OH and BFA did not really have much to with historical accuracy because we all know that getting the accent true to the period/location is harder than folks think.

Lets not even discuss vocabulary!

BFA was, and quite possibly still is, the attempt to aquire an overall old english sound to Faire. Workshops, which I had the pleasure to teach back at Olde Faire, did their best to encourage and enlightened all who were interested in how to acheive this. From "the least you can do" (make every customer a M'Lord or a M'Lady & use thee and thou as much as possible, throw in a few "God's breath"s a couple of "Zounds" and suddenly the place sounds different. Of course most fok at Faire did (still do?) not settle for "the least you can do" and studied various booklets designed to guide the neophite quasi-actor in the right direction. The most memorable of these were written by Dick Bagwell, Kathleen Bartholomew and Gerald Zepeda.
Certainly, the more passionate in our number went on to actually study, both by reading and watching various videos. Now DVD, of course.
Faire hired Robert Easton, one of the best dialectitions of the day to come in and teach a workshop. Some found it very helpfull (tending toward Appalacian) others felt it was much to severe to serve our theatrical purposes.
Personally, I encourage folk to read their Shakespeare and watch the greats perform it. Fine tuning to a local or regional dialect is a plus.

Diana,

Thanks for sharing this link. I read it last night and enjoyed it so much that I printed it this morning and shared it. We had a great conversation about archaic words, phrases that we recognized and didn’t. Words we liked, didn’t like, and how to correctly pronounce them. I suppose that this makes me a geek but if the shoe fits I’ll wear it.