From: lyouens [<a href="/cgi-bin/wa-jisc.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind0210%26L%3DSIDNEY-SPENSER%26E%3Dquoted-printable%26P%3D125021%26B%3D------%253D_NextPart_000_0001_01C27D39.C591A6A0%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522RE%2520FWD%2520pronunciation.txt%2522%26N%3DRE%2520FWD%2520pronunciation.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>]

The best single *book* is called *Singing Early Music*, a collection of guides to proper pronunciation in lots of languages, starting off with English.  Timothy McGee is one of the 3 editors, and it's published by Indiana University Press.  I would recommend supplement- ing this with two CDs in which Elizabethan pronunciation is used. The first, by the Camerata of London with Glenda Simpson (a mezzo with simply astonishing technique), Paul Hillier, Barry Mason, and Rosemary Thorndycraft, is called *English Ayres and Duets*. It's on the Hyperion label. The second, on the Meridian label, is 
called *Shakespeare's Musicke Sung in authentic Elizabethan
pronunciation.* Again, it's the Camerata of London with Simon Giles, treble, and David Dyer, tenor.

I am told that the Tidewater area of Virginia dialect is as close to Elizabethan as you can get in this modern age.  "Hoose" for "house" is the most distinctive word I can remember.

Hope this helps!

How are you?
              Laura