![]() ![]() However, during the 16th and the 17th centuries, there were many different mergers, and some mergers can be seen in individual Modern English words like great, which is pronounced with the vowel /eɪ/ as in mate rather than the vowel /iː/ as in meat. Immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels of meet and meat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as /miːt/. After the Great Vowel Shift, some vowel phonemes began merging. The Great Vowel Shift changed vowels without merger so Middle English before the vowel shift had the same number of vowel phonemes as Early Modern English after the vowel shift. ![]() The second phase affected the open vowel /aː/ and the open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/: /aː ɛː ɔː/ were raised, in most cases changing to /eː iː oː/. The first phase affected the close vowels /iː uː/ and the close-mid vowels /eː oː/: /eː oː/ were raised to /iː uː/, and /iː uː/ became the diphthongs /ei ou/ or /əi əu/. They occurred over several centuries and can be divided into two phases. The changes are known as the Great Vowel Shift. The two close vowels, /iː uː/, became diphthongs (vowel breaking), and the other five, /eː ɛː aː ɔː oː/, underwent an increase in tongue height (raising). ChangesĪfter around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation. In addition, Middle English had a long /ɛː/ in beat, like modern short e in bed but pronounced longer, and a long /ɔː/ in boat, like the vowel of law /lɔː/ in British English. Long i in bite was pronounced as /iː/ so Middle English bite sounded like Modern English beet /biːt/ long e in meet was pronounced as /eː/ so Middle English meet sounded similar to Modern English mate /meɪt/ long a in mate was pronounced as /aː/, with a vowel like Modern English ah in father /fɑːðər/ and long o in boot was pronounced as /oː/, similar to modern oa in American English boat /oʊ/. The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from their pronunciations in Modern English. The vowels occurred in the words bite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot and out. Pronunciation is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet: Middle English vowel systemīefore the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. The changes that happened after 1600 are not usually considered part of the Great Vowel Shift proper. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the lower half of the table, between 14. This timeline shows the main vowel changes that occurred between late Middle English in the year 1400 and Received Pronunciation in the mid-20th century by using representative words. The change in pronunciation is known as the Great Vowel Shift. Long vowels in Middle English had "continental" values, much like those in Italian and Standard German, but in standard Modern English, they have entirely different pronunciations. The main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English (Received Pronunciation) is in the value of the long vowels. Changes in vowel pronunciation in English poetry from the Middle English to Early Modern English period College Free University of BerlinĬourse History of English II: Historical Linguistics Grade 1,7 Author Lucia Maea (Author) Year 2018 Pages 9 Catalog Number V459039 ISBN (eBook) 9783668894310 ISBN (Book) 9783668894327 Language English Keywordsĩ.99 Quote paper Lucia Maea (Author), 2018, The Great Vowel Shift from Chaucer to Shakespeare.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term. ![]() Additionally, works of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare who serve as representatives for each period are being examined in order to proof the previously stated sound changes by means of English literature.ĭetails Title The Great Vowel Shift from Chaucer to Shakespeare. This paper investigates the very basic and commonly agreed on changes of the vowel system from ME to EModE. This period can also be referred to as the change from Middle English, hereafter ME, to Early Modern English, hereafter EModE. The Great Vowel Shift terms the change of sounds of long vowels in the English language within the period from 1400 to 1700. ![]()
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