In particular, the long vowel sounds 'shifted' upwards. The Great Vowel Shift was the transformation of the old vowel sounds of Early Modern English into the new vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u) that we know today in Modern English. Philocrites: Friday Middle English recipe blogging. The Great Vowel Shift - a term coined by linguist Otto Jespersen in his book A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (1909) - refers to changes in the pronunciation of vowel sounds in the English language. Shakepeare took advantage of this situation by using a lot of wordplay that incorporated the Great Vowel Shift within many of his famous puns. The Great Vowel Shift is about long vowels, which were raised (o u, e.g. I'll explain below that some such idea has been proposed for major trends in language, such as the Great Vowel Shift which took place in English from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century.īut the one example I cited of language being naturally selected - the theory that the Great Vowel Shift might have a functional explanation - is not of this type. 2 A major factor separating Middle English from Modern English is known as the Great Vowel Shift, a radical change in pronunciation during the 15 th. The Great Vowel Shift (GVS) was a process by which the long stressed vowels of our language took a 'clockwise tum in the height dimension' (Schane, 1973) in the transition from Middle to Modem English. It's pronounced more like "yuleteeth"* than "yuletide", but you can blame that on the Great Vowel Shift. The key pronunciation features of the Great Vowel Shift are the following: Middle English (ME) 'a' is pronounced as the 'a' in 'father. Those who have learned about the Great Vowel Shift - or perhaps heard it in action, thanks to reconstructed audio of earlier varieties of English - may enjoy wearing the T-shirt which proudly proclaims of its wearer "I Survived The Great Vowel Shift." Wymondham (Norfolk) and Wymondley (Hertfordshire) | Linguism | Language BlogĬalled the Great Vowel Shift, the English language changed from the way it had been for generations.Īlex Abella: Obama's Legacy: The Death of the GOP Menzer and Andrea S.This must all have happened before the Great Vowel Shift started to apply. Great Vowel Shift website ( ) created by Melinda J.You must have Quicktime to hear the sounds on this site. The Great Vowel Shift was studied by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860 - 1943). The Great Vowel Shift Please email us with your comments and suggestions. This means that the vowel in the English word make was originally pronounced as in modern English father, but has now become a diphthong, as it is today in standard pronunciations of British English (see Received Pronunciation) the vowel in feet was originally pronounced as a long Latin-like e sound the vowel in mice was originally what the vowel in feet is now the vowel in boot was originally a long Latin-like o sound and the vowel in mouse was originally what the vowel in moose is now, but has now become a diphthong. The principal changes are roughly the following, though of course exceptions occur, the transitions were not always complete, and there were sometimes accompanying changes in orthography:. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height and one of them came to the front. Originally, they were essentially the same as those found in Latin. The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English and Modern English. a vowel shift), which began in the 15th century and was mostly completed in the 16th century, although it continued for some time after that. The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the long vowels of the English language ( i.e.
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