![]() For example in American English, there are different ways to pronounce words such as ‘roof’ (it can rhyme with ‘stuff’ or ‘booth’), ‘route’ (it can rhyme with ‘about’ or ‘boot’) and ‘water’ (it can rhyme with ‘rudder’ or ‘hotter’). Even in Modern English, you will find regional variations of the pronunciation of vowels related to accents. Also, some pronunciations of vowel sounds were not consistent because of regional variations, and this makes it difficult to have pronunciation and spelling rules that do not contain exceptions. Ablaut in general is any pattern of vowel shifts, whether it’s pronunciation change over time, like the Great Vowel Shift in Middle English, or a change in grammatical function like verb tense (stink/stank/stunk) or noun number. While some of the spellings have changed to reflect the modern pronunciation, not all of them have. The vowel sounds in these words move from the front to the back of your mouth. ‘Tough’ had a guttural ‘o’ sound that was pronounced just as we still spell it. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic work of literature, Canterbury Tales, ‘oo’ words all rhymed with ‘food’. Let’s look at some examples of vowel changes to better understand The Great Vowel Shift: Home used to rhyme with gloom, ‘boiled’ used to be ‘byled’, ‘join’ was ‘gine’, and ‘work’ was pronounced ‘wark’. While the disappearance of the ‘Kn’ sound is not a vowel sound that is part of The Great Vowel Shift, this dramatic change illustrates how pronunciation changes complicate the language. (Spelling a word with a silent letter is called an aphthong). That is where the spelling of words such as knee, knife or knit with a ‘K’ came from. For example, the ‘K’ sound was voiced in Old English, not silent, like it is today in Modern English. Whatever the reason, the result for us today in Modern English makes for some unusual spelling and pronunciation rules.Ĭhange is nothing unusual in the history of the English language. We are not exactly sure the reason this happened, but there are many theories, including movement of the English people, political changes or even people copying speech impediments, or problems, of influential rulers. Spelling is a big clue, even spelling mistakes, because often people make spelling errors that are phonetic, or according to the way words sound or are pronounced. The Low-Back Merger blends two vowel sounds that are pronounced with the tongue positioned low and back in the mouth. Linguists know this happened from a variety of sources, such as rhyming songs and poetry and the way words were spelled. The sounds essentially merge into a single sound. The way vowels in English words were pronounced changed quite a bit, especially the way long vowels were pronounced. The diphthongs 'ai' and 'oi' also transformed during the Great Vowel Shift. ![]() After the conquest, French largely displaced English as the language of the upper classes and of sophisticated literature. ![]() The Great Vowel Shift was a historical event that occurred around the 15th century. Middle English Pronunciation Middle English is the form of English used in England from roughly the time of the Norman conquest (1066) until about 1500.
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