A Goodreads user asked:

Is this written in really tricky old-English, like Shakespeare?

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9 years ago
9 answers

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Debra Petersen (Queen of Historical Fiction) No, it's not. It's fairly Modern English. In fact, Shakespeare is Modern English because you can read it and still understand most if not all the meaning. Middle English would be considered not modern because you have to study it to really comprehend it (before the great vowel movement and modern spelling), but Alice in Wonderland is more Modern English. Shakespeare (Elizabethan time period) and Alice in Wonderland (Victorian Children’s Literature) were written a few hundred years a part and therefore aren’t really comparable as far as modern dialect is concerned.

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Jen No, Shakespeare wrote in the late 1500s and early 1600s while Alice was written in like 1865. The language is very easy to read especially since Alice is also a children's book and Shakespeare wrote for adults.

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Ash Skelton Actually, this book is a little hard. Maybe a 9th to 10th grade read. Lewis Carroll loves to make words up and bend the English language. It is not like Shakespeare though. :)

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Paige Turner Not really, it isn't hard to understand either. You will understand all of the words as long as you have a basic sense of english. I began reading this when I was 8, and I didn't have much trouble with it. Even if you don't understand some of the words, I advise you not to quit, because this book is worth it.

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Shrimpy No. It's a very simple, whimsical style of writing similar to that of Edith Nesbit and J.M. Barrie. It's meant for children, being written for children, and I was able to read both books in a day.

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Sheryl Hill I was given the annotated version when I was 10 and the annotation was more fun than the story! All the wordplay and math puzzles! The political spoofs! It's just not worth reading otherwise--so much of the fun is lost!

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Kitsuko I am eight years old. I have trouble with some of the vocabulary in other books from the same time as "Alice" but I find this book to be very easy and fun to read.

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Vanessa Dargain No. It's Shakespearean English but the plot is kinda hard for a young reader because the text is highly symbolic and full of imagery . I'd recommend it to tween .

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