carroll in a letter).
Wabe – The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a "wabe" because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.
[edit]
Pronunciation
Wikimedia Commons has a spoken version of Jabberwocky in United States English, read by Wiktionary contributor Dvortygirl.
In the Preface to The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll wrote:

[Let] me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity.

Also, in an author's note (dated Christmas 1896) about Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll wrote:

The new words, in the poem "Jabberwocky", have given rise to some differences of opinion as to their pronunciation: so it may be well to give instructions on that point also. Pronounce "slithy" as if it were the two words, "sly, the": make the "g" hard in "gyre" and "gimble": and pronounce "rath" to rhyme with "bath."

[edit]
Origin and structure
The first stanza of the poem originally appeared in Mischmasch, a periodical that Carroll wrote and illustrated for the amusement of his family. It was entitled "Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry." Carroll also gave translations of some of the words which are different from Humpty Dumpty's. For example, a "rath" is described as a species of land turtle that lived on swallows and oysters. Also, brillig is spelt with two ys rather than with two is.

Roger Lancelyn Green, in the Times Literary Supplement (March 1, 1957), and later in The Lewis Carroll Handbook (1962), suggests that the rest of the poem may have been inspired by an old German ballad, "The Shepherd of the Giant Mountains." In this epic poem "a young shepherd slays a monstrous Griffin." It was translated into English by Lewis Carroll's relative Menella Bute Smedley in 1846, many years before the appearance of the Alice books.

The inspiration for the Jabberwock allegedly came from a tree in the gardens of Christ Church, Oxford, where Carroll was a mathematician (under his real name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). The tree in question is large and ancient with many sprawling, twisted branches somewhat suggestive of tentacles, or the Hydra of Greek mythology. [citation needed]

The poem is particularly interesting because, although it contains many nonsensical words, the structure is perfectly consistent with classic English poetry. The sentence structure is accurate (another aspect that has been challenging to reproduce in other languages), the poetic forms are observed (e.g. quatrain verse, rhymed, iambic meter), and a "story" is somewhat discernible in the flow of events. According to Alice in Through the Looking Glass, "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!"

Answer 7

no...that's weird