The Great Vowel Shift

This was the starting

point. The Great Vowel Shift

can be characterized as a chain shift. A chain shift is a type of phonetic change where several

phonemes change along a scale. The GVS was a shift with a general drift upwards. It can be seen as

a multi-stage process where the stages overlap, and they do not occur in all dialect simultaneously.

It was no uniform process, but a series of local developments over time with the result that vowels

were either raised or became diphthongs.

[1] Stage one probably set the entire sound shift in motion. It involved two individual changes: the

raising and diphthongization of /i:/ to /əi/; and the raising and diphthongization of /u:/ to /əu/.

So, the two high vowel became diphthongs.

In the works by John Hart (English Pronunciation Dictionary, 1570) this stage of the GVS was well

documented. Words like advertised, high, exercise were pronounced with a high front vowel [i:];

whereas words such as I, like, write, desire involved the diphthong [əi]. Furthermore, in words

spelled with a –y, mostly as a suffix, Hart drew a similar distinction: adverbs ending on –ly involved

[e:], while words such as my, why, by where pronounced with the diphthong [əi].

Middle English words that involved long [o:] were more consistently changed into words with Early

Modern English diphthong, [əu].

[2] When e: and o:, the two high vowels, had become diphthongs, their high vowel position became

free. Thus, the mid-high vowels, e: and oː (as in /gre:n/ or /fo:d/) were raised to i: and u:

(becoming /gri:n and /fu:d/), and filled that gap.

Consequently, Middle English words like meet, speak, or see realised with [e:], now involved [i:].

Similarly, Middle English loose and moon that involved [o:] were realised with long [u:] in Early

Modern English.

It is not clear though, whether the raising of e: and o: occurred after stage one or parallel to. As a

consequence, there is also disagreement about the kind of chain shift. Is it a drag chain, where

stage one occurred first and then stage two was dragged to follow; or is it a push chain, where

stage two and one may have happened simultaneously?

[3] Stage three classifies the fronting of Middle English’s central vowel /a:/ (as in /’ma:kən/) to

mid-low /ɛ:/. /’ma:kən/ became first /’mæ:kən/ and eventually became /’mɛ:k/.

According to John Hart’s suggestions concerning the pronunciation of English in the sixteenth

century, this stage was presumably not as striking as the other stages. Many long /a:/ words kept

long /a:/ for a relatively long time, for example the word /a:ni/, present English /ɛni/.

[4] Since /a:/ was transformed to /ɛ:/ in stage three, Middle English Words which involved mid-

ɛ:t/,

low /ɛ:/ like /’m were now pushed to /’me:t/. At the same time, in the back region, word

pronounced with mid-low /ɔː/ like /gɔːt/ were arranged to /go:t/, probably as an effect of pattern

congruity.

[5] At stage five, stage four /e:/ was raised to /i:/. As a consequence, Middle English /e:/ occupied

the position of the high front vowel /i:/, whose position had become available due to the

diphthongization of /i:/ at stage one.

Sometimes, this stage is referred to as the “meet-meat” merger (meet and meat are both

pronounced /’mi:t/), because prior to this stage of the GVS, meat and meet has distinct qualities.

This merger created a large set of homophones, like piece/peace; see/sea; tee/tea, etc.

[6] This stage almost seems like a repetition of stage four, however, the mid vowel /ɛ:/ was raised

from /a:/ in stage three. In other words, this is the new /ɛ:/ after the GVS, so /’ma:kən/

became /’mæ:kən/ and eventually /’mɛ:k/. But over time, this new vowel was even raised further

to /e:/, so /’mɛ:k/ became /’me:k/.

In many varieties of present day English it was even diphthongised to /ei/, so /’me:k/

became /’meik/. We represent this particular effect in grey at stage seven.

[7] This superficially final stage did not mark the end of the development of the English vowels. The

two new diphthongs, /ai/ and /au/, changed even further, so /’təidə/ and /həus/ became /taidə/

and /haus/.

So, we can assume the following end product after the completion of the Great Vowel Shift:

However, not all varieties of present day English underwent this change in the same way. There are

varieties where the lowering of the diphthongal nuclear stopped in the centre, for example, in

Canadian English or the northern varieties of British English.

In Canadian English, this effect is known as “Canadian Raising”: Most commonly, the shift affects /

aɪ/ or /aʊ/, or both, when they are pronounced before voiceless consonants (therefore, in words

like price and clout, respectively, but not in prize and cloud). In the US, the raised pronunciation of

about [əˈbɐʊt~əˈbəʊt] is a stereotype of Canadian English; Americans often jokingly pronounce it as

a boot to imitate a Canadian accent.

On the other hand, there are varieties of present day English were the diphthongs were re-

monophthongised. The effect in the southern states of North America of American English is

referred to as glide deletion of /ay/. It occurs in words such as why, ride, wide, while. In Midland

and Northern dialects, this is a two-part diphthong, that begins with the vowel of "ah" and moves

towards the [i] of see. In most Southern speech, this is a long, steady monophthong. It shifts slightly

towards the front of the mouth, so that wide is not quite the same as wad and ride is not the same

as rod. In most of the South, this happens much less often before the voiceless consonants, p, t, k,

f, s, and is considered a mark of less educated speech to say nahss, whaht, rahss, instead of nice,

white, rice. In the Inland South and Texas South, the frequency of glide deletion is very high for all

words, even among highly educated speakers. In the areas bordering the South, this glide deletion

will take place only before l, r, or n, as in mile, tire and iron.

In many varieties of present day English, some monophthongs were diphthongised later. This is what

happened to the /o:/ in present day English after 1800.

In BE, the [gɔːt] > [go:t] > [gəʊt] change occurred, and the original monophthong became

• clearly diphthongised as an upgliding diphthong;

In AE, this process was not as radical as in BE, so we have something like [gout].

•

Irregularities

The GVS did not influence all dialects of English. In the northern BE varieties, for example, the

diphthongs /ai/ and /au/ were not lowered that much (you still say something like “me hus” in the

North of England). Moreover, the GVS did not affect all words of a particular vowel class; in fact,

two vowel classes seem to be relatively inconsistent.

One of them is the so-called <ea> class. According to the stages of the shift, the vowel /ɛ:/ should

have first be raised to /eː/ and later to /i:/. This happened especially with words spelled with –ea,

for example, [‘rɛzən] (i.e. reason) became [‘rezən] and later [‘rizən]. But many –ea words did not

follow this change. Here are some examples:

In this group, we have a vowel before –r. This position was exceptional. Between

wear [swɛr] Old English and Middle English, the short /e/ was lengthened to /ɛ:/, but never

bear [bɛr] before –r.

wear [wɛr]

great [gret] This group does not seem to follow a particular pattern. So, we have something

like [gret], [brek] and [stek], but leak [lik] and streak [strik]. Yet in two of our

break [brek] examples, the vowel appears after a consonant plus –r cluster, so that might be

the reason.

steak [stek] This group exhibits words with a vowel before coronal consonants (coronal =

dead [dɛd] place of articulation involving the blade of the tongue: alveolar to palatal),

head [hɛd] whose vowel was shortened to /i:/. Yet this pattern is not regular either: take

the base form of the verb read and compare that with read in the past tense

read (PST) [rɛd] form.

threat [θrɛt]

wealth [wɛlθ]

The second class is the <oo> class. The <oo> class involves words such as loop, soon and moon;

however, a number of words spelled with double –o fail to alter to /u:/, but were realised with the

short /u/, particularly before [k] and [d], as in book [‘bʊk], foot [‘fʊt], and good [‘gʊd].

Furthermore, in certain cases the double –o and spelling patterns such as “ou”, developed to /ʌ/

like in [‘blʌd] and country ['kʌntrɪ].

Further exceptions contain words such as broad, whose vowel was not affected by the GVS at all, it

is still pronounced as in the Middle English variant ['brɔ:d].

Reasons

Now, the reasons for the GVS have not been completely clarified. Some theories say that the mass

immigration to South England after the pandemic Black Death (1348 onwards) and the resulting

social mobility could be a reason. Afterwards, the numerous dialects with their different vowel

sounds and the emerging middle class in London altered the speech into a new standard

pronunciation, which finally disseminated to other regions.

This rapid spreading and mixing of dialects was even accelerated by the development of the

printing press in the 15 century, which enabled a higher amount of education and literacy in the

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English society.

Another reason could be language contact. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it

is typical for their languages to influence each other. The mediaeval aristocracy, that is the ruling

class of England, had spoken French or Latin, but changed to English in the 15 century.

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On the one hand, their prestige accent was presumably influenced by the French language and

caused some new pronunciations. The shift affected words of both native ancestry and borrowings

from French and Latin. But on the other hand, there were several conflicts between England and

France at this time. England could have wanted to isolate itself more from France and therefore

confirm its own language. Furthermore, King Henry the VIII wanted to separate England from Rome

and thus triggered growing patriotism and thus language independence.

In summary, we can say the GVS was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language

that took place in England between 1350 and 1700 and even beyond. It affected the Middle English

long vowels and consisted of several stages, which in some cases took place simultaneously, and

together can be defined as a “Chain Shift”.

Even though the reasons for the Great Vowel Shift are not entirely clear, one consequence can be

seen today: since the English orthography did by a large not change during the GVS, we can now

explain the relatively great discrepancy between present day English pronunciation and spelling.

Words such as tide, moon or make, to name a few, reflect their pronunciation prior to the GVS, but

not their present day English phonetic value. Knowing the principles o