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active today. In 1569 John Hart (in his Orthographie) went so far as to devise a new phonetic alphabet to remedy what he considered a fatal flaw in our system of language. (His alphabet and the work of other language reformers provides us with our best evidence for the pronunciation of English in his time).To understand how English changed (not why; no one knows) one must first note that vowels are articulated in particular parts of the mouth; we make the sound in Modern English "deep" [/dip/] with our tongue forward and high in the mouthr, and the sound in Modern Enlish "boat" [/bot/] with our tongue lowered and drawn toward the back of the mouth and the jaw relatively low (open). Say "ee" (or "beet") and "o" (or "boat") in succession and you may be able to feel the movement of your tongue from front to back.
This chart roughly represents the places where the "long vowels" are articulated:
FRONT CENTER BACK
HIGH /i:/ [Modern "beet"] . /u:/ [Modern
MID /e:/ [Modern "bait"] . /o:/ [Modern "boat"]
LOW /æ:/ [Modern "bag"] /a:/ [Modern "father"] "au" [Modern "bought"]
[The "au" representing the low back vowel above is there because I cannot find a way to print a backward c, the usual means of representing this sound.]
The Great Vowel shift invloved a regular movement of the places of articulation: The front vowels each moved up a notch, except for /i:/, which formed a dipthong. Likewise the back vowels moved up, except for /u:/, which formed another dipthong:
Position . Middle English Modern English
FRONT VOWELS HIGH /i:/ ---> /ai/
. MID (CLOSED) /e:/ ---> /i:/
. LOW (OPEN) /æ:/ ---> /e:/ (later --> /i:/)
CENTRAL VOWEL LOW /a:/ ---> /e:/
BACK VOWELS HIGH /u:/ ---> /au/
. MID (CLOSED) /o:/ ---> /u:/
. LOW (OPEN) "au" ---> /o:/
To hear the sounds Click here. Then Click here.
Note that the change affects only long, stressed vowels. The "y" in Middle Enghlish "my" was affected because it has primary stress, and we say /mai/; the "y" in a word like "only" was not affected (the primary stress is on the first syllable and -ly lacks stress, so we say /li:/, making the -ly of "only" rime with "see."
The change is not as neat as is shown; /æ:/ ("open e," as it is called in most discussions) did not complete the movement from /æ:/ to /e:/ to /i:/ (contrast Mod. Eng. "break" and "beak"). Moreover, when Middle English "e" represents /æ:/ and when the spelling "o" or "oo" represents the open vowel often can be determined only by the etymology of the words. Modern spellings offer a clue: as a general rule, where modern English uses "ea" (as in "read") or "oa" (as in loaf), the Middle English equivalent was the open vowel sound. ("Open" and "close" or "closed" refer to the jaw --
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