Editing Great Vowel Shift (section)

==Causes==
The causes of the Great Vowel Shift are unknown<ref>{{cite book |last1=Silverman |first1=Daniel |last2=Silverman |first2=Daniel Doron |title=Neutralization |date=16 August 2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-19671-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9py8VQezwMC&dq=great+shift+vowel+reason&pg=PA68 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|68}} and have been a source of intense scholarly debate; as yet, there is no firm consensus. The greatest changes occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, and their origins are at least partly phonetic.

* '''Population migration''': This is the most accepted theory{{fact|date=November 2024}}; some scholars have argued that the rapid migration of peoples to the southeast of England from the east and central Midlands of England<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crystal |first1=David |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language |date=29 November 2018 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-42359-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PBnCDwAAQBAJ&dq=great+vowel+shift+central+midlands&pg=PA55 |language=en}}</ref> following the [[Black Death]] produced a clash of dialects that made Londoners distinguish their speech from the immigrants who came from other English cities by changing their vowel system.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Montgomery |first1=Martin |last2=Durant |first2=Alan |last3=Fabb |first3=Nigel |last4=Furniss |first4=Tom |last5=Mills |first5=Sara |title=Ways of Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature |date=24 January 2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-28025-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=isd_AgAAQBAJ&dq=great+vowel+shift+londoners&pg=PA56 |access-date=14 February 2023 |language=en}}</ref>
* '''French loanwords''': Others argue that the influx of [[French language|French]] [[loanwords]] was a major factor in the shift.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Biography of the English Language |author1=Millward, C. M. |author2=Hayes, Mary |publisher=Wadsworth Publishing |year=2011 |edition=3rd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nC4_1z292jUC |isbn=978-0495906414 |page=250}}</ref> 
* '''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 of [[hypercorrection]] may have started a shift that unintentionally resulted in vowel pronunciations that are inaccurate imitations of French pronunciations.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of English |editor1=Nevalainen, Terttu|editor2=Traugott, Elizabeth Closs |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v92EdN2fLWkC |page=794|isbn=9780199996384}}</ref> 
* '''War with France''': An opposing theory states that the [[Anglo-French Wars|wars with France]] and general anti-French sentiments caused hypercorrection deliberately to make English sound less like French.<ref>{{cite web |title=Great Vowel Shift — part 3 |date=Aug 3, 2010 |author=Asya Pereltsvaig |author-link=Asya Pereltsvaig |url=http://www.languagesoftheworld.info/historical-linguistics/great-vowel-shift-part-3.html |website= a cat!}}</ref>