ENG 121: Great Vowel Shift, Background Notes

October 8, 1997

								October 8, 1997
 
ENG 121: The Story of English - The Great Vowel Shift, and Other Mysteries: 
	Notes to accompany October 8 lecture.


I. The Basic Changes
 
	1. i and u become diphthongs (bite and house).
 
	2. o (pronounced [ o: ]) becomes u: (food, goose, lose, loose)
 
	3. o (pronounced [ ]) becomes o: (boat, alone, dome, goat, road) 
		(spelling 'o' or 'oa')
 
	4. e (pronounced [ e: ) becomes i: (green, field, yield, deed, meet, 
		reed, see) 
		Note: spelling indicated this sound ('ee', 'ie')
 
	5. e (pronounced [ : ] becomes e: (conceive, complete, meat, read, sea)
		Note: this sound was the OE [ae: ]		
		Note: spelling indicated this sound ('ea', 'e', 'ei')
 
	6. a became ae became [ : ] became [e: ] (Bake, take, dame, mate)
		Note: spelling indicated this sound (a)
 
	7. Upper class shift: [e: ] of (5) shift up to [i: ]. Most words in (5) 
		merged with (4), for social reasons
 
	8. Some words in (5) resisted this shift and are like (6) in sound 
		great, break, steak)! ([e: ])
		Note: We now have an 'ea' spelling for two different sounds. 
		(streak, steak)
 
 

II. ME Diphthongs to Pure Long Vowels
 
	9. au (as in cause, law) went to [ : ], then moved to [ : ] by end of 
		GVS 
 
	10. ai (as in mail, day) went to [ : ], then merged with the [a: ] shift
		to [ :], then both went to [e: ] in GVS. So we have the same 
		pronunciation for maid and made, coming 		
		from two different sources.
 
	11. u (as in soul, know), wne to [ : ], then went to [o: ] in GVS 
		(like (3) above); now 'soul' and 'know' sound like 'dome' and 
		'boat'
 
	12. iu ([iu]) become [ju: ], then becomes [u: ] (ewe, new, use, rude, 
		June) (Spelling patterns of 'ew', 'u')
 


III. Some long vowels became short vowels (mostly 'e' and 'o')
 


IV.  Most short vowels have not changed in any major way since early ME.