Middle English
In early Middle English, a vowel /i/ was inserted between a front vowel and a following /h/ (pronounced in this context), and a vowel /u/ was inserted between a back vowel and a following /h/ (pronounced in this context). This is a prototypical example of the narrow sense of "vowel breaking" as described above: The original vowel breaks into a diphthong that assimilates to the following consonant, gaining a front /i/ before a palatal consonant and /u/ before a velar consonant.
Read more about this topic: Vowel Breaking
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