Phonological History of English - Up To Shakespeare's English

Up To Shakespeare's English

This period is estimated to be c. AD 1400–1600.

• Loss of most remaining diphthongs.
  • /ai/ (and former /ɛi/, merged into /ai/ in Early Middle English) became /ɑː/ before the Great Vowel Shift.
  • /ou/ (and former /ɔu/, merged into /ou/ in Early Middle English) became /oː/ and /ei/ became /eː/ after the shift causing the long mid mergers.
  • /au/ became /ɔː/ after the shift.
  • The dew–new merger: /ɛu/ and /iu/ merge, and they then become /juː/ after the shift.
  • The vein–vain merger: /ai/ and /ei/ merge, so that vain and vein are now homonyms.
  • The dew–duke merger: /y/ and /iu/ merge, so that dew and duke now have the same vowel.
  • /oi/ remained.
  • In a few regional accents, including some in Northern England, East Anglia, South Wales, and even Newfoundland, monophthongization has not been complete, so that pairs like pane /pain and toe/tow are distinct. (Wells 1982, pp. 192–94, 337, 357, 384–85, 498)
• /x/ (written gh) lost in most dialects causing the taut–taught merger.
• Great Vowel Shift; all long vowels raised or diphthongized.
  • /aː/, /ɛː/, /eː/ become /ɛː/, /eː/, /iː/, respectively.
  • /ɔː/, /oː/ become /oː/, /uː/, respectively.
  • /iː/, /uː/ become /əi/ and /əu/, later /ai/ and /au/.
  • New /ɔː/ developed from old /au/ (see above).
  • Note that /ɔː/, /oː/, /uː/, /au/ effectively rotated in-place.
  • /ɛː/, /eː/ are shifted again to /eː/, /iː/ in Early Modern English, causing merger of former /eː/ with /iː/; but the two are still distinguished in spelling as ea, ee.
• Loss of /ə/ in final syllables.
• Initial cluster /ɡn/ loses first element; but still reflected in spelling.
• /kn/ reduces to /n/ in most dialects, causing the not–knot merger.
• /rʷ/ and /r/ merge to a single sound in most dialects, causing the rap–wrap merger.
• Doubled consonants reduced to single consonants.