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
Famous quotes containing the words middle and/or english:
“On the middle of that quiet floor
sits a fleet of small black ships,
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burned matchsticks.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“He is, I think, already pondering a magisterial project: that of buggering the English language, the ultimate revenge of the colonialised.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)