I'm a bit puzzled by an article in today's paper. The Globe Theatre have decided to do Shakespeare plays in the original Elizabethan English - so the actors are learning to speak with, and I quote, "accents that would have been heard on the Elizabethan stage - a mix of West Country, Scottish, Irish, American and Austalian". Did American and Australian accents exist in 1601?? I think not.. or did they already exist in the UK and were taken to the US and Australia? I always thought that American and Ozzie accents evolved in those countries so they could hardly have been spoken in Elizabethan England. My history's not too great so I don't know if Brits were coming and going between the US and UK in 1601 but I'm sure that Australia hadn't yet been settled - (or discovered?)- other than by the original inhabitants....