The assimilative nature of English is due to a number of factors, one of which is definitely the work of Shakespeare. The ever-expanding vocabulary of the language (already easily the largest in the world) at least partially owes its nature to Shakespeare's approach. For example, in working with the Italian prose tale of Cinthio in the writing of Othello, he seems to have made verbal allusions to both the Italian original and a French translation done by Gabriel Chappuys. At this point, I'll quote (at some length) Norman Sanders' introduction of the New Cambridge edition:

"There are four verbal links that draw the play and the Italian version together. Othello's demand, 'Give me the ocular proof... Make me to see't' (3.3.361-5) is closer to Cinthio's 'se non mi fai...vedere co gli occhi' than to Chappuys' 'si tu ne me fais voir'. [The first quarto's] use of the unusual word 'acerbe' ('bitter' in the Folio) at 1.3.338 may be an echo of Cinthio's 'in acerbissimo odio'; just as Iago's gloating 'I do see you're moved' (3.3.219) is nearer to the Italian 'ch' ogni poco di cosa voi moue ad ira', where describing the enchafed flood at 2.1.16, may have been influenced by Cinthio's Moor who speaks of the sea in a similar way in a passage omitted by Chappuys: 'ogni pericolo, che ci soprauenisse, mi recherebbe estreme molestia'.

Evidence that it was the French version that Shakespeare used is of the same kind. The words 'if it touch not you, it comes near nobody' (4.1.187) seem to echo Chappuys' 'ce qui vous touche plus qu'a aucun autre', where the Italian verb is 'appartiene'; and Iago's emphasis on the importance of Cassio's 'gestures', as Othello spies on them in 4.1, is nearer to the French 'gestes' than the Italian 'atti'. Perhaps more substantial than these verbal similarities, however, is one of Chappuys' additions to the original text. In the lines of the play concerning Cassio's request that Bianca copy the embroidery of the handkerchief, the phrase 'take out the work' (or a variant of it) is used three times (3.3.298, 3.4.174, 4.1.145) - a sense of 'take out' found nowhere else in Shakespeare. No similar phrase occurs in Cinthio; but Chappuys adds to the Italian passage dealing with Cassio's decision the phrase 'tirer le patron' (copy the pattern)."

It seems evident, therefore, that Shakespeare found ways of echoing other languages while writing in English. It is a trait that English has yet to lose. More on the sources of Othello tomorrow.

The New Cambridge edition of Othello contains a brilliant introduction by its editor, Norman Sanders. From it, I learned most of the following: In 1850, John Wilson wrote a piece for Blackwood's Magazine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwood's_Magazine), in which he gave his theory of the "double-time scheme" in Othello. He noted that the first two acts depict real time - that they portray events in a period of time very close to what they would take to occur. But then everything changes. "Short time" is then used to keep a continuous flow of events, and "longer time" is used, primarily through the use of reference, to create a much larger temporal background. For example, the length of the marriage of Othello and Desdemona is hard to accurately ascertain. At some points, we are led to believe that they are newly wed, but at others, that their marriage has been going on for quite some time. And there are several other examples as well, involving virtually every major character in the play. Some critics have forwarded the theory that these inconsistencies are the result of Shakespeare's method of working on this particular play: i.e. that he wrote the final three acts first, followed by the first two, and that this led to the incongruity. It's possible, certainly. Others, like Fintan O'Toole, have postulated that Shakespeare did it deliberately, for reasons related to the play's thematic content. I'll summarize that position, and give a few thoughts of my own, tomorrow.