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Great Vowel Shift

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pronunciation change in English between 1350 and 1700

History and description of
English pronunciation
Historical stages
General development
Development of vowels
Development of consonants
Variable features
Related topics
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Diagram of the changes in English vowels during the Great Vowel Shift

TheGreat Vowel Shift was a series ofpronunciation changes in the vowels of theEnglish language that took place primarily between the 1400s and 1600s[1] (the transition period fromMiddle English toEarly Modern English), beginning in southern England and having influenced effectively all dialects of English today. Through this extensivevowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle Englishlong vowels altered. Some consonant sounds also changed, specifically becoming silent; the termGreat Vowel Shift is occasionally used to include these consonantal changes.[2][3]

The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries; the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how theyrepresent pronunciations.[4]

Notable early researchers of the Great Vowel Shift includeAlexander J. Ellis, inOn Early English Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to Shakspere and Chaucer (1869–1889);Henry Sweet, inA History of English Sounds (1874, revised edition 1888);Karl Luick from Vienna, in a series of works dating from 1892 andUntersuchungen zur englischen Lautgeschichte (1896); andOtto Jespersen (aDanishlinguist andAnglicist) who first produced a diagram for it and who in Part I (1909) ofA Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles coined the term.[nb 1][5]

Causes

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The causes of the Great Vowel Shift are unknown[6]: 68  and have been a source of intense scholarly debate; as yet, there is no firm consensus.[7] The greatest changes occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, and their origins are at least partly phonetic.

  • Population migration: Some scholars have argued that the rapid migration of people to the southeast of England from theEast of England and theEast Midlands following theBlack Death[8] produced a clash of dialects, prompting Londoners to distinguish their speech from that of immigrants arriving from other English cities by changing their vowel system.[9]
  • French loanwords: Others argue that the influx ofFrenchloanwords was a major factor in the shift.[10]
  • Middle-class hypercorrection: Yet others assert that because of the increasing prestige of French pronunciations among the middle classes (perhaps related to the English aristocracy's switching from French to English around this time), a process ofhypercorrection may have started a shift that unintentionally resulted in vowel pronunciations that are inaccurate imitations of French pronunciations.[11]
  • War with France: An opposing theory states that thewars with France and general anti-French sentiments caused hypercorrection deliberately to make English sound less like French.[12]

Overall changes

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The main difference between the pronunciation ofMiddle English in the year 1400 andModern English (Received Pronunciation) is in the value of thelong vowels.

Long vowels in Middle English had "continental" values, much like those inItalian andStandard German; in standard Modern English, they have entirely different pronunciations.[13] The differing pronunciations of English vowel letters do not stem from the Great Shift as such but rather because English spelling did not adapt to the changes.

German had undergonevowel changes quite similar to the Great Shift slightly earlier. Still, the spelling was changed accordingly (e.g.,Middle High Germanbīzen → modern Germanbeißen "to bite").

WordVowel pronunciation
Late Middle English
before the GVS		Modern English
after the GVS
bite[iː][aɪ]
meet[eː][iː]
meat[ɛː]
serene
mate[aː][eɪ]
out[uː][aʊ]
boot[oː][uː]
boat[ɔː][oʊ]
stone
WordDiphthong pronunciation
Late Middle English
before the GVS		Modern English
after the GVS
day[æɪ][eɪ]
they
boy[ɔɪ][ɔɪ]
point[ʊɪ]
law[ɑʊ][ɔː]
knew[eʊ][juː]
dew[ɛʊ]
know[ɔʊ][oʊ]

This timeline uses representative words to show the main vowel changes between late Middle English in the year 1400 andReceived Pronunciation in the mid-20th century. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the lower half of the table, between 1400 and 1600–1700.

The changes after 1700 are not considered part of the Great Vowel Shift. Pronunciation is given in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet:[14]

Details

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Middle English vowel system

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Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels,/iːeːɛːaːɔːoːuː/. The vowels occurred in, for example, the wordsmite,meet,meat,mate,boat,boot, andbout, respectively.

Southern Middle English
vowel system
frontback
close/iː/:mite/uː/:bout
close-mid/eː/:meet/oː/:boot
open-mid/ɛː/:meat/ɔː/:boat
open/aː/:mate—

The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from those in Modern English:

  • Longi inmite was pronounced as/iː/, so Middle Englishmite sounded similar to Modern Englishmeet.
  • Longe inmeet was pronounced as/eː/, so Middle Englishmeet sounded similar to modern Australian Englishmet but pronounced longer.
  • Longa inmate was pronounced as/aː/, with a vowel similar to the broada ofma.
  • Longo inboot was pronounced as/oː/, so Middle Englishboot sounded similar to modern Southern England, Australian and New Zealand Englishbought.

In addition, Middle English had:

  • Long/ɛː/ inmeat, like Received Pronunciationair, or modern shorte inmet but pronounced longer.
  • Long/ɔː/ inboat, with a vowel similar toaw in modern Northern England Englishlaw, or like modern Southern England, Australian and New Zealand Englishbot but pronounced longer.
  • Long/uː/ inbout, similar to Modern Englishboot.

Changes

[edit]

After around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation as follows:

These changes occurred over several centuries and can be divided into two phases. The first phase affected the close vowels/iːuː/ and the close-mid vowels/eːoː/:/eːoː/ were raised to/iːuː/, and/iːuː/ became the diphthongs/eiou/ or/əiəu/.[15] The second phase affected the open vowel/aː/ and the open-mid vowels/ɛːɔː/:/aːɛːɔː/ were raised, in most cases changing to/eːiːoː/.[16]

The Great Vowel Shift changed vowels withoutmerger, so Middle English before the vowel shift had the same number of vowelphonemes as Early Modern English after the vowel shift.

After the Great Vowel Shift, some vowel phonemes began merging. Immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels ofmeet andmeat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as/miːt/.

However, during the 16th and the 17th centuries, there were many different mergers, and some mergers can be seen in individual Modern English words likegreat, which is pronounced with the vowel/eɪ/ as inmate rather than the vowel/iː/ as inmeat.[17]

This is a simplified picture of the changes that happened between late Middle English (late ME),Early Modern English (EModE), and today's English (ModE). Pronunciations in 1400, 1500, 1600, and 1900 are shown.[13] To hear recordings of the sounds, click the phonetic symbols.

WordVowel pronunciationSound file
late MEEModEModE
140015001600by 1900
bite/iː/ⓘ/ei//ɛi//aɪ/ⓘ
out/uː/ⓘ/ou//ɔu//aʊ/ⓘ
meet/eː/ⓘ/iː/ⓘ
boot/oː/ⓘ/uː/ⓘ
meat/ɛː/ⓘ/eː/ⓘ/iː/ⓘ
boat/ɔː/ⓘ/oː/ⓘ/oʊ/ⓘ
mate/aː/ⓘ/æː//ɛː/ⓘ/eɪ/ⓘ

Beforelabial consonants and also after/j/,[18]/uː/ did not shift, and/uː/ remains as insoup.

First phase

[edit]

The first phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English close-mid vowels/eːoː/, as inbeet andboot, and the close vowels/iːuː/, as inbite andout. The close-mid vowels/eːoː/ became close/iːuː/, and the close vowels/iːuː/ became diphthongs. The first phase was completed in 1500, meaning that by that time, words likebeet andboot had lost their Middle English pronunciation and were pronounced with the same vowels as in Modern English. The wordsbite andout were pronounced with diphthongs, but not the same diphthongs as in Modern English.[15]

First phase of the Great Vowel Shift
WordVowel pronunciation
14001550
bite/iː//ɛi/
meet/eː//iː/
out/uː//ɔu/
boot/oː//uː/

Scholars agree that the Middle English close vowels/iːuː/ became diphthongs around 1500, but disagree about what diphthongs they changed to. According to Lass, the wordsbite andout after diphthongisation were pronounced as/beit/ and/out/, similar to American Englishbait/beɪt/ andoat/oʊt/. Later, the diphthongs/eiou/ shifted to/ɛiɔu/, then/əiəu/, and finally to Modern English/aɪaʊ/.[15] This sequence of events is supported by the testimony oforthoepists before Hodges in 1644.

However, many scholars such asDobson (1968),Kökeritz (1953), andCercignani (1981) argue for theoretical reasons that, contrary to what 16th-century witnesses report, the vowels/iːuː/ were immediately centralised and lowered to/əiəu/.[nb 2]

Evidence from Northern English and Scots (see below) suggests that the close-mid vowels/eːoː/ were the first to shift. As the Middle English vowels/eːoː/ were raised towards/iːuː/, they forced the original Middle English/iːuː/ out of place and caused them to become diphthongs/eiou/. This type of sound change, in which one vowel's pronunciation shifts so that it is pronounced like a second vowel, and the second vowel is forced to change its pronunciation, is called apush chain.[19]

However, according to professorJürgen Handke, for some time, there was a phonetic split between words with the vowel/iː/ and the diphthong/əi/, in words where the Middle English/iː/ shifted to the Modern English/aɪ/. For an example,high was pronounced with the vowel/iː/, andlike andmy were pronounced with the diphthong/əi/.[20] Therefore, for logical reasons, the close vowels/iːuː/ could have diphthongised before the close-mid vowels/eːoː/ raised. Otherwise,high would probably rhyme withthee rather thanmy. This type of chain is called adrag chain.

Second phase

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The second phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English open vowel/aː/, as inmate, and the Middle English open-mid vowels/ɛːɔː/, as inmeat andboat. Around 1550, Middle English/aː/ was raised to/æː/. Then, after 1600, the new/æː/ was raised to/ɛː/, with the Middle English open-mid vowels/ɛːɔː/ raised to close-mid/eːoː/.[16]

Second phase of the Great Vowel Shift
WordVowel pronunciation
140015501640
meat/ɛː//ɛː//eː/
mate/aː//aː/,/æː//ɛː/
boat/ɔː//ɔː//oː/

Later mergers

[edit]

During the first and the second phases of the Great Vowel Shift, long vowels were shifted without merging with other vowels, but after the second phase, several vowels merged. The later changes also involved the Middle English diphthong/ɛj/, as inday, which often (but not always, see thepane-pain merger) monophthongised to/ɛː/, and merged with Middle English/aː/ as inmate or/ɛː/ as inmeat.[17]

During the 16th and 17th centuries, several different pronunciation variants existed among different parts of the population for words likemeet,meat,mate, andday. Different pairs or trios of words were merged in pronunciation in each pronunciation variant. Four different pronunciation variants are shown in the table below. The fourth pronunciation variant gave rise to Modern English pronunciation. In Modern English,meet andmeat are merged in pronunciation and both have the vowel/iː/, andmate andday are merged with the diphthong/eɪ/, which developed from the 16th-century long vowel/eː/.[17]

Meet-meat mergers
WordMiddle
English		1500s pronunciation variants
1234
meet/eː//iː//iː//iː//iː/
meat/ɛː//ɛː//eː//eː/
day/ɛj//ɛː//eː/
mate/aː//æː/

Modern English typically has themeet–meat merger: bothmeet andmeat are pronounced with the vowel/iː/. Words likegreat andsteak, however, have merged withmate and are pronounced with the vowel/eɪ/, which developed from the/eː/ shown in the table above. Before historic/r/ some of these vowels merged with/ə/,/ɛ/,/ɪ/,/ʊ/

Northern English and Scots

[edit]

The Great Vowel Shift affected other dialects and the standard English of southern England but in different ways. InNorthern England, the shift did not operate on the longback vowels because they had undergone an earlier shift.[21] Similarly, thedialect inScotland had a different vowel system before the Great Vowel Shift, as/oː/ had shifted to/øː/ inEarly Scots. In the Scots equivalent of the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels/iː/,/eː/ and/aː/ shifted to/ei/,/iː/ and/eː/ by theMiddle Scots period and/uː/ remained unaffected.[22]

The first step in the Great Vowel Shift in Northern and Southern English is shown in the table below. The Northern English developments of Middle English/iː,eː/ and/oː,uː/ were different from Southern English. In particular, the Northern English vowels/iː/ inbite,/eː/ infeet, and/oː/ inboot shifted, while the vowel/uː/ inhouse did not. These developments below fall under the label "older" to refer to Scots and a moreconservative and increasingly rural Northern sound,[23] while "younger" refers to a more mainstream Northern sound largely emerging just since the twentieth century.

WordVowel
Middle EnglishModern English
Scots/ Northern (older)Northern (younger)Southern
bite/iː//ɛj//aj//ɑj/
feet/eː//iː//iː//ɪj/
house/uː//uː//ɐw/~/aw//aw/
boot/oː//iː//yː/~/uː//ʉw/

The vowel systems of Northern and Southern Middle English immediately before the Great Vowel Shift were different in one way. In Northern Middle English, the back close-mid vowel/oː/ inboot had already shifted to front/øː/ (a sound change known asfronting), like the longö in Germanhören[ˈhøːʁən]ⓘ "hear". Thus, Southern English had a back close-mid vowel/oː/, but Northern English did not:[19]

Southern Middle English
vowel system
frontback
closeiːuː
close-mideːoː
open-midɛːɔː
openaː—
Northern Middle English
vowel system
frontback
closeiːuː
close-mideː,øː—
open-midɛːɔː
openaː—

In Northern and Southern English, the first step of the Great Vowel Shift raised the close-mid vowels to become close. Northern Middle English had two close-mid vowels –/eː/ infeet and/øː/ inboot – which were raised to/iː/ and/yː/. Later on[when?], Northern English/yː/ changed to/iː/ in many dialects (though not in all, seePhonological history of Scots § Vowel 7), so thatboot has the same vowel asfeet. Southern Middle English had two close-mid vowels –/eː/ infeet and/oː/ inboot – which were raised to/iː/ and/uː/.

In Southern English, the close vowels/iː/ inbite and/uː/ inhouse shifted to become diphthongs, but in Northern English,/iː/ inbite shifted but/uː/ inhouse did not.

If the vowel systems at the time of the Great Vowel Shift caused the difference between the Northern and Southern vowel shifts,/uː/ did not shift because there was no back mid vowel/oː/ in Northern English. In Southern English, shifting of/oː/ to/uː/ could have caused diphthongisation of original/uː/, but because Northern English had no back close-mid vowel/oː/ to shift, the back close vowel/uː/ did not diphthongise.

See also

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Explanatory notes

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  1. ^Jespersen writes "the great vowel-shift": with a hyphen, and not capitalized.Jespersen, Otto (1961) [1909].A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part 1: Sounds and Spellings. London: George Allen & Unwin. pp. 231–247.
  2. ^Centralizing to /ɨi ɨu/ and then lowering to /əi əu/ argued by Stockwell (1961).

Sources

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Citations

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  1. ^Wells, John C. (1982),Accents of English: Volume 1,Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp. 184–8,ISBN 0-521-22919-7.
  2. ^Stockwell, Robert (2002)."How Much Shifting Actually Occurred in the Historical English Vowel Shift?"(PDF). In Minkova, Donka; Stockwell, Robert (eds.).Studies in the History of the English Language: A Millennial Perspective. Mouton de Gruyter.ISBN 3-11-017368-9. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2015-09-05. Retrieved2015-07-21.
  3. ^Wyld, H. C. (1957) [1914].A Short History of English.
  4. ^Denham, Kristin;Lobeck, Anne (2009).Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction. Cengage Learning. p. 89.ISBN 9781413015898.
  5. ^Giancarlo, Matthew (Fall 2001). "The rise and fall of the Great Vowel Shift? The changing ideological intersections of philology, historical linguistics, and literary history".Representations.76 (1):38–39.doi:10.1525/rep.2001.76.1.27.JSTOR 10.1525/rep.2001.76.1.27.
  6. ^Silverman, Daniel; Silverman, Daniel Doron (16 August 2012).Neutralization. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-19671-0.
  7. ^Miller, Nick (2022-05-17)."What Was the Great Vowel Shift and Why Did it Happen?".Discovery UK. Retrieved2025-07-09.
  8. ^Crystal, David (29 November 2018).The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-1-108-42359-5.
  9. ^Montgomery, Martin; Durant, Alan; Fabb, Nigel; Furniss, Tom; Mills, Sara (24 January 2007).Ways of Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature. Routledge.ISBN 978-1-134-28025-4. Retrieved14 February 2023.
  10. ^Millward, C. M.; Hayes, Mary (2011).A Biography of the English Language (3rd ed.). Wadsworth Publishing. p. 250.ISBN 978-0495906414.
  11. ^Nevalainen, Terttu; Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, eds. (2012).The Oxford Handbook of the History of English. Oxford University Press. p. 794.ISBN 9780199996384.
  12. ^Asya Pereltsvaig (Aug 3, 2010)."Great Vowel Shift — part 3".a cat!.
  13. ^abLass 2000, p. 72.
  14. ^Wheeler, L Kip."Middle English consonant sounds"(PDF).Archived(PDF) from the original on 2004-07-25.
  15. ^abcLass 2000, pp. 80–83.
  16. ^abLass 2000, pp. 83–85.
  17. ^abcGörlach 1991, pp. 68–69.
  18. ^Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006).The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. p. 14.ISBN 3-11-016746-8.
  19. ^abLass 2000, pp. 74–77.
  20. ^Jürgen Handke (Dec 7, 2012)."PHY117 – The Great Vowel Shift".YouTube. The Virtual Linguistics Campus.
  21. ^Wales, K (2006).Northern English: a cultural and social history. Cambridge: Cambridge University. p. 48.
  22. ^Macafee, Caroline; Aitken, A. J.,A History of Scots to 1700, DOST, vol. 12, pp. lvi–lix
  23. ^Lass 2000, pp. 76.

General and cited sources

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  • Baugh, Alfred C.; Cable, Thomas (1993).A History of the English Language (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
  • Cable, Thomas (1983).A Companion to Baugh & Cable's History of the English Language. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
  • Cercignani, Fausto (1981).Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Dillon, George L."American English vowels". Archived fromthe original on 5 July 2013.Studying Phonetics on the Net.
  • Dobson, E. J. (1968).English Pronunciation 1500–1700 (2 vols) (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. (See vol. 2, 594–713 for discussion of long stressed vowels)
  • Freeborn, Dennis (1992).From Old English to Standard English: A Course Book in Language Variation Across Time. Ottawa, Canada:University of Ottawa Press.
  • Görlach, Manfred (1991).Introduction to Early Modern English.Cambridge University Press.
  • Kökeritz, Helge (1953).Shakespeare's Pronunciation. New Haven:Yale University Press.
  • Lass, Roger (2000). "Chapter 3: Phonology and Morphology". In Lass, Roger (ed.).The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III: 1476–1776. Cambridge University Press. pp. 56–186.
  • Millward, Celia (1996).A Biography of the English Language (2nd ed.). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.
  • Pyles, Thomas; Algeo, John (1993).The Origins and Development of the English Language (4th ed.). Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace & Co.
  • Rogers, William 'Bill'."A Simplified History of the Phonemes of English". Furman. Archived fromthe original on 2002-08-03.

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