-
Great Vowel Shift
The
Great Vowel Shift
was a
major change in the
pronunciation
of the
English language
that
took place in
Southern
England
between 1450 and
1750.
[1]
The Great Vowel
Shift was first
studied by
Otto Jespersen
(1860
–
1943), a
Danish
linguist
and
Anglicist
, who coined the
term.
Effect
The
values of the long vowels form the main difference
between the pronunciation
of
Middle English
and
Modern English
, and the
Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical
events marking the separation of Middle
and Modern English. Previous to the Great Vowel
Shift, these vowels had
Italian
and
liturgical
Latin
.
However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two
highest long vowels became
diphthongs
,
and
the other five underwent an increase
in
tongue height
with one of
them coming to the front.
The principal changes (with the vowels
shown in
IPA
) are roughly as
follows.
[3]
However,
exceptions occur, the transitions were
not always complete, and there were sometimes
accompanying changes in
orthography
:
?
Middle
English
[a?]
(
ā
) fronted to
[??]
and then raised to
[
??]
,
[e?]
and in many dialects
diphthongised in
Modern
English
to
[e
?
]
(as in
m
a
ke
).
Since
Old English
ā
had mutated
to
[
??]
in Middle
English, Old English
ā
does
not correspond to the Modern English
diphthong
[e
?
]
,
but was rather formed from the lengthening of
short
a
in open syllables.
?
?
?
Middle English
[
??]
raised to
[e?]
and then to modern
English
[i?]
(as in
b
ea
k
).
Middle English
[e?]
raised to Modern
English
[i?]
(as in
f
ee
t
).
Middle English
[i?]
diphthongised to
[
?
i]
,
which was most likely followed by
[
??
]
and
finally Modern English
[a
?
]
(as in
m
i
ce
).
?
Middle English
[
??]
raised to
[o?]
, and in the eighteenth
century this became Modern
English
[o
?
]
or
[
??
]
(as in
b
oa
t
).
?
?
Middle English
[o?]
raised to Modern
English
[u?]
(as in
b
oo
t
).
Middle English
[u?]
was diphthongised in
most environments to
[
?
u]
,
and this was
followed by
[
??
]
,
and then Modern English
[a
?
]
(as in
m
ou
se
)
in the eighteenth century.
Before
labial consonants
, this
shift did not occur, and
[u?]
remains as
in
s
ou
p
and
r
oo
m
(its Middle English spelling was
roum
).
This means
that the vowel in the English word
date
was in Middle English
pronounced
[a?]
(similar to modern
dart
);
the vowel in
feet
was
[e?]
(similar to
modern
fate
); the
vowel in
wipe
was
[i?]
(similar to modern
weep
); the vowel in
boot
was
[o?]
(similar to
modern
boat
); and
the vowel in
house
was
[u?]
(similar to
modern
whose
).
The
effects of the shift were not entirely uniform,
and differences in degree of vowel shifting
can sometimes be detected in regional
dialects both in written and in spoken English.
In
Northern
English
, the long
back
vowels
remained unaffected, the long
front vowels
having
undergone an earlier
shift.
[4]
In
Scotland
,
Scots
differed in its input
to the Great Vowel Shift,
the long
vowels
[i?]
,
[e?]
and
[a?]
shifted to
[ei]
,
[i?]
and
[e?]
by the
Middle Scots
period,
[o?]
had
shifted
to
[??]
in
Early
Scots
and
[u?]
remained unaffected.
[5]
[
edit
]
Exce
ptions
Not all words underwent certain
phases of the Great Vowel Shift.
ea
in particular did not
take
the step to
[i?]
in several words, such
as
great,
break,
steak
,
greaves
,
swear
,
and
bear
. The
vowels
mentioned in words like break or steak underwent
the process of shortening, due to
the
plosives following the vowels. Obviously that
happened before the great vowel shift took
place.
[r]
which
was still pronouned unlike today. Their
quality must have been like in modern
Scottish or Irish English. This also affected and
changed the vowel quality. As a
consequence, it prevented the effects of the Great
Vowel
Shift. Other examples are
father
, which failed to
become
[
??]
/
ea
, and
broad
, which failed to
become
[o?]
(except when used as a proper noun, as in
Eli
Broad
room
retains
its
older medieval pronunciation as
m
is a labial consonant, but
its spelling makes it appear as
though
it was originally pronounced with
[o?]
. However, its Middle
English spelling was
roum
,
and was only altered after the vowel
shift had taken place.
Shortening of
long vowels at various stages produced further
complications.
ea
is again a
good example, shortening commonly
before
coronal consonants
such as
d
and
th
,
thus:
dead
,
head
,
threat
,
wealth
etc. (This is known
as the
bred-bread merger
.)
oo
was
shortened
from
[u?]
to
[
?
]
in
many cases before
k
,
d
and less commonly
t
,
thus
book
,
foot
,
good
etc. Some cases
occurred before the change of
[
?
]
to
[
?
]
:
blood
,
flood
.
Similar,
yet older shortening occurred for some instances
of
ou
:
country
,
could
.
Note that some
loanwords
, such as
soufflé
and
Umlaut
, have retained a
spelling from their
origin language
that may seem similar to the previous examples;
but, since they were not a
part of
English at the time of the Great Vowel Shift, they
are not actually exceptions to the
shift.
Other languages
German
and
Dutch
also experienced sound
changes resembling the first stage of the Great
Vowel Shift.
元音大推移
维基百科，自由的百科全书
元音大推
移
（
英文
：
G
reat Vowel Shift
）是
英语发展史
上的一次主要的
语音
转
变
，开始于
14
世纪
，大体完成于
15
世纪
中期，由大都会和港口城市向乡村的
扩
散一直持续到
16
世纪
。转变主要体现在
英语长元音
的变化上。
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