Great Vowel Shift

Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:English phonology topics Template:IPA notice

Diagram of the changes in English vowels during the Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was a series of pronunciation changes in the vowels of the English language that took place primarily between the 1400s and 1600s<ref>Template:Citation.</ref> (the transition period from Middle English to Early Modern English), beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this massive vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels altered. Some consonant sounds also changed, specifically becoming silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is occasionally used to include these consonantal changes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries; the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciations.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Notable early researchers of the Great Vowel Shift include Alexander J. Ellis, in On Early English Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to Shakspere and Chaucer (1869–1889); Henry Sweet, in A History of English Sounds (1874, revised edition 1888); Karl Luick, in a series of works dating from 1892 and Untersuchungen zur englischen Lautgeschichte (1896); and Otto Jespersen (a Danish linguist and Anglicist) who first produced a diagram for it and who in Part I (1909) of A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles coined the term.Template:Refn<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Causes

The causes of the Great Vowel Shift are unknown<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp 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 theoryTemplate:Fact; some scholars have argued that the rapid migration of peoples to the southeast of England from the east and central Midlands of England<ref>Template:Cite book</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>Template:Cite book</ref>
French loanwords: Others argue that the influx of French loanwords was a major factor in the shift.<ref>Template:Cite book</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>Template:Cite book</ref>
War with France: An opposing theory states that the wars with France and general anti-French sentiments caused hypercorrection deliberately to make English sound less like French.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Overall changes

The main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English (Received Pronunciation) is in the value of the long vowels.

Long vowels in Middle English had "continental" values, much like those in Italian and Standard German; in standard Modern English, they have entirely different pronunciations.Template:Sfn The differing pronunciations of English vowel letters do not stem from the Great Shift as such but rather because English spelling did not adapt to the changes.

German had undergone vowel changes quite similar to the Great Shift slightly earlier. Still, the spelling was changed accordingly (e.g., Middle High German Template:Lang → modern German Template:Lang "to bite").

Word	Vowel pronunciation
Word	Late Middle English before the GVS	Modern English after the GVS
bite	[iː]	[aɪ]
meet	[eː]	[iː]
meat	[ɛː]
serene	[ɛː]
mate	[aː]	[eɪ]
out	[uː]	[aʊ]
boot	[oː]	[uː]
boat	[ɔː]	[oʊ]
stone	[ɔː]	[oʊ]

Word	Diphthong pronunciation
Word	Late Middle English before the GVS	Modern English after the GVS
day	[æɪ]	[eɪ]
they	[æɪ]	[eɪ]
boy	[ɔɪ]	[ɔɪ]
point	[ʊɪ]	[ɔɪ]
law	[ɑʊ]	[ɔː]
knew	[eʊ]	[juː]
dew	[ɛʊ]	[juː]
know	[ɔʊ]	[oʊ]

This timeline uses representative words to show the main vowel changes between late Middle English in the year 1400 and Received Pronunciation in the mid-20th century. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the lower half of the table, between 1400 and 1600–1700.

The changes after 1700 are not considered part of the Great Vowel Shift. Pronunciation is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Great Vowel Shift.svg

Details

Middle English vowel system

Template:More citations needed section Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, Template:IPA. The vowels occurred in, for example, the words mite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot, and bout, respectively.

Southern Middle English
vowel system
	front	back
close	Template:IPA: mite	Template:IPA: bout
close-mid	Template:IPA: meet	Template:IPA: boot
open-mid	Template:IPA: meat	Template:IPA: boat
open	Template:IPA: mate	—

The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from those in Modern English:

Long i in mite was pronounced as Template:IPA, so Middle English mite sounded similar to Modern English meet.
Long e in meet was pronounced as Template:IPA, so Middle English meet sounded similar to modern Australian English met but pronounced longer.
Long a in mate was pronounced as Template:IPA, with a vowel similar to the broad a of ma.
Long o in boot was pronounced as Template:IPA, so Middle English boot sounded similar to modern Southern England, Australian and New Zealand English bought.

In addition, Middle English had:

Long Template:IPA in meat, like Received Pronunciation air, or modern short e in met but pronounced longer.
Long Template:IPA in boat, with a vowel similar to aw in modern Northern England English law, or like modern Southern England, Australian and New Zealand English bot but pronounced longer.
Long Template:IPA in bout, similar to Modern English boot.

Changes

After around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation as follows:

Diphthongisation – The two close vowels, Template:IPA, became diphthongs (vowel breaking).
Vowel raising – The other five, Template:IPA, underwent an increase in tongue height (raising).

These changes occurred over several centuries and can be divided into two phases. The first phase affected the close vowels Template:IPA and the close-mid vowels Template:IPA: Template:IPA were raised to Template:IPA, and Template:IPA became the diphthongs Template:IPA or Template:IPA.Template:Sfn The second phase affected the open vowel Template:IPA and the open-mid vowels Template:IPA: Template:IPA were raised, in most cases changing to Template:IPA.Template:Sfn

The Great Vowel Shift changed vowels without merger, so Middle English before the vowel shift had the same number of vowel phonemes as Early Modern English after the vowel shift.

After the Great Vowel Shift, some vowel phonemes began merging. Immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels of meet and meat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as Template:IPA.

However, during the 16th and the 17th centuries, there were many different mergers, and some mergers can be seen in individual Modern English words like great, which is pronounced with the vowel Template:IPA as in mate rather than the vowel Template:IPA as in meat.Template:Sfn

This is a simplified picture of the changes that happened between late Middle English (late ME), Early Modern English (EModE), and today's English (ModE). Pronunciations in 1400, 1500, 1600, and 1900 are shown.Template:Sfn To hear recordings of the sounds, click the phonetic symbols.

Word	Vowel pronunciation				Sound file
	late ME	EModE		ModE
	1400	1500	1600	by 1900
bite	Template:Audio-IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:Audio-IPA	File:ME-EME-bite.ogg
out	Template:Audio-IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:Audio-IPA	File:ME-EME-out.ogg
meet	Template:Audio-IPA	Template:Audio-IPA			File:ME-EME-meet.ogg
boot	Template:Audio-IPA	Template:Audio-IPA			File:ME-EME-boot.ogg
meat	Template:Audio-IPA		Template:Audio-IPA	Template:Audio-IPA	File:ME-EME-meat.ogg
boat	Template:Audio-IPA		Template:Audio-IPA	Template:Audio-IPA	File:ME-EME-boat.ogg
mate	Template:Audio-IPA	Template:IPA	Template:Audio-IPA	Template:Audio-IPA	File:ME-EME-mate.ogg

Before labial consonants and also after Template:IPAc-en,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:IPA did not shift, and Template:IPA remains as in soup.

First phase

The first phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English close-mid vowels Template:IPA, as in beet and boot, and the close vowels Template:IPA, as in bite and out. The close-mid vowels Template:IPA became close Template:IPA, and the close vowels Template:IPA became diphthongs. The first phase was completed in 1500, meaning that by that time, words like beet and boot had lost their Middle English pronunciation and were pronounced with the same vowels as in Modern English. The words bite and out were pronounced with diphthongs, but not the same diphthongs as in Modern English.Template:Sfn

First phase of the Great Vowel Shift
Word	Vowel pronunciation
Word	1400	1550
bite	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
meet	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
out	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
boot	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

Scholars agree that the Middle English close vowels Template:IPA became diphthongs around 1500, but disagree about what diphthongs they changed to. According to Lass, the words bite and out after diphthongisation were pronounced as Template:IPA and Template:IPA, similar to American English bait Template:IPA and oat Template:IPA. Later, the diphthongs Template:IPA shifted to Template:IPA, then Template:IPA, and finally to Modern English Template:IPA.Template:Sfn This sequence of events is supported by the testimony of orthoepists before Hodges in 1644.

However, many scholars such as Template:Harvcoltxt, Template:Harvcoltxt, and Template:Harvcoltxt argue for theoretical reasons that, contrary to what 16th-century witnesses report, the vowels Template:IPA were immediately centralised and lowered to Template:IPA.Template:Refn

Evidence from Northern English and Scots (see below) suggests that the close-mid vowels Template:IPA were the first to shift. As the Middle English vowels Template:IPA were raised towards Template:IPA, they forced the original Middle English Template:IPA out of place and caused them to become diphthongs Template:IPA. This type of sound change, in which one vowel's pronunciation shifts so that it is pronounced like a second vowel, and the second vowel is forced to change its pronunciation, is called a push chain.Template:Sfn

However, according to professor Jürgen Handke, for some time, there was a phonetic split between words with the vowel Template:IPA and the diphthong Template:IPA, in words where the Middle English Template:IPA shifted to the Modern English Template:IPA. For an example, high was pronounced with the vowel Template:IPA, and like and my were pronounced with the diphthong Template:IPA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Therefore, for logical reasons, the close vowels Template:IPA could have diphthongised before the close-mid vowels Template:IPA raised. Otherwise, high would probably rhyme with thee rather than my. This type of chain is called a drag chain.

Second phase

The second phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English open vowel Template:IPA, as in mate, and the Middle English open-mid vowels Template:IPA, as in meat and boat. Around 1550, Middle English Template:IPA was raised to Template:IPA. Then, after 1600, the new Template:IPA was raised to Template:IPA, with the Middle English open-mid vowels Template:IPA raised to close-mid Template:IPA.Template:Sfn

Second phase of the Great Vowel Shift
Word	Vowel pronunciation
Word	1400	1550	1640
meat	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
mate	Template:IPA	Template:IPA, Template:IPA	Template:IPA
boat	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

Later mergers

During the first and the second phases of the Great Vowel Shift, long vowels were shifted without merging with other vowels, but after the second phase, several vowels merged. The later changes also involved the Middle English diphthong Template:IPA, as in day, which often (but not always, see the pane-pain merger) monophthongised to Template:IPA, and merged with Middle English Template:IPA as in mate or Template:IPA as in meat.Template:Sfn

During the 16th and 17th centuries, several different pronunciation variants existed among different parts of the population for words like meet, meat, mate, and day. Different pairs or trios of words were merged in pronunciation in each pronunciation variant. Four different pronunciation variants are shown in the table below. The fourth pronunciation variant gave rise to Modern English pronunciation. In Modern English, meet and meat are merged in pronunciation and both have the vowel Template:IPA, and mate and day are merged with the diphthong Template:IPA, which developed from the 16th-century long vowel Template:IPA.Template:Sfn

Meet-meat mergers
Word	Middle English	1500s pronunciation variants
Word	Middle English	1	2	3	4
meet	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
meat	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
day	Template:IPA	Template:IPA		Template:IPA	Template:IPA
mate	Template:IPA	Template:IPA		Template:IPA	Template:IPA

Modern English typically has the meet–meat merger: both meet and meat are pronounced with the vowel Template:IPA. Words like great and steak, however, have merged with mate and are pronounced with the vowel Template:IPA, which developed from the Template:IPA shown in the table above. Before historic Template:IPA some of these vowels merged with Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA

Northern English and Scots

The Great Vowel Shift affected other dialects and the standard English of southern England but in different ways. In Northern England, the shift did not operate on the long back vowels because they had undergone an earlier shift.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Similarly, the dialect in Scotland had a different vowel system before the Great Vowel Shift, as Template:IPA had shifted to Template:IPA in Early Scots. In the Scots equivalent of the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA shifted to Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA by the Middle Scots period and Template:IPA remained unaffected.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

The first step in the Great Vowel Shift in Northern and Southern English is shown in the table below. The Northern English developments of Middle English Template:IPA and Template:IPA were different from Southern English. In particular, the Northern English vowels Template:IPA in bite, Template:IPA in feet, and Template:IPA in boot shifted, while the vowel Template:IPA in house did not. These developments below fall under the label "older" to refer to Scots and a more conservative and increasingly rural Northern sound,Template:Sfn while "younger" refers to a more mainstream Northern sound largely emerging just since the twentieth century.

Word	Vowel
	Middle English	Modern English
	Middle English	Template:Small	Template:Small	Template:Small
bite	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
feet	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
house	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
boot	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

The vowel systems of Northern and Southern Middle English immediately before the Great Vowel Shift were different in one way. In Northern Middle English, the back close-mid vowel Template:IPA in boot had already shifted to front Template:IPA (a sound change known as fronting), like the long Template:Lang in German Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA "hear". Thus, Southern English had a back close-mid vowel Template:IPA, but Northern English did not:Template:Sfn

Southern Middle English
vowel system
	front	back
close	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
close-mid	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
open-mid	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
open	Template:IPA	—

Northern Middle English
vowel system
	front	back
close	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
close-mid	Template:IPA	—
open-mid	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
open	Template:IPA	—

In Northern and Southern English, the first step of the Great Vowel Shift raised the close-mid vowels to become close. Northern Middle English had two close-mid vowels – Template:IPA in feet and Template:IPA in boot – which were raised to Template:IPA and Template:IPA. Later onTemplate:When, Northern English Template:IPA changed to Template:IPA in many dialects (though not in all, see Template:Slink), so that boot has the same vowel as feet. Southern Middle English had two close-mid vowels – Template:IPA in feet and Template:IPA in boot – which were raised to Template:IPA and Template:IPA.

In Southern English, the close vowels Template:IPA in bite and Template:IPA in house shifted to become diphthongs, but in Northern English, Template:IPA in bite shifted but Template:IPA in house did not.

If the vowel systems at the time of the Great Vowel Shift caused the difference between the Northern and Southern vowel shifts, Template:IPA did not shift because there was no back mid vowel Template:IPA in Northern English. In Southern English, shifting of Template:IPA to Template:IPA could have caused diphthongisation of original Template:IPA, but because Northern English had no back close-mid vowel Template:IPA to shift, the back close vowel Template:IPA did not diphthongise.